“This is an active crime scene!” said a uniformed state trooper guarding the property at 48 Douglas Hill Road first thing Sunday morning, after detectives and forensics experts had worked through the night processing the contents of the house where a woman’s body was found shortly after 10 a.m. the day before. All photos © Eric Francis.
NORWICH - Vermont’s Major Crimes Unit has launched an investigation into what they are describing as a “suspicious death” after a woman’s body was discovered inside a residence at 48 Douglas Hill Road mid-morning on Saturday.
“The initial call was at about ten o’clock for a welfare check,” Norwich Police Chief Matthew Romei recalled Saturday afternoon.
Shortly after officers and firefighters arrived on the scene, they discovered what they described as an “untimely” death and the decision was quickly made to back out of the scene and await the arrival of state police detectives, which is common practice in homicides and similar circumstances in Vermont.
The distinctive and well-kept orange house sits back several dozen yards from the road at the end of a long, curving driveway.
“We are fortunate to have the state police here in Vermont to step in and fill the harder, bigger roles,” Chief Romei said of the decision to hand over the lead role in the investigation from his department to Major Crimes.
“There is a lot that goes into these investigations,” the chief continued. “This is what I used to do full-time when I was down south and I had a team much like the one they’ve brought in today.”
By midafternoon, the parking lot at the Norwich Police Department was filled with over 20 state police cruisers and technical vehicles with specialized crime-scene-processing equipment.
Norwich Police Chief Matthew Romei was a whirlwind of activity Saturday after he called in the VT State Police Major Crimes Unit, which sent nearly 20 detectives, technicians, and uniformed state troopers to help investigate the death throughout the day and late into the evening.
Chief Romei did not name the residents, although property records on file with the town indicate that the address is owned by Dr. Donald Neely, a well-known local orthodontist, and his wife Noel, who served for a number of years as a state representative for the town of Pomfret in the late 1970s and early 1980s. More recently, she’s been Dr. Neely’s office manager at his practice in the building at 7 Allen Street in Hanover.
The chief said it was logical to assume that the incident under investigation involved the residents of the house, but said confirmation as to the victim’s identity would have to come from the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s office following an autopsy to formally determine the cause and manner of death. He did not elaborate on what made police think the woman’s death might have been suspicious.
A member of the Vermont State Police Crime Scene Search Team inventoried the equipment in her vehicle before heading to the scene on Douglas Hill Road.
Vermont State Police detectives spent Saturday afternoon interviewing an elderly man who drove himself to the police station and agreed voluntarily to answer their questions.
“I’ve never seen them before and I’ve never been up there before,” the chief said of the residents of the property. “This investigation is going to go all night and probably most of the day [Sunday],” he said. “It’s going to be a while.”
In its initial press release, the VSP writes, “Everyone associated with this matter is accounted for, and there is no identified danger to the public,” and asks anyone with information to call the Royalton Barracks at 802-234-9933 or submit an anonymous tip online at https://vsp.vermont.gov/tipsubmit.
