Federal prosecutors in Vermont are awaiting word from U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi on whether they will seek the death penalty in the case against a former Stowe man charged in the 2023 fatal shooting of two Massachusetts men.
Theodore Bland, 30, had been indicted by a grand jury earlier this year in Vermont with federal crimes that could carry the possibility of the death penalty, if he were to be convicted.
During a hearing Monday, federal Judge William K. Sessions III asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Turner, one of the prosecutors in the case, about how the parties were moving the case forward.
“I’d like to know what the status is,” Sessions said to Turner.
“At this point,” Turner replied, “we are awaiting a decision of the attorney general with regard to whether the government intends to seek capital punishment in this case.”
Turner said attorneys for the prosecution and defense both met with a committee at the U.S. Department of Justice to make their cases about their positions on whether the death penalty should be pursued in the case.
Sessions then asked if Turner had an “expected timeline” for Bondi’s decision.
“I do not, your honor,” Turner responded.
According to federal prosecutors, an indictment against Bland charged him with using and carrying “a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime causing the deaths of Jahim Solomon and Eric White in circumstances that constitute murder under federal law.”
On Oct. 25, 2023, Vermont State Police said authorities found the bodies of Solomon, 21, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and White, 21, of Chicopee, Massachusetts, in a wooded area of Eden, about a mile apart from each other.
Both men, according to state police, had been fatally shot.
About 10 days before their bodies were found, state police said that their families had reported them missing. The families also reported that the men had been not in contact for several days and were last known to be in Vermont.
Court records filed in Bland’s federal case stated that the killings took place on Oct. 12, 2023, when “Bland’s firearm discharges caused the deaths of Jahim Solomon and Eric White.”
Dilan Jiron, 21 and a co-defendant in the case, entered into a plea deal with prosecutors in July. He pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to possess a firearm in a drug trafficking crime and helping Bland cover up the fatal shootings.
Jiron, formerly of Hyde Park, faces up to 23 years in prison on the two charges. He is set to be sentenced in October.
Vermont last carried out an execution in 1954. The state no longer has a death penalty statute on the books. However, Bland’s case was brought under federal law, which does permit the death penalty as a punishment for certain crimes.
Former President Joseph Biden had imposed a moratorium on the federal death penalty, but President Donald Trump lifted that moratorium through an executive order after taking office in January.
Bondi has already approved pursuing the death penalty in another Vermont case brought in federal court against Teresa Youngblut, 21. Prosecutors have accused Youngblut of fatally shooting David Maland, a border patrol agent, in January during a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in Coventry.
Youngblut, formerly of Washington state, pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Burlington to a new indictment brought in the case that included capital crimes, including one for murder in Maland’s death. Youngblut has been linked to a group known as the Zizians, whose members have been connected to several other homicides across the country.
Attorneys in Bland’s case said during Monday’s hearing that the prosecution has worked to provide the defense lawyers with evidence related to the case.
“So then all parties are awaiting a decision from the attorney general from the Department of Justice,” Sessions, the judge, said as the hearing came to a close. “Once that decision is made perhaps we can have another status conference and see where we go from there.”
