SOUTH ROYALTON — Following his 25-year-old son’s suspected overdose death on Saturday, Vincent Arbuiso walked the streets of the village seeking witness accounts, offering a $2,000 reward for information that could help lead to a conviction.
While police have deemed the death non-suspicious with no obvious signs of homicide, Arbuiso wants justice served against the dealer.
“They sold him poison,” Arbuiso said Monday at the Chelsea Street home in South Royalton where his son, also named Vincent Arbuiso, died two days prior.
On Saturday morning, the younger Arbuiso left his grandmother’s home for approximately 15 minutes, came back, greeted the cats then went into his room, which was ordinary, Brenda Morrill said of her grandson’s behavior.
About an hour later, Morrill peaked in her grandson’s bedroom and found him unresponsive and without a pulse. In disbelief, she called her son, Jude Arbuiso, who was downstairs at the South Royalton Market, to confirm, and he contacted the elder Vincent Arbuiso and police. But it was too late.
“Your life stops when their life stops, except your physical body keeps going and it hurts,” said Morrill.
The younger Vincent Arbuiso grew up primarily around his dad, grandmother and younger brother, Dominic Arbuiso, in South Royalton. Although as a teenager, he “bounced around” in Rutland, his dad, a Royalton resident, said.
Autumn Patterson, a longtime friend of Arbuiso who now lives in Georgia, said that he befriended her while they were students at Rutland High School when she needed it most.
Patterson’s family welcomed him into their home and supported him through his struggles with addiction, she said, by always keeping their door open for him in times of need.
Patterson does not believe that Arbuiso was necessarily in a bad crowd when he started using drugs, but rather that he felt isolated and turned to them as a coping mechanism.
“He planned on getting away from all the substances. He wanted out of that life. He wanted to get clean. He wanted to do better and the whole way, we supported him,” Patterson said Monday by phone.
A few years ago, he decided to live a sober lifestyle by moving in with Morrill.
“I know he wanted to go back and be with his grandma and get on a different path in life. The last time I saw him was, I believe, two summers ago, and he told me he was doing really good,” said Patterson.
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In Royalton, Arbuiso took care of his grandmother by handling household chores such as laundry, grocery shopping and cooking, Morrill said. His dream was to start a food cart where he could share meals with the community and play his music through loudspeakers.
“He had it pretty well planned out. He just didn’t have the money,” said Morrill.
Patterson recalls Arbuiso lighting up when he spoke about cooking and music, adding that he had so much passion and potential.
“He really had such a good head on him to where he had big dreams and I know he could have achieved every single thing he ever talked to me about,” said Patterson.
Through efforts by the family to help Arbuiso, including a rehabilitation program and a set of rules his grandmother created as a requirement to stay at her home, he stopped using drugs a couple years back and had seemingly been sober ever since, his dad said.
“The family worked real hard and came together and got him sober,” said the elder Arbuiso.
The younger Arbuiso previously worked at the Corner Stop Mini Mart in town, and was a familiar face in the community, his dad said. Arbuiso was in-between jobs at the time of his death, but the plan was for him to soon join his dad’s business, AFW Roofing.
Morrill, who spent a considerable amount of time with her grandson, said she believes the overdose on Saturday was likely his first relapse in a long time.
“I think the opportunity was made available to him and he might have been at a weak point and messed up,” said the elder Arbuiso.
He considers the circumstances around his son’s death to be a murder, particularly a poisoning. He prefers not to call what happened an overdose.
“It’s lessening the severity of the actual situation,” Arbuiso said.
The Royalton Police Department is currently gathering information until the medical examiner can pinpoint a cause of death, said Chief Loretta Stalnaker, who added that this would be the first fatal overdose in town this year.
Windsor and Rutland counties had the highest rates of fatal overdoses in the state last year, based on a fatal overdose report by the Vermont Department of Health. By county of residence, there are about 38 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in Windsor County and 36.5 in Rutland County, with the average across all 14 counties being 24 deaths.
A pending piece of information is the toxicology report from Arbuiso’s autopsy. As of now, it’s unclear what was in his system at the time of his death. Stalnaker confirmed that there was drug paraphernalia at the scene.
Arbuiso believes that the drugs his son may have purchased were laced.
“I think it wasn’t what he thought he was getting,” said Arbuiso.
Almost immediately following his son’s death, Arbuiso sprung into action, knocking on doors and passing out 100 flyers detailing what he knew at the time about his son’s last outing, including that he was wearing blue sweatpants and a purple hoodie when he went out between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Saturday morning.
The flyer also called on the community to tell him what they saw, specifically if anyone noticed his son get in or out of a vehicle near the town green around the time of a nearby law school graduation.
Arbuiso has not been able to sleep or eat much since Saturday, he said.
After two days of investigating, Arbuiso is close to finding answers, he said, though declined to share what details he has passed on to police. He said he has narrowed down the search to a specific time and location that the sale took place.
Arbuiso noted that security camera footage and his son’s phone activity could point to exactly who is at fault. He already has someone in mind who may have earned the $2,000 reward.
Stalnaker encourages witnesses to contact the department directly because firsthand accounts are stronger when it comes to building a possible case.
A homicide investigation would immediately go to state police, Stalnaker said Monday at the department. Detectives could then present a case to the state’s attorney’s office. In Vermont, a conviction of selling or dispensing a regulated drug with death resulting could result in imprisonment between two and 20 years.
The younger Vincent Arbuiso will be buried in Branch View Cemetery off Route 110 in Royalton, the family said. Boardway & Cilley Funeral Home will hold a service at a date to be determined.
