Newport

Hello, Anthony.

And Rick Ufford-Chase, he's the mayor of Newport, Vermont, with about 4,000 residents, less than 10 miles from the Quebec border.

Uh, Mayor Ufford-Chase, welcome to On Point.

Hello, Anthony.

Well, these communities have been intimately tied together for many generations.

The family ties here are very strong, and we share a lake which has bound these two communities tightly together for many, many decades.

It starts here in Newport and finishes, uh, just north of where Mayor Stone is in, uh, Magog, Quebec.

And I love the name, by the way, Lake Memphremagog.

Which gives you a sense of the place.

The kingdom runs from the Connecticut River to the Canadian border, and Newport, that lone city, sits practically on the line.

Everything in today's story happens inside it.

The motel in Lintonville, the Walmart in Newport, and a stretch of Interstate 91 outside a town called Coventry.

For about a week before things went sideways, federal agents had been keeping a close eye on two individuals operating in the area.

The first was 21-year-old Theresa Youngblood, who went by Milo.

On January 14th, investigators from the Vermont State Police and Homeland Security tried making conversation with them.

Milo and Ophelia offered brief pleasantries, claimed they were just in town looking to purchase property, and promptly checked out of the motel that they'd been staying at.

Uh, i- interestingly, our northwest facility in Swanton, Vermont, is actually our best staffed in part because of New York closures and the movement of people, uh, across the lake.

It's a heck of a lot harder to leave a facility in New York or still live in New York and commute to, say, Newport, Vermont, and our northern state facility where staffing is really, i- is really challenged.

Uh, you know, we have...

Uh, I have a terrific chief of operations, Matt Nault, who, uh, oversees our facilities, along with the director of facilities, Aimee Jacobs, and they are working routinely on, on how to address these kinds of situations.

Yeah

... and create an environment where people want to work.

I urge people who are looking for a career to think about a career in corrections, and if you're in the area of Newport or in that zone, think about a career there.

It's a terrific place to work.