HYDE PARK — While arguing that Carroll Peters should be held in prison without bail on a charge of first-degree murder, a prosecutor told a Vermont judge on Friday that he killed his estranged wife “execution-style” more than 30 years ago in Morrisville.
Peters, 70, appeared by video from Northeast Regional Correctional Facility for his arraignment on the murder charge in the September 1993 death of 42-year-old Cheryl Peters. He has been held at the St. Johnsbury prison since his arrest Thursday by Vermont State Police and Morristown Police.
The proceeding Friday marked the latest turn in a more than three-decades long string of law enforcement investigations and legal proceedings following Cheryl Peters’ death and the search for the person responsible for her killing.
“This was an execution-style killing while the victim was sleeping,” Lamoille County State’s Attorney Aliena Gerhard, the prosecutor, told Judge Rory Thibault during Friday’s hearing as she pushed for Carroll Peters to remain in custody while the case against him remains pending.
“This was (Cheryl Peters’) estranged husband of three years who stalked her over the course of months when she tried to leave him and (he) executed her,” Gerhard added.
Carroll Peters, through his attorney Kirk Williams, pleaded not guilty to the murder charge that, if he is convicted, could result in a life prison sentence.
Williams had sought his client’s release on conditions, contending that Carroll Peters was not a risk to flee.
Carroll Peters, despite facing past investigations for his alleged role in his estranged wife’s death, has continued to reside in the Morrisville community for decades and kept working in his land surveying business in town, the defense attorney said.
A grand jury that convened in Lamoille County recently returned the indictment against Carroll Peters on the first-degree murder charge, which was announced Thursday by Vermont State Police.
Williams told the judge Friday that it was difficult to assess the strength of the prosecution’s case against his client since the murder indictment was returned by a grand jury, meaning that any evidence related to the case was heard in closed door proceedings.
“The court is not able to do a sufficient evaluation about the weight of the evidence,” the defense attorney said.
“The state may have just alleged a number of facts, your honor,” Williams added, “but there’s no affidavit or evidence in front of the court showing that any of those are based upon admissible evidence at this point.”
Thibault, the judge, sided with the prosecutor, ordering Carroll Peters held without bail. He called it a “unique procedural posture” since grand juries are “seldom” convened in Vermont.
The judge said for a grand jury to return an indictment there needed to be a “substantial body of evidence,” warranting his decision to order Carroll Peters held without bail, at least for now. Thibault called for a hearing to be set for next week to consider the weight of the evidence.
According to court records, Carroll and Cheryl Peters married in July 1990 and separated in January 1993. She was fatally shot in a home in Morrisville where she was living in September 1993, and her body was found on a couch in the residence.
While no previous criminal charges filed against Carroll Peters were related to the murder, he was convicted in 2001 of two misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct with his wife in the weeks before her death, according to a report in The Times Argus from 2004.
Cheryl Peters’ five children and her estate filed a civil lawsuit in 1996 against their stepfather, Carroll Peters, alleging wrongful death, sexual assault and battery, court records stated. But a trial court judge threw out the wrongful death claim because he was “time-barred” by the statute of limitation, according to court records.
A judge denied, however, dismissal of sexual assault and battery claims, court records stated, and following a trial a jury awarded $605,000 in damages to Cheryl Peters’ estate, which was later upheld by the Vermont Supreme Court on appeal.
Gerhard, the prosecutor, said following Friday’s hearing that there was no new evidence related to the case that led to Carroll Peters’ arrest Thursday.
“Nothing changed in my opinion,” Gerhard said. “We had a grand jury, we brought it to the community.”
She added, “We felt given the age of this case and the severity of this case we wanted the community to speak and we wanted the community to hopefully indict him, which they did.”
Two cold-case investigators have worked on the case for the past several years,the prosecutor said.
Gerhard was appointed by Gov. Phil Scott to the role of Lamoille County state’s attorney in June.
She joined the office in 2021 as a deputy state’s attorney. “I can’t speak for my predecessors, but for me I had to get justice for this family. It’s been too long,” Gerhard said Friday.
Cheryl Peters’ niece, Tracy Boyd, attended the hearing Friday and spoke outside the courthouse following the proceeding.
“It’s surreal,” Boyd said of seeing Carroll Peters charged with first-degree murder in the death of her aunt. “We’ve been waiting for 31 years for this to happen.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Carroll Peters ordered held on murder charge in fatal shooting of estranged wife in 1993.