The murder of Sarah Hunter
Manchester, Bennington County, Vermont · 1986
Overview
Sarah Hunter was the golf professional at the Manchester Country Club in Manchester, Vermont. A co-worker reported her missing on September 19, 1986, after she did not arrive for work, and her body was found in a wooded area in Pawlet on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1986. Her car had been found near a gas station in Manchester where David Allen Morrison, then 26, worked. State police said Morrison was a top suspect from the start but that investigators could not find the evidence to charge him. He left Vermont in January 1988 and was later convicted in California, in a separate case, of kidnapping, attempted murder and sexual assault. In 2012 he was charged with Hunter's murder after DNA testing appeared to link hair from his car to her, but the Bennington County state's attorney dismissed the charge in February 2015 because the hair had come from Hunter's own car. In the summer of 2024 Vermont and Massachusetts investigators interviewed him in a California prison, and prosecutors said he confessed. On December 9, 2025, he pleaded guilty to murder in Bennington and was sentenced to life without parole.
How it was solved
Morrison was a suspect almost at once. A police affidavit says he worked at a gas station in Manchester near where Hunter's car was found, and state police said investigators could not find the evidence to charge him. He left Vermont in January 1988 and was arrested later that year in Chula Vista, California, in a separate case. In 2009 police in Union City, California, contacted Vermont investigators after Morrison made statements that led them to suspect he was involved in Hunter's killing. Police re-analyzed evidence from his car, which they had seized in 1988, and said hair found in it matched Hunter when compared with DNA from her sister. He was charged in July 2012. It took nearly two years to bring him to Vermont, and he pleaded not guilty. In February 2015 the state's attorney dismissed the charge after the Department of Public Safety said the hair sent to an FBI laboratory had been taken from Hunter's car, not Morrison's. The public record then goes quiet. About two years before his plea, Vermont Public reported, authorities in Massachusetts were investigating an unsolved case that appeared to have links to Morrison, and a Berkshire County grand jury indicted him on a 1981 kidnapping count in May 2024. That summer a team of Vermont and Massachusetts investigators went to the California prison where he was serving his sentence. The state's attorney said Morrison would talk about Hunter only to the original Vermont State Police investigator, who came out of retirement for the interview. Prosecutors said he confessed to both crimes. The guilty plea followed that confession, not the DNA evidence that produced the 2012 charge. On December 9, 2025, he pleaded guilty to murder in Bennington Criminal Division Court and was sentenced to life without parole.
Sources
- Man pleads guilty to 1986 killing of Manchester's Sarah Hunter (December 10, 2025)
“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.”
- Man pleads guilty in 1986 cold case murder of Vermont golf pro (December 9, 2025)
“David Morrison was identified as a suspect early on and was eventually charged in Hunter’s death, but a mishandling of evidence led to the case being dismissed in 2015.”
- Prosecutors say closure was reached in decades-old Vermont murder case (December 10, 2025)
““This gives a modicum of closure for the people of Manchester for the crime that changed our community forever,” said Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage.”
- 40 years later, man convicted in Bennington County murder, Massachusetts kidnapping cases (December 10, 2025)
“The longtime suspect David A. Morrison pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon to first-degree murder in Bennington County Criminal Court and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.”
- Decades-old Vermont murder, Berkshire County kidnapping cases solved (December 10, 2025)
“On September 19, 1986, Hunter, 32, was reported missing by a coworker at the Manchester Country Club after not reporting to work that day. Her body was found in a wooded area of Pawlet, Vt., on November 27, 1986.”
- Suspect pleads guilty to decades-old kidnapping, murder cases (December 10, 2025)
“Morrison was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and waived his right to appeal the life sentence in connection with the Vermont case.”
- David Allen Morrison charged in Mass., Vt. cold cases from '80s (December 9, 2025)
“David Allen Morrison has confessed to the 1981 kidnapping of a 15-year-old girl in the Berkshires and the 1986 killing of a 32-year-old golf pro in Bennington County in Vermont, prosecutors from both counties said in a joint statement.”
- Charges in 1986 golf pro's slaying dropped over evidence error (February 16, 2015)
“The Bennington County state's attorney on Friday dismissed the charges against David Allan Morrison after it was discovered that a hair from victim Sarah Hunter, thought to have been found in Morrison's car and sent to an FBI lab for analysis, was actually taken from the victim's car, the state Department of Public Safety said.”
- Man in Calif. prison charged with 1986 Vt. killing (July 2, 2012)
“Morrison’s abandoned car was seized by police in 1988. Evidence from the car was re-analyzed, and police matched hair found in the car to Hunter by comparing it to DNA from Hunter’s sister.”
- Man in Calif. prison charged with 1986 Vt. killing (July 3, 2012)
“Morrison left Vermont in January 1988. Later that year, he was arrested, and he eventually pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder, sexual assault, and kidnapping in a case in Chula Vista, Calif.”
- Union City Prisoner Charged In Vermont Murder Cold Case (July 2, 2012)
“Police Lt. Tim Oliver said police in Union City contacted Vermont investigators in 2009 after Morrison made statements that led them to suspect Morrison was involved in the killing of Hunter.”