TOWNSHEND, VT — The remains of two people were found on the scene of a house fire in Townshend on Friday.
According to a press release from Captain JP Sinclair, the Commander of the Vermont State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation members of Vermont State Police to include the Fire Investigation unit and Division of Fire Safety responded to the scene. The press release stated the residence was heavily damaged and was supposed to be unoccupied.
The remains of the bodies were sent to to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for identification.
Currently, the house is taped off and Vermont State Police are guarding it. A single vase of yellow flowers was placed at the end of the driveway. The Vermont State Police said it was left by a neighbor.
At about 9:50 a.m., two neighbors called the Townshend Fire Department Friday morning after they heard an explosion and saw flames coming from a house on Shirley Circle. Brian Schmidt, Assistant Fire Chief for Townshend, along with firefighters from at least nine other fire departments, rushed to the scene after receiving the call.
Firefighters battled flames at Shirley Circle for hours. By noon firefighters were still at work stomping out flare-ups. Vermont State Police, Fish and Wildlife, the Dead River Company and Rescue Inc. were also on the scene.
Schmidt said that the state police had identified who the owner of the property was. He didn't believe that the remains belonged to the owner. He said it was unclear whether the people inside the house were renters or just squatters.
The only indication he had that people were inside the home when he arrived to the initial call was the presence of two vehicles in the driveway. The two cars in the driveway had a Vermont and a New York license plate.
It wasn't until the fire was out and the Vermont State Police's fire team began it's investigation that remains were found.
The fire, he said, was more difficult to put out than other fires the Townshend Fire Department has responded to in the past.
"The location, it's very rural and getting water is kind of tough," he said.
A man who lives nearby — who asked that his name be withheld — said he wasn't surprised when he heard about the fire.
"We've been here since April," he said. Cars with license plates from New York and Massachusetts are constantly stopping at the house, "at all hours of the night," he said.
The other night, he said, he got fed up. There were two cars sitting outside his house with their headlights on. He confronted them. "What are you doing," he said. "You could tell that they were under the influence of something."
He said that one of the men claimed to be the owner of Shirley Circle. The man also said that he saw Scott Brooks Towing recovering two bronze lions that were stolen from The Vermont Building in September from Shirley Circle. It was then that he knew for sure, he said, that the house was trouble. The Brattleboro Police Department confirmed that the lions had been recovered from Shirley Circle in Townshend.
"I just hope those people are never going to be up there again," said the man. "I have two kids that I care about."
Other neighbors confirmed the man's impression of the people staying at the house.
"I had heard about the traffic going," Paul Canova said. Last weekend Kaire Canova said she'd seen a car parked outside her driveway at 10 p.m.
The couple didn't think the residents were squatters.
"I was under the impression that they were renters," Paul Canova said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. However, Schmidt said when staff from the Dead River Company came to the house they didn't find anything wrong with the house's propane tanks.