Two Readsboro men are dead after a deer hunting accident near Howe Pond Road last Saturday morning.
According to Vermont State Police, 39-year-old Benjamin Birch was accidentally shot by a fellow hunter, 49-year-old Timothy Bolognani, while chasing a deer.
Bolognani then shot himself, state police said.
State police said the two men were hunting with a friend, Mark Colford. At some point in the morning, Birch shot a deer, which continued to run.
Birch continued to track the wounded deer, along with Bolognani and Colford. State police said Bolognani fired his rifle and then heard Birch cry out.
State police said that Colford and Bolognani then found Birch lying on the ground, fatally wounded. Neither could save Birch's life, and state police said that after Birch died, a distraught Bolognani used his rifle to take his own life.
State police from Shaftsbury and Brattleboro, as well as detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, responded to the shooting scene by early Saturday afternoon.
According to state police, there was no evidence of foul play, but a final determination is pending the results of autopsies by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Burlington.
No other information is available, state police said, since the incident is still under investigation. Once the state police investigation is complete, the case will be reviewed by the Bennington County State's Attorney's office.
The lead investigating officers are State Police Detective Sgt. Albert Abdelnour and Sgt. George Scribner of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.
The Readsboro Fire Department, Whitingham Ambulance Squad, and North Adams, Mass., Rescue also assisted in this incident.
This was the second tragedy in less than two years for the Bolognani family.
Timothy Bolognani's 18-year-old daughter, Jessica, was killed in a snowmobile accident in January 2010 in Heartwellville.
Timothy Bolognani is the son of Betty Bolognani, a former member of the Vermont House of Representatives.
The shootings happened on the next-to-last day of Vermont's 16-day rifle deer season.
No information was immediately available as to whether the three men were wearing hunter orange, or were following proper hunting protocol.
Of the six New England states, only Vermont and New Hampshire do not require hunters to wear fluorescent “hunter orange” clothing.
According to Chris Saunders, hunter education coordinator for the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, nearly half of the state's hunting accidents might have been prevented with hunter orange.
A review of 20 years of hunting-related shooting reports by the department concluded that hunters moving into the line of fire of other hunters, and mistaking other hunters for game, are two of the three most common causes of hunting accidents in the state.
Saunders said Tuesday that this was the first fatal hunting accident in Vermont since May 2009, when 17-year-old Jacob Kadamus of Lyndon Center was accidentally shot by his father, Kevin Kadamus, while turkey hunting in Wheelock.
According to the department, since hunter education courses began in Vermont in 1958, hunting accidents have decreased by 86 percent. All first-time hunters must complete the course before receiving a hunting license.