Windsor County Deputy State’s Attorney Travis Weaver urged the jury to connect the dots amongst the circumstantial evidence accumulated by the state police over the years since the May 27, 2022 killing, saying that it pointed to a murder-for-hire conspiracy even though “We may not know all the details.” All photos © Eric Francis.
Lawyers held a bench conference with Judge Elizabeth Mann. This was the first jury trial held in the newly renovated courthouse since it reopened earlier this year following an extensive renovation and expansion that came in the wake of building being abruptly closed in March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. The court spent several years working out of the historic courthouse on the Woodstock Green while the reconstruction of the White River Junction building was undertaken.
Defense attorney Christopher Montgomery of Bennington law firm Barr, Sternberg, Moss, Silver & Munson emphasized to the jury that all of the informants who implicated Lachapelle Jr. in the killing of his housemate were drug addicts who had come forward “two years later, only when they were in jail dopesick and desperate…looking for any way to get out, to get a deal…only then did they say that it was Paul. Nobody should ever, ever be convicted solely on the testimony of drug addicts trying to get out of trouble,” Montgomery argued.
Paul Lachapelle Jr. leans his head back in relief after the jury cleared him of all charges on the fourth day of the trial over the murder almost exactly four years ago, in May 2022, of Springfield resident Justin “Country” Gilliam.
Lachapelle’s defense attorney, Christopher Montgomery, was hugged repeatedly by Lachapelle and family members following the verdict which came down after 9 hours of deliberations spanning two days. Both Lachapelle’s family and victim Justin Gilliam’s mother and sister attended the trial.
Lachapelle celebrates his acquittal Thursday on murder and conspiracy charges with family members moments after the verdict was announced in White River Junction.
