A 65-year-old man pleaded guilty this week to killing a young woman in Manchester nearly 40 years ago. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
David Morrison confessed to investigators last summer that he killed Sarah Hunter, 32, and disposed of her body. He also admitted to kidnapping a 15-year-old girl in Massachusetts several years before Hunter’s death.
“As a lifelong resident of Manchester, I was 16 years old at the time of this crime, and being able to work on justice for Sarah has been the most meaningful goal of my career,” Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The sentencing was first reported by the Bennington Banner.
Hunter, a professional golfer who worked at the Manchester Country Club, was reported missing by a co-worker on Sept. 19, 1986. Her body was found two months later in a wooded area of Pawlet, according to law enforcement officials.
Morrison was a prime suspect at the time of Hunter’s death, police said. He worked at a gas station in Manchester near where Hunter’s car was found, according to a police affidavit. But police weren’t able to find evidence connecting him to the killing.
Two years later, Morrison abducted a woman in California, held her at gunpoint and forced her to perform sex acts. He was later arrested and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison on charges of kidnapping, attempted murder and sexual assault, according to the Bennington Banner.
In 2012, Marthage charged Morrison with killing Hunter after DNA testing appeared to link strands of hair from his car to Hunter. But Marthage dropped the charges several years later due to errors in how the evidence was handled.
“When I dismissed this case in 2015, I thought there was no way in hell this case was coming back — but here we are,” Marthage said Wednesday.
Two years ago, authorities in Massachusetts were investigating an unsolved missing persons and attempted kidnapping case that appeared to have links to Morrison. Vermont and Massachusetts state police began to work together, and in the summer of 2024, a team of investigators, including former VSP Detective Thomas Truex, the original investigator in Hunter’s death, went to a California prison to talk to Morrison.
Truex, who came out of retirement for the interview, was the only person that Morrison wanted to talk to about Hunter, Marthage said.
Morrison told investigators that Hunter came into the Manchester gas station where he was working to buy cigarettes. Morrison said he tied Hunter up in a back room of the gas station before stabbing her to death and disposing of her body, according to a police affidavit.
Morrison also pleaded guilty to kidnapping Laura Sheridan in 1981 in New Ashford, Massachusetts. Sheridan, who was 15 at the time, was walking home when Morrison offered her a ride. He didn’t stop at her house and held her at gun point, prosecutors say. Sheridan was able to escape when Morrison pulled over at a rest area on Route 7.
“I’m a really lucky person,” Sheridan told reporters on Wednesday. “I’m grateful that I spent 20 minutes with David Morrison and no more.”
Morrison's two to four-year sentence for the kidnapping charge will run concurrent with his life sentence for the murder of Hunter, and his sentence in California. Prosecutors said on Wednesday that Morrison is expected to serve all of his prison sentences in Vermont.
Vermont police have closed several so-called cold cases in recent years, including the murder of Rita Curran in Burlington and the body of an infant found in Northfield. There are more than 80 unsolved homicides and missing persons cases in Vermont.
