Updated at 11:11 p.m.
The man accused of slashing a construction worker with broken shards of glass on Interstate 91 in Rockingham this week has been cleared of all charges after video surveillance showed him in a different location at the time of the attack.
Vermont State Police had arrested Ryan Avery, 45, who has no fixed address, on Wednesday night, after a daylong search for a suspect who attacked the worker that morning.
But on Thursday, Windham Deputy State’s Attorney Steven Brown held off on filing an aggravated assault charge against Avery after learning about information that was “exculpatory in nature,” he said during a hearing in court.
Late on Friday afternoon, Vermont State Police said in a press release that their investigators “were able to determine conclusively that (Avery) was at another location when the incident occurred.”
State police spokesperson Adam Silverman said in an email that Avery was recorded elsewhere on surveillance video. Silverman did not immediately respond to a follow-up question about where the video was recorded.
Avery had been held since Wednesday night and was charged with assault on an officer after police claimed he charged at a trooper when they tried to transport him from the Westminster barracks to the Springfield prison.
That charge was also dismissed, police said. Avery was not listed as incarcerated by the Department of Corrections as of Friday evening.
Rick Ammons, a public defender representing Avery, said in an email Friday night that his client “was not anywhere near the site of the attack on the construction worker” on Wednesday morning.
“And he decidedly had a defense regarding the incident at the Westminster barracks after he had been arrested on the earlier incident,” Ammons said. He did not elaborate.
Police on Wednesday had warned the public that a “dangerous” suspect was on the loose. The investigation into the attack is ongoing, police said on Friday.
Brown could not immediately be reached late Friday for comment.
Authorities appear to have started zeroing in on Avery when a social worker embedded with the state police talked to members of the Bellows Falls Police Department and other mental health workers in an effort to identify possible suspects, according to information in an affidavit by Trooper Nathan Greco.
Christine Bullard, who works in the Westminster Barracks, sought information about people experiencing homelessness who matched a physical description provided by the victim, 24-year-old Ramiro Muro, of North Carolina, according to the affidavit. Bullard received three names, including Avery’s.
While the other two men were described as nonviolent, the affidavit stated, Bullard “was advised that Avery has an extensive criminal history and is Violent and unstable.”
Muro was then shown a line-up of eight photos and selected a recent picture of Avery, according to the affidavit.
Questioned Thursday about Bullard’s role in the case, Silverman said Vermont State Police “believes that this involvement by the mental health case worker was appropriate, and in line with best practices to protect the individual’s safety and the public’s at all times.”
“VSP’s embedded case worker passed this information along to investigators in order to assist in potentially identifying and locating a person who might have been in crisis and also potentially represented a threat to public safety,” Silverman wrote.
He said Bullard was attending an unrelated meeting with the Bellows Falls Police Department at the time she became aware of the attack. Bellows Falls police were aware of Avery following his recent arrest by that agency on a charge of aggravated disorderly conduct, Silverman said.
Bullard did not at any point access or share information from “confidential or protected sources,” he added.
Ammons, the attorney representing Avery, said in court Thursday that his client was “astonished” to be accused of the attack, which he “wholeheartedly refuted.”
Muro, who was working for a construction company and was in the woods urinating at the time he was attacked Wednesday morning, was treated at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital for his injuries and later released.
Correction: Earlier versions of this story misidentified the agency that arrested Avery and gave an incorrect date for the attack in one instance.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Police arrested wrong man in I-91 construction worker attack.