Career criminal denies killing friend while on the run from police
By Mike Donoghue | Vermont News FirstHYDE PARK – A dangerous career criminal has pleaded not guilty in state court to a charge of second-degree murder in the brutal Lamoille County killing of his longtime friend and frequent intimate partner, court records show.
Theodore "Teddy" Farnham, Vermont State Police photo
Theodore “Teddy” Farnham, 54, of Waterbury is being held without bail at the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury. Court records also list a Woodbury address for Farnham.
Farnham is charged with the strangulation death of Richard Cote, 76, at his Morristown residence the night of July 23-24, according to Vermont Superior Court records. The home is attached to Cote’s auto repair shop and bus/limo service.
Morristown Police said they responded to the home and business at 813 Elmore Road the morning of July 24 for a welfare check when an employee, Kevin Mayo, arrived for work at 6:30 a.m. and could not enter the locked shop or locate Cote for about 90 minutes. He initially called the bookkeeper and the victim's brother, who both agreed it was unlike the owner to be out of touch. They could not reach him and Mayo finally called police at 7:55 a.m.
Morristown Police Chief Jason Luneau and Officer Lance Lamb eventually had to use a crowbar to force entry into Cote's upstairs residence. They found Cote dead on his bedroom floor, naked with multiple injuries to his face, neck and head at 9:02 a.m., police said.
An autopsy showed he died from asphyxia due to compression of the neck with possible smothering, according to Dr. Kathleen McCubbin, a deputy chief medical examiner. She also reported she found blunt trauma to the head, neck, torso and extremities.
“The amount of damage to Cote's nobody is indicative of an emotionally charged assault. The death of Cote was without question violent,” Detective Lt. Todd Baxter said in a court affidavit. Red-brown stains were located on the bed and the victim's body, he said.
Farnham and Cote had lived together off-and-on over the past decade and Farnham said he had been involved with Cote for about 30 years, Baxter wrote in his statement to the court.
Farnham told Chief Luneau, “If Richard had it his way we'd be married,” the affidavit said. Farnham said Cote pushed him for a relationship, including as recently as three weeks earlier, Baxter said in the 43½ page affidavit. Farnham also made clear he did not like the sexual advances, Baxter pointed out.
“Not once in any of the interviews or conversations with Teddy did he say he enjoyed the intimate/relationship side of Cote. Teddy spoke the opposite,” Baxter's affidavit noted. “Teddy's frustration with Cote is clear.”
Family, friends and employees knew about the relationship and also that Farnham would steal from Cote, Baxter also said.
Career criminal
It is unclear why Farnham was not behind bars as an ongoing habitual offender before the killing was reported. Public records show that Farnham has had 533 incidents or contacts with law enforcement in Vermont in his life.
Police have arrested Farnham on 19 felony charges, and he was convicted on 11 of them, records show. The records also show that Farnham has faced 101 misdemeanor charges resulting in 67 convictions; 17 additional crimes involved assaults, including 12 with convictions. Farnham’s record also has 24 cases of failure to appear for court and another 25 violations of court orders, including 13 with convictions.
When arrested on the Morristown homicide charge, Farnham was wanted for failing to appear in court in Lamoille County on two counts of petty larceny and two counts of unlawful trespass. A judge had pre-set bail at $200 if Farnham was caught.
Farnham also has an Aug. 22 appearance scheduled in criminal court in Washington County in connection with a recent incident in Waterbury. Vermont State Police said they responded to a complaint of two people using a ladder to attempt to break into a residence around 9:50 p.m. on July 4. They said Farnham was found inside the residence on U.S. 2 located between Farr’s Field and Parro's Gun Shop and Indoor Range. Farnham was cited for unlawful trespass, Trooper David Lambert said.
Morristown Police said Vermont State Police came across Farnham late Thursday afternoon, Aug. 1, again at the Waterbury site, which police said is a known drug house. State police arrested Farnham on the warrant and then brought him to Morristown and turned him over to Baxter, police said. Farnham was jailed pending his arraignment and Judge Daniel Richardson found probable cause overnight for the homicide case, records show.
A video arraignment was conducted on Friday afternoon, Aug. 2, by Judge Alison Arms, who was sitting in Franklin County. Farnham appeared by video conference from the prison. Arms agreed with a request by Lamoille County State's Attorney Aliena Gerhard that Farnham be held without bail. Arms also ordered Farnham to have no contact by phone, in writing, through social media, or other communications with three witnesses: Edward Cote, the victim's brother, and Kevin Mayo and Lisa Mandigo, two employees of the victim.
Public Defender Kurt Williams argued that there was not enough detail in the probable cause court affidavit to justify the charge against Farnham. However, Gerhard said she had just received lab tests that further linked Farnham through DNA to Cote. Williams, a former Caledonia County prosecutor, subsequently withdrew the objection.
The investigation
As Morristown Police began to unravel the case, they checked for Cote's cell phone, wallet, credit cards and money clip, Baxter said.
Investigation revealed that one credit card had been used in Hardwick at about 9:18 a.m., about an hour after the body was discovered. A cell phone trace also showed it was not at the crime scene, Baxter said.
Due to the fatal injuries, a missing red Ford truck that Cote used, the victim's cell phone missing, and the recently used credit card, police decided to back away from the residence and summoned help from the Vermont State Police Major Crime Squad and the State's Crime Scene Search Team to process the site. Baxter was a former supervisor on the Major Crime Squad when he retired from Vermont State Police.
Morristown Detective Chris Tetreault as part of the investigation learned Cote would hang out with Farnham and another acquaintance, both known to be illicit drug users.
Farnham eventually told police that he went to see Cote to try to get money on the night of July 23 because he was broke at the end of the month, Baxter said in his court affidavit. Farnham said he went there to get a few dollars by allowing Cote to perform a sex act on him, Baxter said. Farnham said he left after Cote paid him $20. Farnham insisted Cote was alive when he left, court records show.
The evidence shows otherwise, Baxter said.
Farnham had arrived at Cote's by bicycle, which police found at the scene. Missing from Cote’s home were his cell phone, multiple credit cards, and money, police said. Evidence shows the cell phone had been at Cote's residence from shortly after 9 p.m. on July 23 until about 2 a.m. on July 24 when it was discarded on a back road in Morristown. The back road would have been on the route Farnham reportedly took to drive to Maplefields in Waterbury at about 2:30 a.m. on July 24.
By coincidence, Baxter happened to be at the Maplefields in Waterbury at the same time as part of an unrelated police investigation. He said he saw Farnham driving a red Ford truck with no registration plates. Baxter said he took a picture of the truck and asked the Lamoille County Sheriff's Office to check for warrants and license information for Farnham. They reported no warrants and that Farnham’s driver's license was suspended, Baxter said.
Baxter tried to get a Vermont state trooper in a marked police cruiser to intercept Farnham, but he said the closest one was tied up.
Later in the day on July 24, Hardwick Police Chief Mike Henry spotted Farnham in a 2007 red Ford F-150 single-cab truck in Hardwick. Baxter and Chief Luneau caught up with Farnham and at 12:10 p.m. began an approximate 50-minute interview with Farnham in the driveway of his daughter Asia Farnham’s home in Hardwick.
Farnham was in the same red truck that police saw him driving in Waterbury and Hardwick. It now had a Vermont registration plate, but a check showed it was old and not in the files of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, Baxter said.
The interview was designed to get a preliminary statement from Farnham that would be used to compare against the evidence as it was collected in the case. Farnham maintained he had done nothing wrong other than driving while his license was suspended. He claimed Cote was alive when he left the residence, Baxter said.
Farnham said his travels that day were mostly to visit his children. In addition to his daughter, Farnham said he had seen his son Gabriel in Calais. Farnham also told police that Cote was involved in other relationships with men, but he did not name other individuals, police said.
The investigation also showed that Farnham had gone on a shopping spree with Cote's credit cards by ringing up more than $1,200 in charges by 11:30 a.m. on July 24, the day the body was found, Baxter said. It included $273 at Champlain Farms in South Burlington and $291 in a pair of purchases at Walmart in Williston. By 9 a.m. he was in Hardwick ringing up almost $500 in charges between M&M Beverage, the Hardwick Kwik Stop, the Tops Market, Dollar General and again at M&M Beverage over 2 ½ hours, Baxter said.
As the investigation unfolded, Luneau and Baxter re-interviewed Farnham on July 26 in Waterbury at a park picnic table near the Waterbury train station. Farnham admitted he left Cote's during the early morning hours after taking a shower there because he was dirty, Baxter said. Farnham also repeated his claim that when he left Cote's home on the night of July 23-24, Cote was fine, Baxter said.
Farnham said he was broke, so on July 23 when Cote arrived home from his job driving a bus, Farnham told Baxter that he hoped to get some money from Cote.
Farnham recounted that Cote asked him if he wanted to “do something.” They went inside and “did something, he gave me keys to the truck and I left,” Baxter quoted Farnham as stating. The earlier statement explained the sex act, records show.
“You will find I did nothing wrong,” Farnham reportedly told Baxter, the court affidavit states.
Collecting evidence
Meanwhile, the investigation was taking shape.
Police knew Cote had driven a busload of people for National Life on the night of July 23 from Montpelier to Stowe and returned to the Capital City by about 9 p.m., Baxter said. He was due back in Morristown at about 9:45 p.m., which was about the time Farnham said he met him.
State Police Detective Sgt. James Vooris of the Major Crime Squad used Verizon records from July 24 to eventually trace Cote's missing cell phone to the area of 1108 Elmore Mountain Road.
Baxter describes in his affidavit how a team of investigators then combed the area to look for the phone. One of the searchers, retired Stowe Police Sgt. Chris Rogers, using a metal detector located the cell phone about 6 p.m. on July 24 off the side of the road, Baxter said. About an hour later, State Fish and Wildlife Warden Ethan Coffey found a car key and fob about two feet off the highway and hanging from some vegetation, Baxter said. The key was later matched to a Ford Aerostar van parked at Cote's auto repair business, he said.
As part of the investigation, Judge Mary Morrissey approved a search warrant for Cote’s property to allow police to go back in and collect evidence that could be used in a prosecution. In addition to the initial discovery of Cote's body, investigators say they retrieved some DNA evidence, blood, clothing, bedding, towels and medications, Baxter wrote. They also took video and still photographs of the scene, he noted.