Kidnapper pleads guilty
Toolbox
By Josh O'Gorman STAFF WRITER - Published: December 22, 2009
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – A Maine man whose guilty plea was overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court pleaded guilty again to a 1997 home invasion.
Stewart W. Jones Jr., 54, pleaded guilty Monday in White River Junction District Court to a felony charge of kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Under the plea agreement, Jones was sentenced to 10 to 24 years.
According to affidavits filed with the court on Feb. 11, 1997, Jones and Daniel Daigle, 35, of Manchester, N.H., entered the Royalton home of Warren and Catherine Williams. Jones and Daigle bound the Williamses, who were both 76 years old at the time of the crime, and stole about $25,000 in cash from them, records state.
The case went unsolved until a relative of Daigle's turned them in in 2005, but by that time the statute of limitations had run out for all charges except kidnapping. Daigle was initially charged with two counts of kidnapping, but later pleaded guilty to burglary and two counts of unlawful restraint and waived his right to claim the statute of limitation had run out for those charges.
Jones was sentenced to 18 to 22 years, but later filed a motion with Windsor County Superior Court alleging the plea agreement was void because the court did not have jurisdiction to waive the statute of limitations. The Superior Court agreed with Jones and vacated the plea agreement and the state Supreme Court affirmed the decision.
With no plea agreement in place, Jones once again faced two counts of kidnapping. The single kidnapping charge he pleaded to makes reference to both Warren and Catherine Williams.
The plea also leaves the door open for Jones to again appeal his case to the Supreme Court. Judge Theresa S. DiMauro had previously denied a motion by Jones that claims the evidence against him does not support a kidnapping charge because he did not transport his victims from their residence. Jones is free to appeal DiMauro's decision.
Warren Williams was in court Monday for the hearing.
"I wish my wife could have been here for this," said Williams, 88, whose wife died June 23. "We have five children, and whenever they leave, they always say, 'Be sure you lock the door.' We never had such a sense of being captives in our own home."
josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com
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