In the months following her mother’s violent death, Pam Martin Harris has found herself questioning God.
She told lawmakers as much in winter, asking them to make a change. She walked them through the story of her mother’s homicide — and the violent abuse of her corpse that followed. Police found evidence that the 82-year-old’s body had been sexually assaulted and set on fire after her death.
“In my faith, I have concluded that this was the act of the devil,” Martin Harris said.
She urged representatives in the House Committee on Judiciary to support a bill that would make it a felony charge to abuse a dead body, a penalty that has never existed in Vermont. Lawmakers in committee started working on the bill, and after the measure made its way through both chambers with near unanimous support, Gov. Phil Scott signed it into law May 22.
Before this year, Vermont law only covered grave robbing and unauthorized burials. It never criminalized the mutilation, incineration or assault of a corpse.
The state should not have waited until 2025 “to cover something of that magnitude,” said Rep. Penny Demar, R-Enosburgh, one of the bill’s lead sponsors. Martin Harris’s testimony made it clear the law was needed, he said.
Roberta Martin was first reported missing by neighbors who went to check on her at her Enosburgh house one morning in July 2024. Police deemed her disappearance suspicious and were unable to locate her remains until days later. Then, Martin Harris learned her mother’s foot had been found — and her body burnt beyond recognition, she told lawmakers.
“I felt completely broken. The horror that she must have felt was haunting,” Martin Harris said.
When a loved one goes missing and their family is left in limbo for days or months, holding out hope, “the additional trauma on top of the loss is really unconscionable,” said Jennifer Poehlmann, executive director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services.
Poehlmann, who supports Martin’s family, declined to comment on their case. Martin’s family declined an interview.
When a loved one’s body is mutilated, assaulted or incinerated, the family is not able to have the peaceful goodbye they envisioned, Poehlmann said.
“The closure you never get is unnerving,” Martin Harris told lawmakers. “It’s a void and an ache that’s constant.”
In the days, weeks and months that followed her mother’s death, neighbors were haunted too, said Demar, who represents the town in the Legislature.
“They were sleeping with the lights on,” he said.
Demar used to teach a hunter safety course. After Martin’s death, his phone kept ringing, with people in town asking him about gun ownership, he said.
The new law validates the experiences of survivors by offering a stiffer punishment for the brutality inflicted after the victim’s death, Poehlmann said.
Under the law, set to take effect July 1, dismembering, burning or otherwise abusing a corpse carries up to 5 years in prison, up to a $5,000 fine or both. If the abuse is sexual or for the purpose of concealing a crime, the felony is enhanced to at least 15 years in prison, up to a $10,000 fine or both.
Burial of a corpse without a proper permit is no longer a crime, but rather a civil penalty up to a $1,000 fine.
The law also gives prosecutors an added legal tool, Poehlmann said. If a corpse is mutilated, police may lack sufficient evidence to charge the alleged assailant with murder, she said. Or, in a case where one person committed a murder and another person mutilated the body, this law would allow both people to be charged.
Poehlmann said she is alarmed that there are a number of cases, either recently resolved or still in court, in which someone accused of murder also mutilated the victim’s corpse. Because those cases predate the new law, those people will not face additional charges for any abuses after the victim’s death.
If anything, Demar worries the law might not go far enough.
“It’s a savage crime,” he said. “I think these people should be put away for a long, long time.”
