— By Eric Francis

2/28/25

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION - A homeless man was found dead in a snowy campsite a stone’s throw from downtown White River Junction early Thursday evening after friends noticed he hadn’t been seen for at least 24 hours and asked authorities to check on him.

The identity of the man, who is believed to be in his mid-50s, was being withheld overnight pending notification of next of kin and an autopsy that is scheduled to be carried out Friday at Vermont’s Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington.

Hartford’s emergency services were notified shortly before 7 p.m. that a man might be in distress underneath the Urban Bridge, which spans the White River between the Bugbee Senior Center and the Coop food store.

Arriving firefighters hiked just a few yards into the woods from the large parking lot that sits behind Five Seasons Cannabis and located the man’s body lying at the base of an embankment that leads up to the railroad tracks near a tent where he had apparently been camping in recent days.

Hartford Police Officer Simon Keeling strung crime scene tape up across the path leading to the encampment underneath the Urban Bridge on the end near the Bugbee Senior Center. All photos by Eric Francis.

Hartford Police Officer Simon Keeling strung crime scene tape up across the path leading to the encampment underneath the Urban Bridge on the end near the Bugbee Senior Center. All photos by Eric Francis.

Ben Harper, a life-long resident of Hartford who is also homeless, said he called police to check on the man: “I was worried about him. I didn’t see him anywhere and wanted to know what happened.  I last saw him two days ago here (at the downtown encampment) and I normally see him once a day.”

Harper said the man had lived under the bridge for weeks at time this summer but had moved to an abandoned house in Wilder in recent months before it was condemned by authorities.

“He’s been bouncing around but I saw him here two days ago when I was moving out to another house.  I told him that my tent was here and I wasn’t going to move it and there was a stove in there and to go ahead and use it,” Harper recalled, adding that the man had a history of heart disease and other related medical complications.

An abandoned walker stood near the entrance to the path leading to where a handful of tents remained this winter.

An abandoned walker stood near the entrance to the path leading to where a handful of tents remained this winter.

The encampment underneath the Urban Bridge has been a feature of downtown White River Junction for a decade now, with another resident dying there of an overdose eight years ago and a pair of non-fatal overdoses taking place there in December.  Efforts by the town to clear out the encampment at the beginning of this year were somewhat successful, with several small shack-like structures having been removed, but at least two couples have been camping there in recent weeks.

Late Thursday evening, after a medical examiner travelled down from Barre to survey the scene before ordering the body removed to Burlington for examination, Hartford Police Sgt. William Furnari said that, unless something unusual were to turn up at the autopsy, “I don’t anticipate this coming to anything criminal. There’s no indication of foul play.”