Police say woman found dead in river had injuries to body, head trauma

BENNINGTON, VT (NEWS10) — Bennington Police are continuing to treat the death of a woman found in a river Sunday as suspicious, and they’ve now released her identity.

45-year-old Bridget Osgood lived just a short distance from the Roaring Branch River, but Bennington Police say they’re perplexed as to how she died and how her body ended up among the rocks of the shallow water. Her body was discovered by a man walking his dog.

“She did have some minor injuries on her body and then there was a significant injury and we’re trying to determine how that injury actually occurred,” said Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette.

He described that “significant injury” as head trauma.

“We’re treating this as a suspicious death, very similar to a homicide until we have all the facts,” he said.

The river is more like a stream with a gentle current, but Doucette says recent rainfall could have changed that.

“It does appear that the river did rise about 12 inches mid-week last week,” he said.

Doucette says he’s not sure how long she’d been in the river, but that she had been absent from work at the Mack Molding plant in Arlington for a number of days. Despite this, she was never reported missing.

“A lot of the people that we’re interviewing worked with Bridget, so at this point it’s just a large list of people,” he said.

Chief Doucette says Osgood was married and that her husband has been in to identify her body. She has two kids who live with their biological father.

The Vermont State Police Major Crime Unit, Bureau of Criminal Investigations, and Crime Scene Search Team are helping with the investigation.

“At this point trying to locate people that had contact with her last week or possibly mid-week so we’re trying to track her whereabouts and where she last was and where people last saw her,” said Doucette.

Anyone with information is asked to call the police department at 802-442-1030. Osgood’s body has been sent to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington and an autopsy was performed Monday. The cause and manor of death will not be released until the toxicology results come  back, which could take several weeks.