- Enter the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations

The first sign of CUSI’s involvement came in May 2012, when Detective Morgan Lawton of the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations secured a search warrant for the home at 124 St. Peter Street, Winooski. This established CUSI as an active player in the case record from the very start.

The warrant itself is striking: it authorized a search for a bizarre assortment of items — duct tape, rope, candy with faces printed on it, gummy worms and sharks, costumes and tails, sausage, photographs of LC nude or in costume, pajamas with holes cut in the backside, a camping shower, and even a ball “appropriate size to fit in a child’s mouth.”

Not surprisingly, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE BIZARRELY SPECIFIC ITEMS WAS FOUND. The only association between me and these objects exists in the imaginations of Ray and Marilynn Knutsen.

Here’s the warrant and inventory: