HARTFORD — Jessica Lemay and David Labrecque weren’t officially married.
But by last summer, they had decided it was the next, natural step in their relationship. They had been together since 2023, sharing a home in Canaan. He was a mechanic and she was trying to start her own house cleaning business, Lemay said in a phone interview this spring.
But that was before a shooting in Hartford last August that left Labrecque, 65, dead and Lemay, 37, seriously injured. Since then, her entire world has been “at a standstill,” she said.
Meanwhile, one of the three people facing charges in connection with the shooting, Michelle Mullins, is scheduled to appear in Windsor Superior Court on Wednesday for a change of plea hearing.
Another defendant has already reached a plea deal, and the alleged shooter is scheduled to go to trial next year.
“(Michelle Mullins) is prepared to say that she participated with others in a plan to steal things from another … but she had no involvement in planning, executing or in any other way aiding the murder of anyone,” David Sleigh, Mullins’ attorney, told the Valley News in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Efforts to reach the prosecutor in the case, Assistant Vermont Attorney General Franklin Paulino were not immediately successful on Tuesday.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 21, 2025, Lemay was outside the house of Labrecque’s friend, Jay Handy, on Verna Court looking for her phone, which she had misplaced, That’s when she saw a man with a bandanna covering his face pointing a gun at her.
“He came from around the side of the barn (near the top of the driveway)” Lemay said during a telephone interview in May. “It felt like I kind of startled him.”
She immediately dropped to the ground, Lemay said, but was still shot. The bullet, doctors later told her, went in above her left hip and came out above her belly button.
Lemay recalled Labrecque shouting, “Get off my wife!” as he came charging from the house to save her.
The man in the bandanna, later identified by police as 30-year-old Demetrius Drew of New Haven, Conn., shot Labrecque in the chest as he charged, then stood over him and shot him in the back, Lemay said.
Interviewed by investigators, Drew claimed he wasn’t even in the state on Aug. 21. The shooting occurred around 3 a.m., and police obtained footage of him on Lily Pond Road, a couple miles from Verna Court, at around 6 a.m., according to court records.
Despite being injured, Lemay said she got up and grabbed Drew by the hood of the sweatshirt he was wearing and was able to swing him into a van parked at the top of the driveway.
She said she refused to let go and Drew pistol-whipped her twice in the head before shooting her again, this time through her left hand.
“I was dumbfounded because he shot me again,” she recalled.
According to police, Drew fled up a trail into the woods, while Michelle Mullins, 49, who was speaking with Labrecque before the shooting happened, followed in that direction. Jeffrey Mullins, 46, took off in a car, Lemay said. Court documents identified the Mullinses are residents of Rindge, N.H.
After Drew and the Mullinses fled the scene, Lemay said, she rushed to Labrecque’s side. She tried shaking him.
“The light was gone from his eyes,” she said. “He was already gone.”
Following the shooting, a woman inside the Verna Court residence called 911, according to the affidavit. Responding EMTs transported her to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center after what she said felt like “forever.” It was a miracle that Lemay survived, she said the doctors told her.
“Half an inch either way, and it would’ve been a whole different story,” she recalled them telling her about the first shot to her abdomen.
She was in the hospital for three days, only requiring surgery on her left hand. As a result of that injury, she said she has a bend in her ring finger “that’ll never go away.”
Later on the day of the shooting, police located and arrested Drew and the Mullinses while they attempted to leave a residence in a mobile home park off Sykes Mountain Avenue.
In Windsor Superior Court, Drew entered not guilty pleas to charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted assault and robbery with a weapon.
His trial is not expected to begin until next year, court records show.
Jeffrey and Michelle Mullins each pleaded not guilty to charges of aiding in the commission of first-degree murder and accessory to attempted assault and robbery.
Mullins told police she was “aware of (Drew’s) plan to steal drugs” from the Verna Court residence, according to the affidavit in support of the charges.
Jeffrey Mullins told police that the three of them “would split the proceeds of the robbery … which (Drew) planned.”
The aiding in the commission of first-degree murder charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison, while accessory to attempted assault and robbery charge carries a penalty of up to 10 years.
Both Mullinses are now avoiding both potential penalties.
In a plea deal signed in November, Jeffrey Mullins agreed to enter a guilty plea to felony accessory to attempted assault and robbery with a sentence of six to 10 years suspended to six months and 10 years of probation, the Valley News previously reported.
Jeffrey Mullins, who is currently incarcerated in New Hampshire in the Grafton County Jail in connection with a separate misdemeanor criminal trespass case from March 2023.
He has not yet been sentenced by a judge in the Vermont case and a future court date hasn’t been set.
Michelle Mullins signed a plea deal in May, admitting guilt to the same charge as Jeffrey. The agreement stipulates a sentence of six to 10 years all suspended, except six months with 12 years of probation.
She is currently under the pretrial supervision of the Grafton County Department of Corrections — which means she is not incarcerated, but is subject to weekly check-ins from DOC staff and has to keep up with court dates — related to a pending 2025 drug possession case in which she faces two felony charges.
Michelle Mullins is scheduled for a change of plea hearing on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. in Windsor Superior Court.
