Episode 184: The Murder of Terri Weed
15-year-old Terri Weed was kind, fun and an overall great girl. She attended North Country Union High School in Newport, Vermont. Terri had also recently confided in some of her friends that she was pregnant. Her boyfriend, 16-year-old Wade Willis, also attended North Country Union High School and was her neighbor. The Weed and Willis families lived close to one another, especially as Morgan, Vermont, where they lived, was quite a small town.
On May 21st, 1981, Wade was at his cousin’s house in Morgan, Vermont smoking weed. His cousin, Roy Bullis, and Wade were talking and smoking together when Wade confided in him that Terri was pregnant and he was the father. Wade also confided in Roy that he wanted to kill Terri so that no one would find out she was pregnant. Unbeknownst to Roy, other students at Wade’s school already knew that Terri was pregnant and that he was the father, causing Wade to face teasing and bullying at school as a result. He had decided that he was done with this, so he borrowed a pair of work gloves from Roy and went to go meet Terri.
Wade met Terri in the woods behind her house and the two began to go for a walk. Out of nowhere, Wade hit Terri over the head with a baseball bat. He had planned this as he had hidden the bat in the woods ahead of time to use in his attack. Wade hit her repeatedly before leaving her in the woods before going home and calling Roy. Wade told him that Terri was dead. Roy, unsure of what to say or do, agreed to meet Wade near his home. The two hung out for a while before Wade eventually grabbed a shovel from his garage and led Roy to the woods behind Terri’s home where Wade had left Terri’s body.
Disturbingly, Terri was still alive when Wade and Roy got there. When Wade realized this, he used the shovel to hit Terri again in the head as well as in her stomach. Wade proceeded to drag her through the woods by her hair to another spot where he started to use the shovel to dig a hole to bury her. Wade then wondered if Terri was still alive, so he hit her repeatedly again with the shovel before partially burying her in the woods. Once Wade got home, he called Roy and told him that if anyone asked, he saw Terri leave with two guys in a red car.
Later that same afternoon, Vermont State Police received two phone calls, both anonymous, saying that there had been a murder. The calls revealed little other information. Vermont State Police received a third phone call, this time from Roy’s father Joseph Bullis. Joseph told police that something terrible had happened in Morgan, Vermont, but didn’t elaborate further. Just a few minutes later, a fourth call came in to state police from Wade’s father Duane Willis. He called to tell police that they needed to hurry to his house because there had been a murder behind the Weed family home in Morgan, Vermont.
State Police Corporals Rivard and Johnson arrived at Wade’s family’s home and met Wade’s father Duane in the kitchen. With Duane were Roy’s parents, and police noted that Duane was visibly upset. When asked what was wrong, Duane stated “My son tells me he killed some girl." Duane then said that his son was 16-years-old and that the girl was Terri Weed, and her body was in the woods behind the Weed family home. Wade then walked into the kitchen and agreed to lead police to her body. Wordlessly, Wade, his father and the two officers walked into the woods. When they got to where Terri’s body was, officers checked her pulse, found that there was none, and arrested Wade.
Due to the extent of the brutality of the murder, Wade was tried as an adult for first-degree murder after much debate about whether he should be tried as a juvenile or an adult.
Wade’s defense lawyer Duncan Kilmartin attempted to paint Wade as a young kid who was emotionally disturbed and wasn’t aware of the full extent of what he was doing when he killed Terri. The fact that Wade premeditated the murder and hid a baseball bat in the woods beforehand, as well as testimony from Roy and a friend of Wade’s saying he told them he planned to kill Terri, dispelled the defense’s arguments. In Roy’s testimony, he shared that when Wade told him he was going to kill Terri, Wade was smiling.
Wade Willis was convicted in April of 1982, and despite the first-degree murder charge as well as being tried as an adult, he was sentenced to ten years to life in prison. He served a little over 19 years in prison before being released in July of 2001 at the age of 36.
Phil White, Orleans County States Attorney at the time of Terri’s murder, was deeply impacted by this case and went on to organize The Dandelion Run, locally known as “The Dandy.” The run is held annually on a weekend in May as close to the anniversary of Terri’s murder as possible and is dedicated to her. Proceeds from registration fees are donated to Umbrella, Northeast Kingdom’s local domestic and gender based violence prevention organization. You can learn more and donate at umbrellanek.org
Image sources:
kingdomgames.co - “In Memory and in Honor of Terri Weed”