Officials: 3 dead are related to US shooting suspect

Three women found dead in a home in the northeastern state of Vermont were relatives of a woman arrested a day earlier in the fatal shooting of a state social worker who handled the case in which she lost custody of her daughter, state police has said.
The bodies were found yesterday morning at a home in Berlin, and police said at least two appeared to have been shot. The women were related to Jody Herring, who police said fatally shot a state social worker in neighboring Barre late Friday afternoon, police said.
Authorities said the social worker, Lara Sobel, had handled a case for the state Department for Children and Families in which Herring's 9-year-old daughter was removed from the home.

Gov. Peter Shumlin, who was returning from a Nova Scotia vacation a week early after receiving word of the deaths, said yesterday there was no reason to believe there was a continuing threat related to the incidents.
Authorities said Friday night that Sobel had been involved in a case that saw Herring's daughter taken into state custody. Sobel had just left a DCF office on Friday afternoon when she was shot twice, authorities said. The child remains in state custody, officials said.
Ken Schatz, the commissioner for the Department for Children and Families, called Sobel's shooting "a heartbreaking tragedy." He called Sobel "an experienced social worker. She had been providing public service for children and families for more than 14 years."

Herring was in police custody yesterday and couldn't be reached for comment. A home telephone number listed for her had been disconnected. She was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday, police said.
Vermont's child protection agency, like those in many other US states, frequently comes under criticism: from parents for being too quick to remove children from homes in cases of alleged abuse and neglect, and from the public when children are left at home and end up dying at the hands of family members.