By Alan J. Keays / VTDigger
Two Massachusetts men pleaded not guilty Monday afternoon, Nov. 18, to charges in the killing of a Rutland man. The prosecutor said the Friday night shooting was drug-related, and the two suspects may have been targeting someone else.
Dylin Wainscott, 28, of Westfield, Massachusetts, faces charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and possession of an illegal narcotic stemming from the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Christopher Hale in Rutland.
Precious Okorie, 38, of Springfield, Massachusetts, has been charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and being an accessory before the fact.
Both men were arrested Friday night, Nov. 15, after the shooting and lodged at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland pending their arraignment. At the hearing Monday, the men appeared in Bennington County Superior criminal court by video from the jail. They both entered not-guilty pleas.
According to the charging document authored by Rutland Police Detective Cpl. Adam Lucia, police were called a little after 7 p.m. Friday to a reported shooting at a duplex on Elm Street and found Hale had been shot outside the residence.
Hale was taken by ambulance to Rutland Regional Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead, Lucia wrote in the filing. Not far from the shooting scene, police found .40-caliber shell casings.
Police called it “an isolated-targeted incident”and said there was no wider threat to the public.
Dakota Moretti, a witness, reported to police shortly after the incident that a man whom he knew as “Slim” and later identified as Wainscott had been looking for another alleged drug dealer named “Josh.”
The affidavit stated that police, through “intelligence,” learned that “Josh” and “Slim” had issues with each other about a week earlier “where it was unreported, but suggested” that “Josh” had shot “Slim” when robbing him of his “drug stash” at the Elm Street duplex.
Moretti reported that at the time of the shooting Friday night, he was in a vehicle not far from the Elm Street residences and saw Wainscott run toward the duplex, Lucia wrote in the charging document. The witness then said that, while seated in the vehicle, he heard gunshots and saw Wainscott running, according to the filing. Wainscott then got into the vehicle and told Moretti, “he had seven shots and had made all seven shots count,” Lucia wrote in the filing.
Moretti also reported to police that Wainscott told him that he shot the first man he saw leaving the house and that the person had a covering over his face at the time.
Earlier that night, according to Moretti’s account to police, a person he knew as “P,” and later identified by authorities as Okorie, had instructed Wainscott to shoot the first person he saw exit the residence once he got there.
Moretti said to investigators that after the shooting, Wainscott had Moretti drive him to a spot not too far away, off Route 7, where Okorie was waiting in another vehicle.
The two men were arrested Friday night when they drove into the parking lot of the downtown Rutland Shopping Plaza planning to meet Moretti, who had already contacted authorities, the charging documents stated.
According to the charging document, police also obtained and viewed surveillance video taken from a nearby residence, which showed a man with a covering over his face approaching and knocking on the door of the duplex.
While the man, later identified as Hale, was knocking on the front door, the filing stated, gunshots could be heard on the video, and a man who appeared to have fired shots could be seen running, getting into a vehicle, and leaving the area.
In court Monday, Rutland County State’s Attorney Ian Sullivan, the prosecutor, asked Judge Jennifer Barrett to set $10 million bail for both Wainscott and Okorie.
Sullivan said during the arraignment for Okorie that Okorie “may have been conspiring to target another individual not harmed in this shooting.”
Mark Furlan, an attorney for Okorie, termed the bail request “obscenely over-reaching.” He said his client works for a pool company and doesn’t have anywhere near $10 million. Furlan also questioned the strength of the state’s case against his client, noting it was based solely on the unsworn statement of one reported witness. Barrett set bail at $100,000 for Okorie.
Sullivan said during Wainscott’s arraignment that the $10 million bail was warranted given the seriousness of the alleged offenses and the possibility of risk of flight.
Anthony Falcone, Wainscott’s attorney, asked the judge to set a lower bail amount of $1 million. The defense lawyer disputed that his client was a flight risk, stating that Wainscott was about to start barber school and was coaching a youth basketball team in Massachusetts.
Barrett ordered Wainscott held without bail pending another hearing on the matter. If convicted of the charges against them, both Wainscott and Okorie face up to life in prison.
