FAIRLEE — After a Thursday concert, a 55-year-old man allegedly approached five people near Lake Morey and threatened them with a switchblade knife.
British singer Natasha Bedingfield had performed at Lake Morey that night as part of the resort’s free concert series. Thousands attended, and began to depart at 9:30 p.m. But a little later, police allege Sean McGurk threatened three women and two men with a knife, unprovoked.
“It would have escalated were there not so many of us,” said Kaitlyn Garrett, one of the people present.
Now, McGurk faces five felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one for each alleged victim, plus one count of committing a crime using a weapon and one count of criminal threatening. McGurk pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Aug. 7 and was being held at the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury.
McGurk’s town of residence is unclear. While Vermont State Police said in an Aug. 7 news release that he lives in Fairlee, court filings also include addresses in Bradford and South Woodstock.
At about 11 p.m. Aug. 6, Vermont State Police responded to a report that a man wearing a USA baseball cap, blue shirt and jeans had pulled a knife on a woman while standing 8 feet away from her. The incident occurred at 51 Lake Morey Road, next to the Sunoco gas station where Patrick Crowley leases yard space for his business, Precision Towing.
When state troopers arrived, five people ran toward them, distressed, and alleging a man, later identified as McGurk, had threatened all of them with a knife, Trooper Chris Santic wrote in an affidavit. Crowley was among the group and provided a statement to police.
“Based on his demeanor, I believed this was a serious incident,” Santic wrote of Crowley’s visible distress.
The group told police they were in the parking lot, removing signs after the concert, when a man in the passenger seat of a white Toyota shouted at them through a window.
Garrett, Crowley’s fiancée, told the Valley News Monday that McGurk had accused them of hollering at his girlfriend. Thinking he may have had too much to drink, the group had hoped to de-escalate the situation and move on.
But when McGurk allegedly pulled out the knife, Garrett recalls, they screamed, backed away, and told him to leave the property. She says members of the group worried they might have been attacked if they turned their backs, and if there were no security cameras.
Crowley called police, who arrived 10 minutes later, he said, but that was after the knife-wielding man had been bothering them for about 45 minutes, leaving and returning on foot about three separate times after the first encounter, Crowley told police.
The police report said McGurk tried to back members of the group into a corner.
“He takes one more step, and it’s gonna end real bad,” Crowley said, had any group members gotten too close to Garrett.
While interviewing the witnesses, police dogs located McGurk, who said he was walking home. Asked by Trooper Santic why he was hiding in bushes, McGurk replied he had just been lying down.
“Throughout our conversation, McGurk’s demeanor fluctuated between being verbally aggressive and calm,” Santic wrote.
McGurk admitted police he had pulled a knife during a verbal confrontation “when two guys came at me.” He also asked police not to judge him based on what they might find on a computer, the affidavit said.
Lake Morey Resort owner Mark Avery clarified that the final attendees had left the concert parking areas by 10:15 p.m.– about 45 minutes after the concert ended– including the area where the incident occurred.
Fairlee’s population was less than 1,000 as of 2020, but on Thursday, about 10,000 people attended the concert, Avery said.
In a July activity report, Fairlee police said that, of the 44 calls for service that Vermont State Police responded to in the town, three were concert-related, including a fatal crash, a drunk-driving case and simple assault.
McGurk has had earlier brushes with the law, including in connection with a police chase 2019 that occurred following a Fairlee dispute, the Valley News reported at the time.
If convicted of assault, McGurk could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The weapons charge could mean five years and a $500 fine, and the threatening charge could mean one year and a $1,000 fine. McGurk’s attorney, Daniel Sedon, did not respond by deadline to a request for comment.
An evidence hearing for McGurk is scheduled Aug. 12 at the Orange County Courthouse.
CLARIFICATION: The knife threat allegedly occurred after the concert ended, and was off Lake Morey Resort property. A previous headline was unclear as to where and when the incident took place.
