Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So, hard to tell apart. We control what medicines you get and what you pay at the pharmacy. That's why today, more than half of every dollar spent on medicines goes to middlemen like us. Middlemen are driving medicine costs, and you don't know the half of it. Get the whole story at phrma.org slash middlemen. Paid for by Pharma.
Dark Down East is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. The unexpected can happen at any moment, and Amica knows how important it is to be prepared. Whether it's auto, home, or life insurance, Amica has you covered. Their dedicated and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to make sure you have the right coverage in place to protect what matters most. You can feel confident that Amica is there for you. Visit amica.com to get started.
Want the same expert advice you get from the pros in the store while shopping online at DiscountTire.com? Meet Treadwell, your personal online tire guide that matches you with the perfect tire for your vehicle. Get your best match in one minute or less with Treadwell by Discount Tire. Let's get you taken care of. Whenever Denise Lynette Hart was away from her young son, she called home every day, multiple times a day to check in on him. But then one January night in 2015, those calls stopped.
When Denise's family tried to report her missing, they got the runaround, and no one would know where Denise was until almost a year later, when the missing person's case became a homicide investigation. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Denise Hart on Dark Down East.
It was near midnight on January 25, 2015, almost January 26, and flickering light from bright orange flames was reflecting off the waters of Otter Creek, illuminating the Salisbury Cornwall Covered Bridge in Cornwall, Vermont. When the Cornwall Volunteer Fire Department arrived at the scene off Swamp Road, they found a burning car parked in a dirt lot near the fishing access and boat launch for the creek.
Firefighters were able to knock down the flames and snuff out the fire completely, but what was left of the vehicle was badly damaged and charred by the blaze. According to reporting by Brent Davis for the Rutland Herald, arson and forensic investigators surveyed the remnants of the silver 2001 Pontiac Grand Am for any clues as to the source of the fire and later deemed it to be suspicious in nature, but didn't say much else.
The investigation by Cornwall fire officials and Vermont State Police was ongoing at the time. As the case developed, police would soon learn that the burning vehicle was connected to the disappearance of a young mother from another state. That same weekend, nearly 200 miles away from the suspicious car fire in Vermont, the family of 24-year-old Denise Lynette Hart in Hartford, Connecticut, was growing more concerned by the minute.
Denise had left for one of her usual trips to see friends in Vermont on January 23rd, and she'd been in touch with her mom and son back home every day she was gone. But when Monday, January 26th rolled around, there were no more calls from Denise. Investigative journalist Jackie O'Brien covered the case of Denise Hart extensively in the limited series podcast Buried in Snow, which she released independently back in 2021.
According to Jackie's interviews with Denise Hart's mother, DJ Robinson, she talked to her daughter multiple times throughout the days she was gone, including January 25th. Denise told her mom that it started snowing that day, which could potentially impact driving conditions, but she was still planning to head back to Connecticut later that night. Denise ended the final conversation they had on the 25th, saying she had to run to the store, but she'd call back later.
It was already 10 p.m., but Deidre said she'd wait for Denise's call. Several hours passed, and the phone didn't ring. By midnight, Denise still hadn't called, so Deidre went to bed, figuring she'd hear from her daughter in the morning. But Denise never called the next morning, or ever again. She went radio silent. Repeated calls to Denise's cell phone went unanswered.
It struck Deidre as extremely unusual and incredibly concerning, but she hoped there was a logical explanation. Historical weather records show that New England was hit with considerable snow that weekend, and Denise had said herself that the weather could slow her down on the way home, so maybe she was stuck somewhere in a remote Vermont town waiting for the streets to be plowed. Except the weather didn't explain the no contact.
She never missed a phone call home to check in on her son. Deidre waited all day to hear from Denise on January 26th, and again the following day. But by the night of January 27th, that's as long as she could stand it. Deidre started calling around to Denise's local friends and family to see if they'd heard from her, but no one had.
According to a report by Brent Curtis for the Rutland Herald, Deidre didn't know much about the Vermont trip. But after talking to several of Denise's friends, she learned that Denise was likely in the Rutland area, and she was probably with two individuals, 32-year-old Josh Purseau and another man I'll call Mark, who let Denise borrow a car.
Not knowing what else to do after almost two days with no contact from her daughter, Deidre called Rutland City Police Department to file a missing persons report. But she was instructed to instead call her local department in Hartford. When Deidre called Hartford PD, they told her, "No, you have to speak with police in the town where Denise was last seen."
Deidre told Jackie O'Brien that the Hartford police actually called Rutland City PD on her behalf to explain the situation. And finally, Deidre was assured that someone would call her to take a report. An officer did call, but not until January 29th.
When she finally had an audience with law enforcement, Deidre told the officer what she knew. That, to her knowledge, Denise left for Vermont from Connecticut on January 23rd and she was heading to the Rutland area to visit two men named Josh and Mark and she was probably driving Mark's car.
According to the Buried in Snow podcast, Rutland City PD were able to track both Josh and Mark down, but they didn't disclose much about how they knew Denise or the circumstances of the last time they saw her. However, police did suss out that Denise had been staying at Josh's house. That's where she was on January 25th, the night she was last seen.
Josh's house wasn't in Rutland, though. He lived in Sudbury, 25 miles away, which is under Vermont State Police jurisdiction. On January 31st, two days after a Rutland officer finally took a report from Deidre, Denise Hart's case became a state police investigation.
Now, because of this gap in time between Rutland City PD's investigation and the case getting turned over to state police, some media coverage makes it sound like Denise wasn't reported missing until January 31st, almost a full week after her last contact with family. But that couldn't be further from the truth. You've already heard how Deidre tried to report Denise missing almost immediately, but got the runaround. And so the gap in time was no fault of the family's.
In fact, Deidre and several other of Denise's family members were doing whatever they could to find Denise on their own. Before state police opened a case for Denise's disappearance, Denise's uncle and a friend drove up to Vermont and started asking around in the towns where she was known to visit. They hung up missing persons posters and even knocked on Josh Preseau's door. He reportedly allowed the uncle and friend to search his house and the room where Denise had been staying.
Looking through that room, Denise's uncle noted several of Denise's belongings were still there, most notably her sneakers and her weed. When the uncle asked Josh what he knew about Denise's disappearance, he allegedly claimed that he last saw Denise when she left his house wearing slippers in the middle of a snowstorm to go meet someone who owed her money.
It also seemed to Josh that Denise had taken her clothes with her too, so when she didn't show back up at his house, Josh assumed that Denise decided to go back to Connecticut. When she left his place that night, she was driving the borrowed car from Mark, a silver 2001 Pontiac Grand Am. None of it made any sense to Denise's family.
They were immediately suspicious of Josh, so they provided all the information they learned from their own reconnaissance mission to police. Denise's family feels it was this, plus all the noise they made while in town and on social media with the hashtag FindDenise, that encouraged state police to open an investigation into Denise's disappearance. They're not so confident it would have happened otherwise. Denise Hart was a Black woman,
Census records show that Vermont is the second whitest state in the United States. According to reporting by the Addison County Independent, on January 31st, 2015, around 12.20 p.m., Vermont State Police were, quote, made aware of a missing persons report out of Sudbury.
The details provided in that report are scarce. The short blurb says that Denise was last seen leaving a friend's house on the evening of January 25th, and she was known to have connections to Hartford, Connecticut, as well as Rutland and Addison counties in Vermont. It mentioned that Denise was known by two other names, one of them, Tiffany.
Vermont State Police have previously stated that their investigation began immediately. But if that's the case, Denise's family was left in the dark as far as any new developments or information goes.
It's not altogether uncommon for police to hold investigative findings close to the vest, even from family members, as frustrating as it is. But one major detail of Denise's case, one that changed everything for her family, they had to hear from one of Denise's friends.
About a week after that car was found burning near the Cornwall-Salisbury covered bridge, Deidre learned that it was the same vehicle that Denise was driving on the night she disappeared. When Deidre asked the lead state police detective on Denise's case, Detective Julie Scribner, about the car, she reportedly wouldn't disclose anything to Deidre about it.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that the car was publicly confirmed to be connected to Denise's disappearance. And with that, Vermont State Police also disclosed that her case showed a strong indication of foul play.
eBay Motors is here for the ride. With some elbow grease and a whole lot of love, you transform 100,000 miles and a body full of rust into a drive that's all your own. LED headlights, spoilers, whatever you need. eBay Motors has it at affordable prices. And with eBay Guaranteed Fit, it's guaranteed to fit your ride every time. Keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.
On February 11th, with still no sign of Denise Hart, Vermont State Police descended on the property where she was last seen supposedly getting into a borrowed car wearing slippers in a snowstorm.
As reported by Brent Curtis for the Rutland Herald, Vermont State Police Public Information Officer Scott Waterman confirmed that the property being searched in Sudbury belonged to the father of Josh Preseau, the friend of Denise, who was one of the last people to see her alive.
Investigators clarified that the search was standard procedure and it didn't mean Josh or his father were suspects or anything, but the location was significant since it was the last place Denise was known to be before she disappeared. Josh and his father were reportedly cooperative and fully consented to the search. Helicopters flew overhead while search and rescue team members scoured the ground, but despite the extensive effort, they didn't find anything.
At least, nothing that closed the case right then and there, and they certainly didn't find Denise. Meanwhile, interviews were ongoing with numerous people who may have seen or heard from Denise in the weeks and months prior to her disappearance, including Josh Persow,
Josh told Jackie O'Brien of the Buried in Snow podcast that he felt like police were very keen on him as a suspect, given that he was one of the last people to see Denise on January 25th. But that distinction was key to him. One of the last people, not the only. Josh claimed that Denise left to go meet someone who owed her money.
As the case developed, investigators put out a call for information from the public, specifically looking to speak with anyone who was in the area of Swamp Road in Cornwall, near the scene of the car fire, between midnight and 2 a.m. on January 26th. Over the following weeks, subsequent searches for Denise and any evidence in her case were planned near the covered bridge location.
Louis Verricchio of the Addison Eagle reports that in early March, the Vermont State Police SCUBA team intended to search the waters of Otter Creek and Cornwall that flowed beneath the bridge, but the dive was delayed due to the frigid conditions. However, the team was still able to search using a portable sonar device. Unfortunately, it didn't yield any clues as to Denise's whereabouts. The search for Denise picked up again as spring arrived in Vermont.
David Owens reports that in late May, Vermont State Police searched air and land all over northern Rutland County and areas of southern Addison County, focusing on the towns of Orwell, Whiting, Cornwall, and Sudbury. Interviews were ongoing too, but investigators weren't letting on if they had any leads regarding Denise's disappearance. Her family waited for any crumb of a detail.
Even though Deidre felt that Detective Julie Scribner was doing her best to keep them informed, she wasn't getting much information at all. Every time she did reach out, Deidre says she felt like a burden.
From the very first days of the case, Deidre and Denise's other family members felt like Vermont State Police weren't giving Denise the full attention she deserved because of her race. And there were potentially other factors that may have contributed to Denise's case slowing down too. As police had begun to figure out, she was possibly wrapped up in some illegal activity in Vermont.
Commander of the Vermont State Police Criminal Division, Major Glenn Hall, said early on in the investigation that police were exploring the possibility drug trafficking somehow played a role in Denise's disappearance.
In a February 14, 2015 report by Brent Curtis in the Rutland Herald, Major Hall says, quote, Whether drugs were directly related to her disappearance is something that we're investigating, but there's evidence of drug activity involving her and other associates, end quote. Deidre knew Denise made frequent trips to Vermont from Hartford to visit friends, she thought.
One of those friends, though, the guy whose house she was staying at the night she disappeared, Josh Persaud, he has openly admitted to previously using illegal drugs and buying them from Denise Hart. Josh shared with the Buried in Snow podcast that he actually knew Denise by the name Tiffany Robinson, an alias.
I want to take a second and say something that I hope one day will go without saying, but if you have listened to Dark Down East from episode one, you know and I know that the circumstances of a person's life do not preclude them or their families from the justice and answers they deserve. Denise's reported involvement in selling drugs does not grant someone else the right to make her disappear.
And at the same time, it's part of her story and a detail that can't be omitted because it could be key to figuring out exactly what happened to her. The suggestion that Denise was selling drugs cast her frequent trips to Vermont in a different light. Josh's story that Denise allegedly left his house to meet up with someone who owed her money felt like a possible motive. So who was Denise meeting that night, if that's really what happened?
Do investigators have any thoughts on who the person could be? Did they ever search Denise's phone to check any correspondence between Denise and the people she sold to? Rewind, was her phone ever recovered at Josh's house or elsewhere? Was it or anything else found in the burning car?
All of that to say, simultaneous to the search effort, I hope police were taking other steps in the investigation just beyond waiting for witnesses to come forward with tips. Because if they knew Denise was involved with selling illegal drugs in Vermont, they must have also been aware that the witness pool was likely to contain other individuals adjacent to that world, whether it be people who bought drugs or who also sold drugs themselves.
What's the incentive for those people to talk to police when their own illegal activity could be exposed? I can only imagine that all of this played a role in what felt like slow progress or no progress at all in this case. The months without Denise and limited updates from law enforcement were excruciating for her family members, made worse by the repeated questioning about Denise's activities in Vermont without offering any information in return.
Deidre was carrying a lot, managing her own grief and the unknowns of the case while taking care of Denise's son, Benny. Although he was so young, Deidre got the sense that Benny knew something was wrong, and she was shouldering that too as the days continued mercilessly on.
Nearly eight months passed after the night Denise was last seen alive, and during that time there'd been no public updates about her possible whereabouts or the circumstances of her disappearance, beyond police saying they believed foul play was involved. But on August 18th, 2015, police again returned to the waters of Otter Creek.
According to a piece by John Flowers for the Addison County Independent, the water level in the creek had fallen to its lowest point since Denise disappeared, making it easier and safer for dive crews. While the state police dive team was submerged below, search and rescue and canine teams surveyed the area on dry land.
By the end of that search effort, investigators would cover about six miles of creek and surrounding land near the Cornwall-Salisbury town lines and through the town of Leicester.
Vermont State Police addressed the media ahead of the search effort, though they didn't let on any specifics about what they were searching for. They'd only say that the area was significant to the case, and they'd recovered evidence from that location during an earlier phase of the investigation. Presumably, the evidence they referred to was the burning car Denise was last known to be driving, but I don't know what, if anything else, they found there.
Before police concluded the brief press conference, they read a statement from Denise's mother. It said in part, quote, Her friends and family are missing her desperately.
She has missed so much. She has two brand new nephews she hasn't even met yet, and she has missed her nieces and nephews' birthdays. Her own son's fourth birthday is coming up in a few days, and she is not home. We don't have any answers. It has been almost eight long, hard, desperate months, and we just want some answers. Please, if anybody knows or has seen anything, please say something. Thank you.
A few days later, Vermont State Police announced they'd concluded their search of the Otter Creek area. The effort had produced some undisclosed evidence that they planned to analyze as part of the ongoing efforts to locate Denise and determine what happened to her. It was obvious, though, that the effort did not end the search for Denise Hart.
She was still missing under suspicious circumstances. And soon, investigators were looking outside the state of Vermont for possible leads in her case. According to reporting by Jamie Ratliff and Ari Mason for NBC Connecticut, about a week before the search at Otter Creek for evidence in Denise's case, another woman from Hartford, Connecticut named Tashauna Jackson also disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
Police in Vermont took notice of Tashana's case not only because of the similarities, but also because she and Denise grew up together. Both women were black and in their early 20s, both had young sons, and both had suddenly vanished without explanation in the same eight-month span. However, despite the perceived parallels, it seemed Tashana's case in Connecticut had a clear direction to follow from the beginning.
Ronald DeRosa and David Moran report for the Hartford Courant that 23-year-old Tashauna Jackson was last seen around 11 p.m. on August 11, 2015, as she got into a car with 59-year-old Robert Lee Graham. Tashauna knew Robert, and so did the police. He had a lengthy criminal record, including first-degree assault charges, and in 1986, he was charged with the stabbing death of Linda Lulu Reese Caesar.
However, the charges against Robert in that case were later dismissed without prejudice. Tashana's family reported her missing and a coordinated search effort by both police and her loved ones began in Hartford, including in and around Keeney Park. Police said that their investigation directed them to the park, but didn't disclose any specifics about why they'd focused their search in that area.
A side note here, Keeney Park has been the site of several unrelated murders and a location where bodies have been discovered in the past. Despite the concentrated search effort, there was no sign of Tishana until about a week later. Nicholas Rondinone reports for the Hartford Courant that Tishana's body was finally found on August 18th, 2015, partially concealed behind a poultry shop on Granby Street in Bloomfield.
Within a few days, police announced that they were looking for Robert Lee Graham in connection with Tashana's murder. A search of one of his vehicles uncovered blood and other evidence. When police finally found the suspect, he was hiding in the attic of his apartment. Police arrested Robert and charged him with Tashana's murder on August 21st.
Before Robert was arrested and even before Tashana's body was discovered, both Vermont and Connecticut police officials considered the possibility that the two disappearances were related somehow, given the fact that both victims were from the same area. However, the subsequent investigation into Robert Lee Graham and his involvement in Tashana's case didn't reveal any meaningful connections with Denise's case at the time.
In an NBC Connecticut story about Tashauna's murder by Jamie Ratliff and Ari Mason, Denise's mother, Deidre, expressed the pain she felt for Tashauna's mother following the discovery of her daughter's remains. Deidre sympathized, knowing that she and Tashauna's mom had been walking in the same shoes with both of their daughters missing. But now, with the search for Tashauna over, Deidre was alone in the limbo of not knowing where Denise might be.
She was committed to finding her daughter, as much as she'd ever been. Deidre said, quote, Until they put me in a coffin, I will look for my child. Good or bad, I'm going to find her. End quote. Four months later, Deidre no longer had to look for Denise. On December 22nd, 2015, skeletal remains were recovered in Goshen, Vermont.
The chief medical examiner's office later identified the remains as 24-year-old Denise Hart. The death certificate later revealed that Denise died from a gunshot wound to the head.
As reported by Kathleen Phelan Tomaselli for the Rutland Herald, a person walking the long trail in the Green Mountain National Forest off Gap Road in Goshen, Vermont, discovered Denise's skeletal remains laying in a ditch just beyond some picnic tables near a parking lot for the Brandon Gap area. The person who discovered the remains wasn't far off the path or anything like that,
Denise's body was just a short distance from the popular trail for God knows how long, unbeknownst to the hikers traveling through. The rough location of Denise's remains was about 18 miles away from Cornwall where the burning car was discovered almost a year prior.
If you take the main route between the two locations, the one that Google Maps recommends as the fastest via West Salisbury Road, you'd pass through the town of Leicester and a quirky side-of-the-road tourist attraction featuring a large gorilla holding a Volkswagen Beetle high above its head.
You'd turn onto Route 73, also known as Gap Road, near the Junction Store in Delhi, and continue on about 5 miles until you reached a small dirt parking area near the Brandon Gap entrance to the Long Trail. The journey there is not heavily populated. It's a rural area to begin with, but once you reach the borders of the Green Mountain National Forest, you're really out there.
It was definitely far outside the reported search areas that state police had targeted in the previous months. So, had the investigation not led them to that area? Or were they just not actively looking for Denise after the creek dives and property search in Sudbury? I don't know the answer to those questions. On the surface, the location seems random. But dig a little deeper, and maybe it's not so random. But we'll get there.
Now with a body and a cause of death, the missing persons case officially became a homicide. I spoke with retired detective Julie Scribner about her time on Denise's case in 2015 and into early 2016, before the Vermont State Police Major Crimes Unit was created and took over the investigation.
Julie told me that after the discovery of Denise's body, the crime scene search team thoroughly scoured the area near where she was found. Julie did not elaborate on what, if anything, was found, and she didn't give any further specifics about what was done immediately following that part of the investigation. But Julie did say that what's typical when a missing person's case turns into a murder is that police will begin re-interviewing witnesses and friends and family and
and examine any ties that a person of interest might have with the area the body was discovered. Julie did not respond to my questions about possible persons of interest or suspects. You'd think this update would prompt a swell of media coverage, but as far as I can tell, the opposite happened. Reporting about Denise dropped off after her cause of death was disclosed to the public in early January of 2016.
The following month, she's mentioned in a story about the Vermont State Police Major Crimes Unit and other unsolved homicides, but there weren't any significant updates in Denise's case. In fact, Vermont State Police Captain J.P. Sinclair said that the unit, quote, got busy, end quote. And so the unsolved homicides, like Denise's, hadn't even been reviewed yet because resources were diverted to more current active cases.
After 2016, Denise's name doesn't appear to surface in the media again until 2018. Vermont State Police Detective Sergeant Michael Knott was leading Denise's case at the time and he told Stacey DeSilva of WVNY ABC 22 that the investigation was still ongoing. He discussed in vague terms some of the things he and his team had been working on most recently.
He said their investigation had led them across state lines to Connecticut and New York. He also said they'd identified a few persons of interest and had reason to believe Denise knew her killer. He goes on to say, quote, "'We have a sense of what happened. Again, there will be a lot of just putting all the facts together and then making sure that you make the appropriate connection to the person who is responsible,' end quote."
At that moment, though, they did not have enough evidence to make an arrest. Investigators were still waiting for more information, possibly a witness who had information they believed wasn't important, but could be the key to stringing all the pieces of evidence together. As of this episode's recording, that still hasn't happened. Denise Hart's case remains unsolved and listed among the dozens of other Vermont State Police cold cases.
Here's what we know. Denise Hart was reportedly last seen leaving the home of Josh Preseau driving a borrowed car that was later found burning a little over 10 miles away from Josh's house. Her skeletal remains were later found about 15 more miles away from the burning car almost a year later.
Members of Denise Hart's family have maintained certain suspicions about Josh. Whether he did it or not, or he knows more than he's letting on or something else, they've stated that his story of Denise leaving late at night to drive off in slippers doesn't pass their sniff test. However, Josh Preseau has never been identified by law enforcement as a person of interest or suspect in Denise's case.
When his father's property was searched back in 2015, state police said Josh was cooperative and the search of the property didn't mean he was suspected of any involvement. Josh Persaud told the Buried in Snow podcast that soon after Denise's disappearance and murder, he entered a rehabilitation program for substance use disorder. Josh says he eventually took a polygraph test and police never bothered him again after that.
I'm unable to confirm this or learn anything about possible results. Before that, though, when police were interrogating him about Denise's disappearance, he was using drugs and now feels like police probably dismissed everything he had to say because of his substance use.
However, Josh claims he told police something he thought was significant to the investigation. He says he heard from someone that two guys made a cryptic statement to a known drug dealer in town. Something about the competition being taken care of. The two guys who allegedly made those statements, according to Josh, are Todd Norris and Christopher Richards.
So who are they? And were they referencing Denise Hart? Was she the competition? And did they have something to do with getting rid of her? In 2015, Todd Norris and a co-defendant were arrested and charged with knowingly and willfully conspiring with each other and others to distribute cocaine base, a Schedule II controlled substance.
According to a probable cause affidavit prepared by Detective Matthew Plunkett assigned to the Vermont Drug Task Force, the arrest of Todd Norris was the result of a sting operation involving a confidential informant. On February 25th, 2015, the informant wore a wire and bought drugs from Todd Norris and another man. Todd later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months.
Todd Norris has alleged via Facebook post that Christopher Richards was an informant for the FBI and that it was Christopher Richards wearing a wire that resulted in his 2015 conviction and jail time. Of course, the real name of the informant isn't used in the affidavit. Instead, the informant is referred to by the alias Jefferson.
However, the affidavit does list many of Jefferson's real previous convictions, including retail theft, cocaine possession, inciting another to commit a felony, DUI, aggravated assault, possession of a narcotic drug, disorderly conduct, and others.
That list seems to line up with 2001 drug and assault charges against a Christopher Richards, following a scuffle with New Hampshire police officers, leaving all three officers with cuts and bruises. It's also consistent with a 2003 conviction of Christopher Richards for inciting another to commit a felony and a third offense of drunk driving.
The listed charges of the informant also align with charges filed against Christopher Richards in 2009 for stealing a propane tank from haze glass in Rutland City, Vermont. So, was Christopher Richards also known to police as the informant Jefferson? I don't know for sure. Seems like it could be possible, though.
But if what Josh heard was true, that Todd Norris and Christopher Richards told another dealer that they took care of the competition, meaning Denise Hart, how did these two guys go from alleged co-conspirators in a murder to one guy wearing a wire to help police arrest the other within a month's span? I mean, it was literally a month to the day from when Denise was last seen alive to when the informant participated in the sting operation.
What happened in those 30 days that had Christopher Richards, if he really was the informant, rolling over on Todd Norris? Hypothetically, based on Josh Persaud's tip, were police looking into Christopher Richards and Todd Norris for Denise Hart's disappearance from the beginning? And Christopher agreed to go undercover to protect himself from charges in her case? It's a question I can't answer.
But other than that secondhand cryptic statement that Josh claims he heard from someone, is there anything else that would indicate these two men had anything to do with Denise Hart's disappearance and death? Well, there is something that gave me pause.
I did some digging into property records for Todd and Christopher and their family members. It turns out that Christopher's father, who passed away in 2023, lived in Goshen, off Capon Hill Road, about three miles from Brandon Gap, near where Denise's skeletal remains were recovered. So maybe the location of her body wasn't so random after all.
To be clear, Vermont State Police have never publicly identified anyone as a suspect or person of interest in Denise Hart's murder. Not Christopher Richards, not Todd Norris, not Josh, and not the guy whose car Denise was driving when she disappeared. The case remains unsolved. You should know Christopher Richards died June 16th, 2018. Todd Norris died a few weeks later, on July 3rd, 2018.
I spoke with Jackie O'Brien of the Buried in Snow podcast as I was preparing this story about Denise. She's maintained a relationship with Denise's mom, Deidre. She told me Deidre is a busy woman. She's a nurse at a children's hospital, and she's raising her grandson, Benny, in Denise's absence. Both Deidre and Jackie, whose work I would not have been able to cover this case without, were supportive of my telling Denise's story here on Dark Down East.
Deidre's wish is that her daughter is remembered and her life valued, regardless of what she may have been doing for money at the time someone stole her life. Denise was a loving mother. Her son Benny was only three years old when she disappeared, and he was the center of her world. Those who knew and loved Denise most remembered her as sweet and kind, as a friend, as a sister, and as a daughter.
Deidre told Stacey Da Silva of ABC affiliate WVNY that if someone needed help, and Denise had it, she'd give it. According to her father, William Hart, Denise was also tough. William told Kathleen Phelan Tomaselli of the Rutland Herald that Denise didn't take crap from anybody, and she was a fighter if it came down to it. He joked that her nickname used to be Muhammad Ali. That fighting spirit translated to her future ambitions as well.
Denise was a go-getter and fiercely independent. She wanted to be something. She was reportedly taking college classes to become a parole officer.
The loss of Denise left an indelible mark on her surviving family members and a hole in their lives that they'll never be able to refill. A virtual tribute wall for Denise's online memorial on the All Faith Memorial Chapel website includes a single post from a user named Lisa. It reads in part, quote,
End quote.
If you have any information relating to the disappearance and murder of Denise Hart, please contact Vermont State Police. Tips can be submitted anonymously via the form linked in the show description of this episode or by texting the keyword VTIPS to 274-637. You can also contact the St. Albans State Police Barracks at 802-773-9101.
Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.
Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
