White River Junction — After deliberating for more than 10 hours, a jury on Thursday night found Emily Perkins guilty of voluntary manslaughter and attempted second-degree murder in the 2011 shootings of Scott Hill and Emma Jozefiak.

Perkins held her hand to her mouth while the jury foreman returned two consecutive guilty verdicts around 9:30 p.m. The 29-year-old shook and sobbed quietly from the defense table while her parents sat motionless in the gallery behind her.

Lead prosecutor Christopher Moll said he was pleased with the verdict the jurors returned.

“They looked at a substantial amount of evidence that required a lot of sifting through to get to the points they were looking for,” Moll said. “I think they devoted the time they needed to get to that. We think the verdict is fair and well-considered.”

Windsor Superior Court Judge Theresa DiMauro ordered Perkins held without bail immediately following the verdict. The mother of two faces a sentence of up to life in prison. When the proceedings ended, Perkins slowly rose from her chair at a bailiff’s request and walked unhurried alongside him to a back door without looking back at the courtroom.

Jozefiak, her mother, Cyndi Belouin, and Scott Hill’s son Josh Hill were among the dozen or so people seated in the gallery behind the prosecution table. There were audible gasps when Perkins exited the room.

When the trial adjourned, Jozefiak, who still has a bullet lodged in her brain, cried as she hugged those around her. Afterward, the 23-year-old took a lengthy pause when asked to describe her state of mind.

“Happy!” she blurted out with a smile and laugh.

For her mother, the words came much easier.

“Relief!” she said beaming.

“It is finally over,” Belouin said. “It’s been a long haul, but thank goodness that there is justice. It’s the outcome we hoped for.”

With tears in his eyes, Josh Hill concurred.

“Finally,” Hill said. “It’s been a long 5 years.”

On Nov. 11, 2011, Hill was found shot to death on the floor of his Bethel trailer next to Jozefiak, who was clinging to life after suffering multiple gunshot wounds.

The two were shot three days earlier by Perkins during a drug deal involving a gun as collateral, a scenario prosecutors laid out in painstaking detail for the jury over the 11-day trial.

Defense attorneys gave jurors a much different version of events, claiming Perkins’ late husband, Michael, motivated by jealousy, killed Hill and inadvertently wounded Jozefiak, and that Emily Perkins lied to police about her involvement to protect her husband, who died of cancer two years ago.

Lead defense attorney Devin McLaughlin said he felt jurors had made an error in judgment.

“We are extremely disappointed in the verdict,” McLaughlin said. “I don’t think the state proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

As he carried bins containing file folders toward the exit door of the courthouse, McLaughlin said it was too soon to know if Perkins would appeal.

McLaughlin’s co-council Lisa Shelkrot shared a hug with Perkins’ mother, Peggy Ainsworth, before quickly leaving the courtroom.

Following the verdict, Moll asked DiMauro to hold Perkins without bail pending the pre-sentencing investigation report that will be compiled over the next several weeks.

McLaughlin urged her to allow Perkins to remain free on bail.

The judge sided with Moll.

“The presumption of innocence has now evaporated,” DiMauro said.

DiMauro also noted that Perkins violated her conditions of release several times throughout the lengthy pre-trial process.

A sentencing hearing will be held when the report is completed, a process that could take about two months, attorneys said.

The jury of eight men and four women began deliberating behind closed doors about 10:30 a.m. and only emerged from their assembly space once throughout the day.

Jurors entered the courtroom around 2:15 p.m. to re-listen to five witnesses’ testimony, including three people who were at Hill’s trailer on the morning of the shooting, Jesse Durkee, Beverly Moses and Krystle Clarke.

Jurors listened to the tapes for about 90 minutes before returning to their deliberation room, where they stayed for lunch and dinner.

Earlier Thursday morning, DiMauro instructed jurors on the elements of each charge that must be proven in order to find Perkins guilty of the charged crimes.

Prosecutors charged Perkins with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. DiMauro told jurors if they couldn’t find Perkins guilty of either of those charges, they could consider lesser charges.

The jury foreman said jurors were “unable to agree” on a verdict for second-degree murder, so they considered the lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter.

By finding Perkins guilty of voluntary manslaughter, the jurors found Perkins caused the death of Hill unlawfully, that she acted with the intent to killor do great bodily harm and did so with wanted disregard that death or injury could occur, and was provoked at the time of the shooting.

To find her guilty of second-degree murder, the jury would have had to find she wasn’t provoked at the time of the shooting.

By finding Perkins guilty of attempted second-degree murder, jurors found that Perkins attempted and intended to kill Jozefiak.

More than a dozen family members of the shooter and the victims went in and out of the courthouse from dawn to dusk while awaiting a verdict on Thursday.

Among those waiting was Hill’s son, Josh, who attended the trial every chance he could get.

The 25-year-old said his father, who has been characterized as a drug dealer throughout the trial, was much more than that.

“Everybody has their issues,” Josh Hill said. “For the most part, he was a great guy.”

Scott Hill had a rough life growing up; he never met his father and his mother died at a young age, the younger Hill said. He grew up under his grandfather’s care, “but pretty much brought himself up.”

After attending Whitcomb High School, Scott Hill did well for himself, eventually moving in the early-1990s to Florida with Josh, who was just a baby at the time. There, he started his own tree business. While the business thrived in the Sunshine State for a few years, when he tried to bring it back to Bethel, it failed.

Josh Hill acknowledged his father’s demons, saying he used drugs, struggled with alcohol and spent some time in jail. But he sobered up in stints, bought the Bethel trailer and worked for GW Plastics in Bethel in a janitorial job he held for nearly a decade, his son said.

There was a time when the Hills took frequent trips to a rehabilitation facility, where the elder would speak to recovering addicts and DJ dances. Josh Hill remembered his dad as a good fisherman and a man who loved his grandchildren.

“A lot of people would tell you he did nothing but help them,” Hill said.

The younger Hill didn’t recognize the “drug dealer” version of his father, whom he had lived with in the Bethel trailer beginning when he was 10.

“He was clean,” Josh Hill said. “He didn’t drink, do drugs, the entire time I was with him.”

Things wouldn’t stay that way, though.

In the spring of 2011, money was tight for Scott Hill; he was on disability and a lingering back issue forced him out of work, his son said, “and it led on.”

Scott Hill was shot that fall, while Josh was in his cell at Northeast State Correction Facility in Newport, Vt., for assault and other convictions.

Father and son had plans to move away when he got out.

“It was only me and him throughout our whole lives,” Hill said through tears.

Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.

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Earlier:

— Jury Hears Closing Arguments in Perkins Trial

— Perkins Takes the Stand

— Perkins’ Mom Testifies 
In Bethel Murder Trial

— Perkins Trial Focuses on Letter

— In Same-Day Interviews, Perkins Gives Conflicting Accounts

— Prosecution Targets Perkins’ Conflicting Accounts

— Perkins Trial: Victim’s Mother Testifies

— Bethel Murder Weapon Was Found in Defendant’s Home

— Bethel Murder Trial Begins

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