A Peacham shooting has left two men dead in Vermont in confusing circumstances — one of them a former elementary school principal.
According to a local news station WCAX, the confused scene unfolded slowly on Wednesday after Jeannie Peabody called 911 from a neighbor’s house to report that a white van had pulled up in from of her home around 7 AM.
Her husband, 50-year-old Mark Peabody, went outside to meet the van. She heard gunshots , ducked into the basement, and then slipped out to make her escape to the neighbor’s home.
Authorities responded to the Peacham shooting with a SWAT team, a low-flying helicopter, and even a bomb squad that checked out a suspicious package in the van.
Mark Peabody was found shot dead on the lawn outside his home. State and local police also discovered John Jackson, 59, inside the house. He too had been shot dead.
Investigators quickly ascertained that Jackson was Jeannie Peabody’s ex-husband. The affluent former principal of Peacham Elementary School now lives in Amherst, New Hampshire, but the divorced couple was apparently embroiled in an ongoing dispute.
Vermont State Police Lt. Bob Cushing explained:
“Through the course of the investigation, it was learned that Ms. Peabody had an ongoing disagreement with her ex-husband, identified as John Jackson, age 59, of New Hampshire…Mrs. Peabody was having disagreements with her ex-husband over child-support payments.”
Autopsies will be performed on the bodies, and Vermont State Police sent an investigator to New Hampshire to get more information.
However, an initial report in Boston.com described the scene as a probable murder-suicide. Jackson apparently drove to the Peabody home, lured Mark Peabody outside, and shot him.
After entering the house, he then shot himself.
If Jeannie Peabody had not escaped, she too might have been a third victim of the tragic Peacham shooting.
[Image by Kanea via Shutterstock ]