BURLINGTON — The state rested its case against the Burlington man accused of shooting and wounding three Palestinian students, presenting law enforcement and forensic witnesses whose testimony prosecutors say tied him to the crimes.
The move by the state comes on the second day of the trial in Chittenden Superior criminal court and appears to set the stage for the defense’s case that Jason Eaton was legally insane at the time of the shootings in November 2023 and not criminally responsible.
Among the key prosecution witnesses Tuesday was Harry Jeppe, a firearms examiner with the Vermont Forensic Laboratory. He testified about his analysis of the firearm and cartridge casings and bullets recovered at the shooting scene and during the police investigation.
“I determined that this cartridge casing was fired from the submitted firearm,” Jeppe said at one point during his testimony, repeating a similar phrase several more times on the witness stand.
The jury also heard from Samuel Lizzio Tuesday, a member of the New York State Police assigned to an FBI task force. Lizzio, an expert in analyzing cellular data, testified that he used data from a cellphone belonging to Eaton and cellular networks to place him in the area at the time of the shootings.
Bryan Smith of Powderhorn Outdoor Sports in Williston, Vt., testified that, based on records, a person named Jason Eaton had bought a Ruger handgun at the store in April 2023 and had passed a federal background check. The serial number of that firearm matched the serial number on the Ruger handgun police seized from Eaton’s apartment.
Eaton, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted second-degree murder, accused of firing the shots that injured three Palestinian college students as they walked on North Prospect Street in Burlington on the evening of Nov. 25, 2023.
The students, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Aliahmad, each testified Monday on the trial’s opening day. They said the man who shot them had approached them without saying a word, then opened fire and fled. Two of the men were treated at the hospital. Awartani was left with his lower body paralyzed.
Judge John Pacht sent the jury home a little before noon Tuesday after the state rested its case. He said that testimony set for Tuesday had gone quicker than expected.
“Sometimes that’s the way trials go,” Pacht told the jurors.
Eaton’s lawyers are expected to present their case starting Wednesday, putting the focus on his mental state at the time of the shootings as they raise the insanity defense. The trial is expected to run through the rest of the week.
This story was first published by VtDigger and is republished with permission as part of the Vermont Journalism Trust’s Community News Sharing Project.