RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

Charges weighed in killing

WEST RUTLAND — Vermont State Police are trying to determine whether the fatal shooting of a man on Smith Street Saturday night was a criminal act.

At around 9 p.m. Saturday, police were called to 76 Smith St., where they found Sean Grant, 36, shot to death in his first-floor living room, according to State Police Lt. Tim Oliver. Oliver, whose detectives worked with investigators from the Rutland County Sheriff's Department, said police have recovered a revolver they believe was used in the shooting.

Four other people were inside the white, two-story home at the time of the shooting including Grant's wife, Wendy Pelkey-Grant, her two children Alyssia Pelkey, 21, and Eric Hall, 18, as well as Alyssia Pelkey's boyfriend, Glen Rathjen, police said.

However, no one has been arrested in the case and, if the witnesses' claims that Pelkey-Grant shot her husband in defense of her children is confirmed, there might not be any charges in the case.

"We're definitely looking at self-defense," Oliver said early in the day.

Police said witnesses told police that during a heated argument with his step-daughter, Alyssia Pelkey, Grant left the room, returning with a revolver that he set on a table before continuing the debate.

During the exchange, Alyssia Pelkey's brother, Eric Hall, intervened on his sister's behalf.

Witnesses told police that Grant turned on Hall and grabbed him by the throat. As Hall, Alyssia Pelkey and Rathjen said they struggled with Grant, Pelkey-Grant told police she picked up the handgun and shot her husband once in the hand and twice in the chest.

Pelkey-Grant told police that she was in fear for her children's safety and only wanted to stop Grant when she acted.

Witnesses also told police that Grant was drunk at the time of the shooting.

While the investigators with the Vermont Forensic Laboratory worked Sunday to piece together what took place, Grant's sister, Jennifer Cavacas of Rutland, said she didn't buy one word of the self-defense claim.

"I don't believe it," she said. "He could be bossy and lippy when he was drunk, but he cared so much about her and the kids .… It's a slap in the face to say it was self-defense. They fought, but he never touched her."

Cavacas described her brother as depressed and an alcoholic, but never violent. She said her brother and his wife fought often and had occasionally separated since their marriage five years ago.

But, she said, Grant loved Pelkey-Grant so much that he slept in the basement at her request during a rough patch in their marriage.

Moreover, she said, the account that Pelkey-Grant and the other witnesses gave to police didn't add up. She wondered why the four people in the house didn't try to restrain Grant before turning a gun on him. She wondered why her brother would fetch a gun during an argument only to leave it on a table. And she wondered why no one in the house called police until after her brother had been shot.

Asked those questions, Oliver said, police are in the process of searching for the answers.

"Those are all valid points," he said. "It's all stuff that I plan to talk to the state's attorney about tomorrow. Right now, we've heard a lot from Wendy's supporters, but there's been no one with the decedent's interests at heart talking to us so far."

He said his detectives were prepared to conduct a methodical investigation to determine what happened.

Oliver said police are interested in hearing from anyone with information about events that took place among the family members during the 24 hours before the shooting.

While Oliver acknowledged that police have been called to the house in the past, he said he couldn't talk about the reasons for the calls.

Police spent most of the night Saturday fencing the house with yellow police tape and talking with family members, some of whom were visibly emotional during the interviews.

On Sunday, forensic teams collected evidence to recreate the events of the shooting.

Curious neighbors watched from their lawns, but not even those living next door seemed to know much about the family that has lived on the quiet downtown street for more than five years.

"This is what this street is usually like," said one woman who was rounding up more than a half-dozen neighborhood children for a trip to the park. "We know the son (Eric) a little bit, but no one else there. I'm not sure if anyone on the street knows them well."

Another woman who said she was friends of Wendy Pelkey-Grant and her children said neither she nor several other friends of the family wanted to talk about what had happened or the family's life leading up to the shooting.

Contact Brent Curtis at brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com.