Court orders non-hospitalization for man who killed daughter in Newbury, Vt.

Six months after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting to death his daughter on the porch of his home in Newbury. Vt., more than four years ago, James Perry Jr. was released from prison and placed into a group home in Springfield, Vt., under a plan approved by a state court judge in Chelsea on Thursday morning.

Perry, 74, described in court as being unable to walk more than 100 feet without taking a break and experiencing hearing loss, will live at the group home located at the end of a cul-de-sac indefinitely, until state officials are able to locate an “appropriate” long-term residence.

“We’re beginning a treatment process. And what’s important in this treatment process is that you have to participate,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Daniel Richardson told Perry directly at the close of a one-hour court hearing to decide his fate.

Perry, holding a hearing aid against his left ear, looked attentively at the judge and nodded silently in acknowledgement.

“You are going to have to seek out the treatment and care and abide by the conditions that are in this order … because they’re geared towards your treatment. But they’re also geared towards addressing public concerns, and those public concerns are real and serious,” Richardson said.

Perry was deemed competent to stand trial but medically assessed to be insane at the time he killed his 38-year-old daughter, Karina Rheaume, with a shotgun at point-blank range. She had come to his home with a plate of cookies for a welfare check on May 3, 2021.

Family members had pleaded with the court to confine Perry to a secure facility after his release from prison.

Because the court ruled that Perry was not guilty by reason of insanity at the time he shot and killed his daughter, the criminal case against Perry is closed. But now that he is no longer suffering from psychosis, he could have, in theory, walked free from prison and returned to live at his home on Lincoln Lane in Newbury.

Perry’s family, alarmed that it was possible that he could return to the community, organized a pressure campaign that inundated the Orange County State’s Attorney’s Office with emails to register concerns. They said Perry’s potential re-entry into the general public made them fear for their safety and posed an unacceptable risk to the public.

Earlier this month, after receiving more than 100 comments from the public, a special court hearing was held to allow Karina Rheaume’s surviving family members to give victim impact statements. In emotionally wrought testimony, they detailed how their lives have been devastated by her killing and the lasting trauma and fear they continue to suffer.

For the past several months, the state’s attorney’s office, Perry’s defense attorneys, the Vermont Department of Mental Health (DMH) and social service agencies have been at work on an arrangement that would address the family’s and the public’s concerns while at the same time recognizing the rights afforded Perry under law.

On Thursday, that arrangement was formalized in a three-page “order of non-hospitalization” signed by the Orange County state’s attorney, defense attorneys, Perry’s court-appointed guardian ad litem and Perry and was approved by Judge Richardson.

The order commits Perry into DMH’s “care and custody” and requires him to reside at a group home in Springfield managed by the nonprofit Health and Rehabilitation Service of Southeastern Vermont.

A “non-hospitalization order” is an outpatient program for people who “have been found a danger to self or others due to mental illness, but not accute enough to need hospitalization and their mental health treatment needs can be met in the community,” a spokesman for the Vermont Agency of Human services wrote in an email to the Valley News, noting he couldn’t comment on Perry’s case specifically.

The order. which remains in effect for 90 days, requires that Perry be remanded to a HCRS group home in Springfield “until another suitable placement is identified that will meet his treatment needs.” The order lists seven conditions he must comply with, including participation in treatment programs provided by NCRS and the Clara Martin Center.

The residence in Springfield is staffed around the clock, and residents are not allowed “off-site excursions” unaccompanied by a member of the staff, Scott Shumaker, assistant attorney general in the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, told the court on Thursday. Nurses are also on-call 24 hours a day, he said.

A status conference to review Perry’s case — which is now a civil matter and moves to Windsor County Superior Court’s family division — has been set to take place in 60 days.

Although family members and others said earlier this month that the 90-day limit of Perry’s non-hospitalization order is an inadequate solution because it means he could be free without supervision before Christmas, Shumaker told the court that the “vast majority” of 90-day non-hospitalization orders are extended for at least another 12 months.

Asked by Judge Richardson how long DMH expected Perry could be residing at the group home in Springfield, Shumacher replied that it is “a difficult situation throughout Vermont to find placements. But he can stay there for as long needs be.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything in the short term to be found that’s more appropriate than” the Springfield group home,” Shumaker said, repeating it “will be available for as long as needed.”

Emilie Perry, Karina Rheaume’s sister and Perry’s daughter, who attended Thursday’s court hearing, declined to comment afterward.

If and when Perry were to no longer be subject to the order and DMH supervision, then a residence somewhere in the state not near his family members and the Newbury community would be sought, Crystal Barry, executive director of Therapeutic Works, a Burlington mental health services consultant retained by the defense to explore “housing options” for Perry, testified to the court.

Therapeutic Works has state-wide resources and “I wouldn’t place (Perry) some place where family was very much affected” by his locality, Barry affirmed.

If Perry shows signs of edging back into psychosis, then it would be noticed by the ever-present staff, Berry said.

Colin Seaman, Orange County State’s Attorney, said during Thursday’s hearing that he believes DMH is committed to safeguarding Perry from posing a danger to both the public and himself.

Seaman said he expects the non-hospitalization order will be extended to another year and possibly longer.

“Because of the gravity of this crime, (DMH) are not intending to ever let this lapse,” Seaman said after the court hearing on Thursday.

Moreover, Seaman said there would be “a hue and cry” if Perry was discovered to “suddenly living in Chelsea,” adding if he ended up there or in another nearby town, “there would be a lot of conversations” between his office and DMH.

And if those failed, Seaman predicted “legal attempts to ask the judge to intervene.”

Seaman credited Karina Rheaume’s survivors for galvanizing attention in a matter that critics of Vermont’s lack of resources for the state’s mentally ill population say too frequently ends in tragedy.

“If it weren’t for the family really pressuring all of the agencies and attorneys involved in this I have a feeling that we wouldn’t have gotten such a strong showing by everybody to come together as a team and put together a plan which we hope satisfies the ongoing concerns of the public,” Seaman said following the judge’s approval of Perry’s non-hospitalization order on Thursday.