Mary Lisa Kelley, 58, was found dead at her home on King Road in Elmore, Vermont, on November 29, 2021, the victim of a gunshot wound to the torso. A social worker with the Vermont Department for Children and Families, she was remembered as a mother and grandmother and a fierce advocate for children.Kelley placed a 911 call shortly before 7 a.m., telling the dispatcher she and her 61-year-old husband, Lawrence Jay Kennedy, were separating and that he had threatened to harm her and damage her belongings while she was at work.

During that call a single gunshot was heard and Kelley became unresponsive.Responding officers from Morristown and Stowe police, the Lamoille County Sheriff’s Department, and the Vermont State Police found both Kelley and Kennedy deceased inside the residence.

The Chief Medical Examiner in Burlington ruled Kelley’s death a homicide and Kennedy’s a suicide, and investigators described the incident as a contained act of domestic violence with no ongoing danger to the public.Members of the community who knew Kelley remember her infectious laugh and commitment to children; anyone with information about the events leading up to that morning is asked to come forward.