In the wake of a stabbing on Monday evening at the Good Samaritan Haven warming shelter, Montpelier police issued a press release about an earlier incident that started at the same location.
On Saturday evening, Feb. 18, around 6:30 p.m., the release said, a Montpelier resident called police stating that an argument was occurring at the Transit Center during which two people, both experiencing homelessness, were threatening to kill one another.
A few minutes later, per the release, another call came in to Montpelier Police from 26-year-old Randolph Tatro, who alleged that 33-year-old Michael Markham “had followed him with a knife from the bus stop at the Transit Center to the bridge that leads to Shaw’s Supermarket.” The release describes both Tatro and Markham as transient.
Montpelier police sergeant Kevin Moulton noted in an interview that the incident allegedly began at the Montpelier Transit Center, when the two individuals, who knew each other, got into a disagreement about airpods or headphones.
Officers met Tatro and looked into the matter, the release said. Markham was arrested yesterday on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Moulton noted that police spoke with both Markham and Tatro on Saturday following the incident, but waited until they had also viewed the incident on a video from Capital Plaza before making the arrest.
“Of course, the stories were contradictory to each other,” Moulton said. “There was a credibility issue with both parties involved, and that’s why we waited until we had further evidence to corroborate a story.”
The Montpelier Transit Center Warming Shelter, run by Good Samaritan Haven, was also the scene of a stabbing on Monday night. In that incident, 38-year-old staff member Gabriel DeAngelis was stabbed 10 times. The warming shelter’s evening hours have been indefinitely suspended following that stabbing. Other organizations are offering some warming shelter hours in the interim for those experiencing homelessness, including Bethany Church on Main Street in Montpelier, which opened from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday evening.
Markham was held at Northeast Correctional Center for lack of bail, set at $1,000 on Wednesday night, and appeared in Washington County Superior Court on Thursday afternoon.
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