A Life Lost in Woodbury: Is Vermont's Justice System Failing Its Most Vulnerable?
The Vermont justice system has become a one-size-fits-all model. It offers a path of restoration that works for those who are ready to take it. But it has no effective answer for those who are not.
The discovery of a woman’s body off the side of Route 14 in this small Washington County town did more than just shatter the late-spring peace. The death of Tina Daigle, a 38-year-old mother from Hardwick, ruled a homicide by the state’s medical examiner, has uncorked a torrent of fear, fury, and frustration that is boiling over in communities across Vermont.
While the Vermont State Police investigation remains officially open with no arrests made, for many who knew Daigle, there is no mystery. There is only the maddening, agonizing wait for an arrest they believe is long overdue.
“He’s Going to Kill Someone”
On local social media forums, a parallel investigation of public opinion is well underway. The comments, raw and unfiltered, paint a grim picture that authorities have yet to confirm, but one that resonates with a growing number of Vermonters. Friends and acquaintances allege Daigle was the victim of a man with a known history of violence, particularly against women.
“They know who did it everyone does,” one person wrote, capturing the collective sentiment. “the lack of arrest is outrageous.”
Another commenter, claiming to have spoken with Daigle shortly before her death, described the alleged perpetrator as a “master manipulator and a habitual liar,” adding, “he has a record of strangling woman and it was said one of these days he's going to kill someone.”
The online conversation is a litany of helplessness and rage at a system they feel abandoned them. They speak of a suspect who was recently released from jail, of stolen guns, of ignored warnings, and of a man so brazen he was allegedly seen near the spot where Daigle’s body was found after the fact.
“What’s the hold up?” a user demanded to know.
It is the question echoing across the state. And the answer, it appears, lies not just in the details of this one tragic case, but in the fundamental architecture of Vermont’s criminal justice philosophy—a system whose laudable successes are being dangerously undermined by its epic failures.
The Revolving Door Made Real
The story being told by Tina Daigle’s friends is the story of Vermont’s “revolving door” made horrifyingly real. It is the story of a system that, according to the state’s own data, is failing catastrophically to handle the exact type of individual they describe.
Vermont has rightly earned a national reputation as a leader in justice reform. Our state has embraced restorative justice, a philosophy codified in state law that prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment. The goal is to repair harm and reduce the risk of future crime. And for many, it works. Specialized programs for inmates show recidivism rates as low as 23%, and first-time offenders who enter the state’s flagship Court Diversion program have a stunning 95% success rate.
These are the numbers state officials point to with pride. But there is another number they speak of less often.
It Simply Doesn’t Work with Habitual Offenders
A 2019 analysis of the very same Court Diversion program revealed a catastrophic failure rate for a specific group of offenders: those who enter the program who already have a prior criminal history. For this group, the recidivism rate—the rate of re-offense—is an almost unbelievable 89.69%.
Read that again. For nearly nine out of ten criminals with a prior record who are sent to diversion, the program does not work. This single, devastating statistic provides the data-driven backbone to the public’s perception of a “catch and release” system. It demonstrates that the state’s primary alternative to jail is, for a predictable cohort of habitual offenders, a near-certain failure.
It is a policy that, in effect, releases individuals with a known propensity for crime back into our communities with little more than a hope and a prayer, leaving their future victims—women like Tina Daigle—to pay the price for the system’s inability to confront its own shortcomings.
A System on the Brink
The community’s cry of “What’s the hold up?” deserves a real answer. While the specifics of the Woodbury investigation are known only to law enforcement, the delay is symptomatic of a system stretched to its breaking point.
Vermont is in the midst of a severe and worsening law enforcement staffing crisis. From the State Police to local departments, agencies are operating with skeleton crews, hemorrhaging experienced officers and struggling to recruit new ones. This “thinning blue line” means fewer officers are available to proactively patrol our communities and, crucially, to conduct the kind of complex, time-consuming investigations that homicides and other serious crimes demand.
At the same time, two committee leader drove out a workforce that could have made a difference.
Compounding this crisis is the reality that our police have become the de facto first responders to a public health emergency of addiction and mental illness. A staggering portion of police time is spent dealing with non-criminal crisis calls, leaving critically few resources to investigate the property and quality-of-life crimes that erode our sense of security.
The frustration of those who say they’ve already provided statements to police with no result is understandable. But they are shouting into a system that is understaffed, overwhelmed, and struggling to perform its most basic functions.
The Courage to See What’s Broken
The tragedy in Woodbury forces Vermont to confront an uncomfortable truth. Vermont’s commitment to restorative justice is a noble experiment, but an experiment is only useful if you are willing to acknowledge the results—both the good and the bad.
The Vermont system has become a one-size-fits-all model. It offers a path of restoration that works for those who are ready and willing to take it. But it appears to have no effective answer for those who are not. There is no “third track”—no high-intensity, mandatory, and structured intervention for the habitual offender who is too high-risk for diversion but for whom a long prison sentence may seem, to our prosecutors, a step too far.
Into this gap falls people like Tina Daigle.
Her death cannot be just another statistic used to calculate a statewide crime rate. It must be a catalyst. It is time for an honest, statewide conversation about the individuals our system is failing to contain. It is time for our leaders—from the Governor’s office to the Attorney General to Vermont’s local State’s Attorneys—to stop defending the system with broad platitudes and start addressing the specific, deadly failures that cases like this one lay bare.
The anger, fear, and grief pouring out of the Woodbury community is a vote of no confidence. It is a plea from Vermonters who believe the system left a vulnerable woman unprotected from a predictable threat. For Tina, and for the next person at risk, we must find the courage to admit what is broken, and build a system that protects its citizens as fiercely as it seeks to restore them.