Quechee woman, with one more errand to run, died as friend waited
Toolbox
By MARK DAVIS VALLEY NEWS - Published: January 1, 2010
QUECHEE — Lyndsy Jelly told her girlfriend not to bother with the shopping trip on Tuesday evening, but Dyann Dundulis had made up her mind. She wanted to buy a computer component for Jelly so they could communicate online while they would be apart this weekend.
As the evening wore on, Dundulis was late in returning from West Lebanon. Jelly called her cell phone. No answer. She called again, but was soon distracted by police car lights radiant in the dark woods, just yards from her home.
"I was so afraid," Jelly said in an interview Wednesday. "I had this nervous feeling."
She braced for the cold and walked the icy road toward the lights and the policemen. After a few steps, she saw her girlfriend's car, on its side, in the trees.
Dundulis, 44, was only a few seconds from home when her 1999 Chevrolet Lumina slid across Lyman Batcheller Road, rolled onto the driver's side, skidded off the road and slammed into a large tree, Hartford Police said, killing her instantly.
Dundulis was not wearing a seat belt and had to be extricated from the vehicle by Hartford firefighters. She was unconscious at the scene and pronounced dead at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, police said. She was to have spent the weekend visiting family in Massachusetts.
Police say excessive speed may have been a factor in the accident, but the investigation is ongoing. Hartford Police Chief Glenn Cutting said that investigators are awaiting results of an autopsy and toxicology report.
Lyman Batcheller Road, a curvy residential road just above Quechee Main Street, was icy Tuesday evening, police said, although it is unclear if the road conditions directly contributed to the accident.
Dundulis grew up in Massachusetts and Florida, Jelly said. She worked for several years as an EMT in Boston, but the emotional strain of the job became too much.
"I can't do it anymore," Jelly recalled Dundulis' saying. "It's breaking my heart."
She made a career change, and went to work as a cook in a Portsmouth, N.H., restaurant. But Dundulis didn't stay there for long.
In Portsmouth, she met Jelly on an Internet dating site. They hit if off, and before long, Dundulis moved into Jelly's Quechee home. They wrote poems for each other.
Last summer, Dundulis got a job at Shepard's Pie on the Green in Quechee, a deli about a mile from her home.
Deli owner Susan Shepard hired Dundulis primarily to work as a cook. But Dundulis grew fond of interacting with customers at the cash register and on the floor. "She was really coming out of her shell," Shepard said. "She was excited. She said, 'I think I found my new calling.' She was really getting out there and meeting people and getting very talkative. She was becoming part of our family."
While she was growing comfortable with her latest job, Dundulis was apparently mulling still another career change.
She talked in recent weeks of learning to landscape, Jelly said. Police found a few items in her pants pocket when she died, including a business card from a landscape architect, said Jelly.
She had lined up a job interview.
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