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The panel rejected second-degree murder and manslaughter charges and found Joseph Ferlazzo, 41, guilty of first degree murder, according to VTDigger.com.
The deliberations took about five hours, which including listening to a recording of Ferlazzo’s 50-minute testimony during the week-long trial. He was the only witness called by the defense.
Ferlazzo was arrested in October 2021, after his 22-year-old wife, Emily Ferlazzo, was reported missing. Emily’s dismembered remains were found in the couple’s camper four days after she was reported missing and after her tattoo-artist husband was arrested.
Prosecutors argued that Ferlazzo shot his wife during an argument in their camper just hours after they arrived in Vermont on October 15, 2021. He then spent days preparing a cover-up, they said. Defense attorneys argued that the shot his nurse wife in self-defense, although he made no such claim in a confession made on his arrest in 2021.
On the stand last week, he claimed that his wife pulled a handgun from behind a pillow while they argued and said, “That’s it. You’re dead,” so he shot her with a gun he already had in his hand.
He testified that he didn’t even remember talking to police four days after the murder so couldn’t explain why he didn’t think to claim self-defense at that time.
On cross-examination, he admitted that also didn’t think to call 911 after the shooting and instead sat with the body “before drinking more.”
A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. Ferlazzo faces 35 years to life, but Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said on Friday she hadn’t decided what to seek.
“There is a mandatory minimum of 35 years,” she said. “I think Mr. Ferlazzo taking the stand and saying the things that he did, attempting to blame Emily for this, will, in my mind, be an aggravating factor that would lead me to ask for more than a mandatory minimum.”
