After all the hullaballoo and bad feeling, a marriage celebration for two well-liked people felt like a reminder of the virtues of their close-knit community, framed by the picturesque Taconic Mountains in southwestern Vermont.
Brian Crossman Sr. and Erica CrossmanFacebook
Erica, 41, had grown up in Ira, a similar farming community just 20 miles north. She was bubbly and kind. Brian, 46, was tall and outgoing and an avid fisherman, hunter, and all-around outdoorsman. He was elected to the local select board this year.
They both had children from previous relationships, and Brian had recently taken over the family farm. Both Brian and Erica worked for the local utility, Green Mountain Power, but they were going to make a go of the farm, too, carrying on a tradition that is a large part of the local economy and culture.
When it came to Pawlet, Brian and Erica were all in.
But their plansended suddenly and violently in the early morning hours of Sept. 15, when, police say, Brian’s 22-year-old son and namesake, Brian Crossman Jr., shot and killed Crossman Sr., Erica, and Erica’s 13-year-old son Colin Taft at their farmhouse, where the younger Crossman was staying for the weekend.
Relatives told police that Brian Jr. had a history of mental illness, and that his instability led to a growing rift between father and son. When Brian Jr. was younger, his father regularly took him fishing and hunting, and he knew how to handle guns. Police say he used at least two shotguns from his father’s collection of hunting rifles to murder his father, stepmother, and stepbrother.
Brian Crossman Jr., 22, was charged Friday with the murders of his father, Brian Crossman Sr., Crossman Sr.’s wife Erica and her 13-year-old son Colin Taft at their farmhouse in Pawlet, VT. Facebook
The crime was all the more crushing to the community after so many years when some Pawlet residents’ main worries were about being attacked online or even getting shot by outsiders associated with the gun range.
It had started about 10 years before, when Daniel Banyai moved from New York, bought 30 acres in West Pawlet, and opened Slate Ridge. When the town moved to shut it down, saying he didn’t have permits, he resisted, arguing that because he wasn’t charging gun enthusiasts and militia members to use the camp, the town had no power over him.
At one public hearing, Banyai accused town officials of being corrupt and members of the KKK. He found allies in gun rights advocates and extremists, who were drawn to the case like moths to light, posting conspiracy theories and threats online.
In one deliberate thumbing of his nose at the town, Banyai in 2021 ran for two of the seats on the select board he openly despised and regularly denigrated, vowing to “Make Pawlet Great Again.” He came in last with 18 votes for one of the seats he ran for, and four for the other.
Courts ruled against Banyai, but he wouldn’t back down.
A shooter fired a rifle at a target at Slate Ridge Vermont, an unpermitted gun range and firearms training center, April 17, 2021 in West Pawlet, Vt., during what organizers called a Second Amendment Day Picnic.Wilson Ring/Associated Press
After a local news outlet, VTDigger, wrote about the confrontation playing out in Pawlet, it began to draw national attention, with outlets including The New York Times and The New Yorker delivering long narratives that cast the controversy as a battle for the town’s identity.
One resident, Mandy Hulett, obtained a restraining order against Banyai.
On Friday, Hulett stood outside her farmhouse at Deer Flats Farm, recalling what has been a hard few years for her family and many others in town, years of worry and uncertainty over Slate Ridge, capped by the shocking and unsettling murder of three people who were well-known and well-loved here.
“This town,” she said, “has gone through a lot. A lot of trauma.”
She said the murders, and the anger exhibited by the most extreme supporters of Slate Ridge, had underscored a difficulty that every community in Vermont — every community in the country — struggles with: mental health.
“We need to do more,” Hulett said, to make access to mental health care easier and more comprehensive. “Not enough is being done to deal with it.”
Tom Covino, one of two Pawlet police constables, became something of a local legend when video surfaced of him arresting Banyai last March on an outstanding warrant for refusing to comply with an order to dismantle unpermitted structures at the now-closed gun range.The video showed the men scuffling as Covino placed him under arrest, and Banyai was charged with aggravated assault.
Earlier this month, Covino arrested Banyai yet again, for allegedly violating the conditions of his release on the prior arrest. Banyai remains unrepentant, vowing to beat the charges even as he continues to accuse the town and its officials of corruption.
Daniel Banyai, the owner of Slate Ridge, spoke to supporters on April 17, 2021, in West Pawlet, Vt., during a Second Amendment Day Picnic. An arrest warrant was rescinded Thursday, April 11, 2024, for Banyai, the Vermont owner of a controversial firearms training center involved in a long-running legal dispute after the town.Wilson Ring/Associated Press
The last few years have been especially difficult for the Hulett family, which endured threats and harassment for opposing Slate Ridge, and are now reeling over the murders of their friends.
Mandy’s husband, Rich Hulett, grew up with Crossman Sr. and was one of his closest friends. He also serves on the select board with him. The Huletts run a dairy farm and trucking business.
Mandy Hulett said she is heartsick for the Crossman family and the wider community.
“Pawlet is such a great little town, and we’ve been in the news for years, not for what makes this town so great — its quaintness, its friendly, kind people,” she said.
In the days between the murders and Brian Crossman Jr.’s arrest, online speculation by Banyai and his supporters suggested the killings were somehow caused by corruption in the town. One ally of Banyai who lives just south of Pawlet posted a Facebook video suggesting drug dealers may have been involved.
Jessica Van Oort, who served on the select board with Crossman, and sat poignantly next to his empty chair at the first board meeting after the murders, took to Facebook to chastise those engaging in online speculation, asking them, “Why would you politicize this tragedy?”
Banyai responded to her by writing, “Facts and they hurt.”
In the center of town, there’s a library, the town hall, Judy Lake’s quirky lampshade shop, a potter’s studio, an art gallery, and Mach’s Market, a gathering place.
Standing outside his market, Gib Mach didn’t want to talk about the murders, or Slate Ridge or anything like that. But he did say this: “There are good people here. Really good people.”
Memorial services for the slain family are to be held this weekend. Like many others here, Mandy Hulett is trying to look beyond her grief. At her family’s farm on Friday she and her daughter were busy cutting flowers. They were getting ready to host a wedding the next day.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Hulett said. “Something that brings a little bit of joy. Everybody needs some joy in their life.”
Kevin Cullen is a Globe reporter and columnist who roams New England. He can be reached at kevin.cullen@globe.com.
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Publish date : 2024-09-25 02:05:00
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