House honors Norwich woman as investigators say little

NORWICH — It’s been more than a week since Vermont State Police identified Noel Neely as the 82-year-old woman whose death at her residence at 48 Douglas Hill Road on May 9 was under investigation.

Other than Neely’s identity, police have not released any additional information about the investigation. In an initial news release, police stated that her body “will be brought to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington for an autopsy to determine cause and manner of death.” 

“There are no updates at this time,” State Police spokesman Adam Silverman said in an email on Monday. “Additional details are not yet available to ensure the investigation can proceed in an uncompromised manner.”

Neely’s husband, Dr. Donald Neely, declined to comment on his wife’s death during a brief interview at his practice, Hanover Orthodontics, at 7 Allen St. in Hanover on Monday.

“I’m too close to the event,” he said.

As he sifted through paperwork at his desk in his third-floor office, Neely, who had a Band-Aid on his left cheek, told a reporter that his practice remains open amid the ongoing investigation. 

In Montpelier on Friday, Vermont legislators held a moment of silence in memory for Noel Neely, who served as a Republican representative from Pomfret from 1977-1982, according to the Journal of the House. At the time, her district also included Sharon and Royalton.

Noel Neely had also been president of the Woodstock League of Women Voters, an elementary school teacher and a speech therapist, the Valley News reported in June 1976.

More recently, she worked as the office manager in her husband’s orthodontics practice, according to the practice’s website.

Last week, a call to the practice went straight to a voicemail recording of Donald Neely who said, “the office is temporarily closed due to a family medical emergency.”

On Monday morning, phone calls to the office failed to go through. 

In the early afternoon on Monday, nobody was at the reception desk when a reporter stopped by the office, but several names were written on a sign-in sheet.