Federal and state authorities nab N.H. fugitive in Warren

May 3, 2024 | By Mike Donoghue | Vermont News First

WARREN – A New Hampshire woman, who officials said is wanted in her home state for failing to appear in court for two felony charges related to an overdose death of another woman in 2020, was arrested in Warren by federal and state authorities on Friday afternoon.
The U.S. Marshals Service in Burlington said it received a tip that Zanda A. Ball, 40, was hiding out in the Mad River Valley.

Sunapee (NH) Police Department posted this Wanted poster image on its Facebook page in September 2023.

Deputy marshals, along with Vermont State Police began combing the community for Ball and conducted several interviews, according to Carl Staley, a supervisor with the Marshals Service.

The Marshals Service learned Ball and a companion were looking for jobs in the Mad River Valley and claimed they were from the Claremont, New Hampshire, area.  The investigative trail eventually led to a residence on Plunkton Road, Staley said.

The dragnet ended with a short standoff at the residence. This took place around the time that local schools were dismissing students for the day.

Harwood Unified Union School District issued a notice to families that to avoid Plunkton Road, it would re-route buses with students headed home from Warren Elementary School and Harwood Union Middle/High School. 

Ball and a male companion initially refused to come out of the residence, State Police Sgt. William Warner said. As state police began to seek a search warrant, the man exited the house and Ball eventually surrendered, Warner said. The State Police SWAT Team, which had been practicing on Friday, was put on alert but did not have to respond. 

The Marshals Service turned Ball over to state police, who lodged her at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington.  She was ordered held for lack of $35,000 bail on a Vermont charge for being a fugitive from justice in New Hampshire.

She is due for arraignment in Vermont Superior Court in Barre on Monday afternoon.

A Merrimack County grand jury indicted Ball on Sept. 25, 2020, on two felony charges of dispensing a controlled drug – with one count with death resulting, records show. Ball, then of Sunapee, New Hampshire, is charged with selling fentanyl to Gina L. Carr, 29, of Sutton, New Hampshire, and that she later died from the drug, New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald said at the time.

Sunapee Police Sgt. Nick Boisvert said Friday his department last fall put out a local community alert when Ball failed to appear for one of her court hearings in the fatal overdose case.  He said local police eventually believed Ball had left town, but hoped somebody could provide a lead.

This week the Marshals Service in Vermont working with colleagues from New Hampshire, got a possible lead and netted the arrest.   

Carr had a promising career in education when she died, according to the Nashua Telegraph.  She taught skiing and worked as a paraprofessional serving students with disabilities at Kearsarge Regional School District, the Telegraph reported.  The University of New Hampshire graduate majored in horticulture.

Carr was a Nashua native and grew up in Merrimack and Litchfield before she moved with her family to Sutton in 2004, according to her obituary.  She left behind two children, including a 1-week-old daughter and a 3-year-old son, records show.