Posted inPublic Safety

A pedestrian’s death, a settlement and lingering questions 

In September 2023, Chriss Zuckerman, a resident of a Howard Center residential facility, was killed by a car on Shelburne Road. Could her death have been avoided?

by Peter D’Auria April 8, 2025, 8:04 am

The intersection of Shelburne Road with Fayette Drive and McIntosh Avenue in South Burlington where Chriss Zuckerman was struck and killed in June of 2024 seen on Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

BURLINGTON — On the evening of September 25, 2023, Chriss Zuckerman went out walking along Shelburne Road, the north-south artery that runs from Burlington to Shelburne.

At the time, Zuckerman was living at a community care home on St. Paul Street operated by the Howard Center, a Chittenden County nonprofit that provides mental health, substance use and disability services. 

But the 59-year-old woman was often not home. When not taking her medication, Zuckerman, who experienced delusions and psychosis — the lingering after-effects of a traumatic brain injury from a car crash decades prior, according to her brother, Scott Zuckerman — spent hours walking the streets of Burlington and beyond. Sometimes, she wandered as far as Colchester or Shelburne, her brother said. 

At around 8:45 that night, police began to receive calls about an incident at the intersection of Shelburne Road and Fayette Drive — roughly two and a half miles from the house where she lived.

While attempting to cross the street against the light, according to police reports, Zuckerman was struck by a car. She died in the University of Vermont Medical Center’s operating room later that night. 

Now, more than a year later, Zuckerman’s death has led to a $175,000 settlement paid out to family members by the Howard Center, according to a court audio recording obtained by VTDigger, as well as an ongoing investigation by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. Her brother and sister-in-law believe the Howard Center should have done more to prevent her death.

“I kind of feel like the Howard Center just dropped the ball on my sister. Just dropped the care for her,” Scott Zuckerman, her brother, said in an interview last year, prior to the settlement deal. 

But the case touches on some of Vermont’s most closely held values — autonomy over one’s own body and the ability to make one’s own decisions — and questions about when and how those rights should be overridden for safety reasons. 

“Mental health is nuanced,” Karen Barber, general counsel for the Vermont Department of Mental Health, said in an interview. “It’s not black and white. And individuals dealing with a mental health diagnosis, especially those dealing with serious mental health diagnoses, it’s always a battle between self-autonomy and parentalism.”

‘This is going to end in disaster’

Before the accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury, Zuckerman was a runner and a member of the track team at her high school in Westchester County, New York, according to her brother. 

The accident, which occurred around her senior year of high school, left Zuckerman with severe brain trauma, psychosis and delusions, her brother said.

Zuckerman shook and talked to herself, Scott Zuckerman said, and was often oblivious to much of the world around her, including cars or traffic lights. 

“She did laugh a lot, but she also had, like, horrible visions,” he said. “She saw things that weren’t there.”

For years, Zuckerman’s mother took care of her, but when she got too old to look after her daughter, Zuckerman was placed at the Howard Center, according to her brother. 

Many of the details of Zuckerman’s time under the care of the Howard Center are unclear. Paul Detzer, a spokesperson for the mental health agency, declined multiple requests from VTDigger for an interview. The Howard Center is “unable to share protected health information or identify individuals who have received services or are receiving services,” Detzer said in an email.

But Scott said his sister cycled through several different living situations before ending up at the St. Paul Street house, a facility called the Lakeview Community Care Home, several years ago. (The Lakeview program has since moved to Shelburne.)

Lakeview housed adults in the Community Support Program, which served people with “severe and/or persistent mental health challenges,” according to a 2022 Howard Center guide. Residents there received help “with daily living activities such as meals, laundry, and personal care,” the guide reads. 

The house was not a locked facility, meaning that residents were free to come and go as they pleased. 

While living there, Zuckerman spent hours walking the streets of Chittenden County. When she was taking her medication, her journeys generally posed no problems, her brother said. But off her medication, she was anxious, unfocused, less attuned to the world around her — “really not OK,” he said. 

Scott said he had expressed concerns to the Howard Center about the fact that his sister was wandering the streets, sometimes unmedicated. The facility’s staff, he said, “were responsible for giving her her medication during the day and making sure she was taking it.”

One morning not long before her death, Scott said, he ran into his sister in Burlington’s Old North End, standing outside in the rain, unbathed and in unseasonable clothing. She was off her medication and was confused, her brother said. 

After taking her home to Lakeview, Scott said, he confronted a staff member there: “Listen, this is going to end in disaster for my sister,” he said he told the employee.

Not long after, Zuckerman was killed. 

Law enforcement declined to charge the driver of the car that struck her. According to police reports, the driver did not appear to be driving “in a negligent manner.” Zuckerman was wearing dark clothing and had crossed the street against the light, police noted.

The Attorney General’s Office also appears to still be investigating the matter, although the nature of the investigation is not clear. According to police records obtained by VTDigger, an investigator from the attorney general’s office told a police detective two days after the crash that the office “was opening a collateral investigation regarding the events relating to Zuckerman’s Howard Center housing arrangements.”

Amelia Vath, a spokesperson with the Attorney General’s Office, declined to comment about the status of that probe this week, saying the investigation was ongoing. 

The case also led to the $175,000 settlement to family members from the Howard Center, according to a February court audio recording obtained by VTDigger. After the deal was completed, Scott and a lawyer representing him said they were unable to discuss the exact terms of the settlement.

“We have resolved the matter,” Pietro Lynn, Scott’s attorney, said in an email. “I am not at liberty to disclose anything more.” 

‘Autonomy and independence’

In interviews last year and early this year, Scott and his wife, Janean, said they believed Zuckerman should have been housed in a more secure setting — or one in which she was required to take her medication before leaving to wander in the community. 

“She shouldn’t have been allowed to walk the streets when she was not on her medicine, and probably shouldn’t have been allowed to walk the streets at all,” Scott said. 

But Vermont policy and practice seek to avoid placing such restrictions on residents. State and federal regulations seek to keep people with mental illness in the least restrictive environment possible, meaning it is difficult to commit someone or administer medication without their consent. 

To medicate or hospitalize someone against their will, a court must determine that the individual is a “person in need of treatment,” meaning they have a mental illness that causes them to put themselves or others in danger. 

An interested party, such as a family member, spouse or caretaker, must apply to the state Department of Mental Health, which then reviews applications and decides which ones to pursue in court. But typically, that task falls to the local mental health agency, advocates say — in this case, the Howard Center.

Per Vermont regulations, involuntary medication can only happen in state-designated facilities, a category that does not include Lakeview. According to state data, the department applied for 71 orders of involuntary medication in the 2024 fiscal year, and courts granted 60. 

Judges can, however, issue “orders of non-hospitalization,” which lay out conditions that patients must follow — including taking medication — while living in the community.

Scott Zuckerman said he was unaware of his sister being on an order of non-hospitalization. And such orders do not guarantee that an individual will take their medication faithfully, anyway. Even if individuals periodically refuse doses, or take less than their prescribed amount, judges are generally reluctant to order them to return to the hospital to be treated against their will, according to Barber, the lawyer with the Vermont Department of Mental Health.

Requiring involuntary medication to be court-ordered is a policy choice that sets Vermont apart from other states, Barber said. Elsewhere in the country, that decision rests with medical practitioners, she said.

“Vermont statute and the Legislature really made the decision to value personal autonomy,” Barber said. 

Vermont currently operates only one locked residential mental health treatment facility, the River Valley Therapeutic Residence, Barber said. River Valley has 16 beds, but they are not all occupied due to staffing shortages, she said.

It was not clear whether the Howard Center had sought orders of involuntary commitment or medication for Zuckerman, or sought to place her at River Valley. But in an email, Detzer, the Howard Center spokesperson, noted that the nonprofit valued its clients’ ability to make their own decisions.

“At Howard Center, the health, safety, and well-being of our clients, staff, and community are at the heart of our values and are our highest priorities,” Detzer said in an email. “As a community-based provider, we are committed to supporting our clients’ autonomy and independence so they may lead fulfilling, meaningful, and self-directed lives.”

‘A long history of wandering’

Over the past few years, state investigators had raised occasional concerns about how the Howard Center was caring for the residents of the Lakeview Community Care Home.

Investigators from the Department of Aging and Independent Living had visited Lakeview multiple times between 2018 and the fall of 2023, with mixed results, according to state records. Three investigations in response to complaints — in June 2019, November 2020 and August 2021 — found that the facility was in compliance with state regulations.  

Other visits turned up problems, however. In 2021, state investigators found that one resident, who “has a long history of wandering and absences from the facility,” disappeared around 4 p.m. on April 16, 2021, and was found around 8 a.m. the next morning by Colchester police, about six miles from Lakeview.

That resident was Chriss Zuckerman, according to a Colchester police report obtained by VTDigger. Police found Zuckerman on Colchester’s Windemere Way, carrying an empty bottle, a piece of concrete and four books. Zuckerman told the responding officer that she had been walking all night and was tired, the report states. 

According to state investigation records, Lakeview staff did not report Zuckerman’s prolonged absence to the police, family members and her legal representation, as is required under state regulations. 

In the summer of 2023, another inspection found that Lakeview had not complied with a rule requiring it to develop a proper “plan of care” for all residents, according to investigative records, including two people who spent extended periods “wandering in the community.”

State investigators also found that Lakeview staff had not properly recorded details of when or why residents missed or refused their medication. 

In both cases, Lakeview administrators sent corrective plans to the state that outlined how the facility would improve its practices. In response to the 2023 inspection, however, that corrective plan was not sent until Oct. 7, 2023 — nearly two weeks after Zuckerman’s death. 

It’s not clear exactly what the attorney general’s investigation — which has lasted over a year — is examining. But other state officials who conducted separate investigations after Zuckerman’s death did not appear to have significant concerns about the Howard Center’s care.

After the Shelburne Road accident, officials with Vermont’s Department of Aging and Independent Living launched another investigation into Lakeview related to an “untimely death,” Carolyn Scott, the state long-term care manager at the department, said in an interview. That visit identified no serious problems, according to Carolyn Scott and state records. 

Barber, the lawyer with the Department of Mental Health, said that any time the client of a state-designated mental health agency like the Howard Center dies, the department investigates. And “if there were serious concerns, (the agency) would go under a plan of correction,” she said. 

The Howard Center, she said, has not been under any such plan from the Department of Mental Health related to a client’s death in the past three years. 

‘Really, really tricky’

Zuckerman’s case highlights a sometimes-agonizing tension: how to balance the twin concerns of safety and autonomy of individuals with a mental illness that could put them at risk.

Such questions are “really, really tricky,” said Lindsey Owen, of Disability Rights Vermont, who said she was not familiar with Zuckerman’s case. 

Owen’s organization advocates for clients’ autonomy and ability to make their own choices — to go where they please and to abstain from medication if they please. But that position is not always popular, she said. 

“I mean, I have family with mental health disabilities, and when they’re taking their medication, they’re fantastic,” she said. But when they refuse to take their medicine, “it’s so hard, because I’ve got some (other) family members who are like, ‘They should just be able to force medicate this person. If we know that that works well for them, if we know that’s what’s going to help them be successful, then let’s just do that.’”

Owen offered another option to address such concerns that stops short of forcing someone into a hospital or medicating them against their will: more funding for community mental health providers like the Howard Center. 

With more resources, she said, designated mental health agencies could invest more in medication management, meaning practices that help — rather than force — patients to take their medicines. But if people do ultimately decide against taking their medication, she said, that decision should be respected. 

“There’s plenty of people even without disabilities that make really bad decisions that put their lives in danger,” she said. “And we don’t do anything to those people.”

Janean Zuckerman, Chriss Zuckerman’s sister-in-law, said she also wanted to see a change in state practices — although of a different sort. 

“I was hoping to see some type of changes made, where if patients weren’t taking their medication, that they would be able to be held until they did take their medication,” she said. “I’m very upset about it, about the way this closed out and wrapped up.”