Almost four years after a shooting death during a string of gunfire incidents in Springfield, Vt., a jury found Paul Lachapelle Jr. not guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder on Thursday.

Lachapelle was accused of killing Justin Gilliam, 37, of Springfield, back in 2022. Lachapelle was arrested in 2024 after a two-year investigation into the murder uncovered a web of alleged drug trafficking in Springfield. He pleaded not guilty to the two charges he was facing, which carried up to a life sentence.

The trial played out over three days in Windsor County Superior criminal court in White River Junction. Jurors came to their verdict Thursday afternoon after deliberating for about five hours Wednesday night and most of the day Thursday.

“He’s finally free,” said Christopher Montgomery, a public defender who represented Lachapelle in the case, during an interview Friday. He said his client was “incredibly ecstatic” about the jury’s ruling.

In court, the prosecution argued that the jury should trust three key witnesses who had given statements to police linking Lachapelle to the killing. In turn, the defense argued the three witnesses’ accounts weren’t reliable because they had ulterior motives.

Windsor County Deputy State’s Attorney Travis Weaver said that although he was disappointed in the jury’s ruling, a part of him could see it coming. He anticipated that the integrity of his witnesses would be questioned during the trial.

During the trial, the defense didn’t call any witnesses or the accused to the stand. Montgomery said he was surprised the case even went to trial. He said he thinks the only reason it did was that “there was a lot of pressure to prosecute somebody for the murder.”

Of the three people who gave statements to police, one was Lachapelle’s ex-girlfriend, and another was his half-brother. When the half-brother took the stand during the trial, though, he declined to answer any questions about the alleged crime, according to both Weaver and Montgomery.

The half-brother told the courtroom during the trial that he remembered nothing from that period of his life because of his drug use.

Weaver said he didn’t believe the half-brother’s claim was credible. The half-brother had “previously signaled” to prosecutors that he was hesitant to testify, Weaver said.

The three people who gave statements to police did so after they were arrested on other charges in 2024, Montgomery said. In court, Montgomery argued that their accounts were unreliable because they were facing lengthy jail stints and were willing to say anything to get out of doing time, he said.

“Three people pointed the finger at him, but they had a motive to lie,” Montgomery said.

Weaver said he argued that the three witnesses gave their statements to police independently, without coordinating with each other. Maybe there was some abstract incentive for the witnesses, Weaver said, but nothing was offered to a witness to cooperate.

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