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Vermont town official, his wife and her 13-year-old son found shot to death in their home, police say
A Vermont town official, his wife and her son were found shot to death in their home over the weekend, state police said.
Police identified them Tuesday as Brian Crossman, 46, a selectboard member in Pawlet; Erica Crossman, 41; and Colin Taft, 13. The town of about 1,400 people is near the New York state line.
They were found dead Sunday, Vermont State Police said in a news release Tuesday night. All three deaths were ruled homicides.
Police said their investigation was active and no one was in custody. However, CBS affiliate WCAX reports sources say police have identified a person of interest who is a relative of the victims.
State police said autopsies determined Brian Crossman’s cause of death was gunshot wounds to the head and torso, Erica Crossman died from a gunshot wound to the head, and Colin Taft’s cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.
Members of the Pawlet selectboard, who are elected by residents to oversee town expenditures and enact ordinances, held their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday night. Crossman’s seat was vacant and there were flowers at his place at the table.
Mike Beecher, chairperson of the five-member board, read a statement: “Brian Crossman was a friend and neighbor, a hardworking community member who just this year stepped up to join the Pawlet Selectboard.
“This tragedy that struck him and his family has also hit our community hard, and we are shaken and grieving. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this devastating loss.”
Neighbors told WCAX that the shooting left them shaken.
“It’s very hard to comprehend. It just hasn’t sunk in. We just visited the family three nights before the deaths,” next-door neighbor Oliver Ihasz told the station.
Brian and Erica Crossman got married in June of this year, the Bennington Banner reported.
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Husband of Russia’s richest woman arrested for murder after deadly shootout at offices of retail giant Wildberries
The estranged husband of Russia’s richest woman and CEO of retail giant Wildberries was arrested Thursday and charged with several crimes including murder, a day after a deadly armed raid at the company’s central Moscow offices.
Billionaire Tatyana Bakalchuk released a tearful message a day earlier, saying her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk, whom she is currently divorcing, led an armed raid into the Wildberries offices.
Vladislav Bakalchuk’s lawyers said in a message on his social media page that he was “detained for 48 hours” and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer and vigilantism.
Two people, including a security guard, were killed in the shooting at the offices, which lie a few streets away from the Kremlin.
The incident came weeks after the company finalized a merger deal that Vladislav criticized and that strongman Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov vowed to stop.
Vladislav’s lawyers said he was on his way to a “pre-agreed meeting to settle a corporate conflict.” Vladislav alleges that it was staff at the office who fired the first shots, the Reuters news agency reported.
But Bakalchuk called her husband’s claims “absurd” and said “no one agreed to any negotiations.”
“Vladislav, what are you doing? How are you going to look in the eyes of your parents and our children?”
Elena Chernyshova/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Wildberries is Russia’s largest online retailer. Tatyana Bakalchuk founded the company in 2004, growing it from an online clothes reseller into a major marketplace for countless other products, Reuters reported.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index in 2021, she was the 40th richest woman in the world and the first self-made woman billionaire out of Russia.
Tatyana Bakalchuk is the majority oner of the company, while her estranged husband holds a one-percent stake.
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Husband of Russia’s richest woman arrested for murder after deadly shootout at offices of retail giant Wildberries
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Husband of Russia’s richest woman arrested for murder after deadly shootout at offices of retail giant Wildberries
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