Chapter 4: Connie & Sam

Sounds kind of Tolkien-esque, doesn't it? No king, though, and no castle either.

Just three counties stacked in the far corner of the state.

Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia.

Roughly 63,000 people spread across 2,000 square miles, which is about a fifth of Vermont and almost none of its population.

55 towns and just one proper city within its confines.

remote, heavily wooded, and for all intents and purposes, off the grid.

It's the kind of place where people go specifically because they don't want to be found, which makes it a natural magnet for preppers, tax evaders, and as you'll come to see, other types of fringe figures.

The name goes back to 1949, when George Aiken, a former governor and, by then, a U.S. senator, was speaking at an inn in Lindenville and, by most accounts, came up with it on the spot.

The name stuck, though locals mostly just call it the Kingdom these days.

Aiken himself later griped that if the state didn't get around to fixing the roads and railway up there,

they

might as well rename it the Forgotten Kingdom.

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.

The second was Felix Buchholt, a 28-year-old German national who went by Ophelia.

Now, if you're trying to fly under the radar in rural Vermont of all places, wearing head-to-toe tactical gear, body armor, and openly carrying a sidearm around a motel is maybe not the most tactical play.

Anyway, a worker at a motel in Lindenville spotted the duo playing dress-up and promptly called the police.

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.

Six days later, and about two hours before the incident at the heart of today's story, investigators watch Bockholt walk out of a Walmart in Newport, Vermont, carrying two packages of aluminum foil.

She got into the passenger seat of a blue Toyota Prius and began carefully wrapping some objects that weren't easily identifiable from outside the vehicle.