By MIKE DONOGHUE, Vermont News First
WARREN, Vt. – A New Hampshire woman, who officials said is wanted in New Hampshire for failing to appear in court for two felony charges related to an overdose death of another woman in 2020, is due in a Vermont courtroom Monday afternoon after her arrest by federal and state authorities.
The U.S. Marshals Service in Burlington said it received a tip that Zanda A. Ball, 40, was hiding out in the Warren area in Central Vermont.
Deputy marshals, along with Vermont State Police began combing the community for Ball on Friday and conducted several interviews, according to Deputy Marshal Carl Staley, a supervisor with the USMS.
The Marshals Service learned Ball and a companion were looking for jobs in the Mad River Valley and claimed they were from the Claremont, N.H. area. The investigative trail eventually led to a residence on Plunkton Road in Warren, Staley said.
The dragnet ended with a short standoff at the residence. Ball and a man initially refused to come out of the residence, Vermont State Police Sgt. William Warner said.
As state police began to seek a state search warrant, the male companion exited the house and Ball eventually surrendered, Warner said.
The Vermont State Police SWAT Team, which had been practicing on Friday, had been put on alert, but did not have to respond.
Staley said the Marshals Service turned Ball over to state police, who lodged her at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. She was ordered held for lack of $35,000 bail on a Vermont charge for being a fugitive from justice in New Hampshire.
Ball, a former employee at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, N.H., is due for arraignment in Vermont Superior Court in Barre on Monday afternoon.
With the standoff underway, Vermont State Police alerted local school officials. The Harwood Unified Union School District issued a notice that it was rerouting buses with students heading home from both Warren Elementary and the Harwood Union Middle/High School.
A Merrimack County, N.H. grand jury indicted Ball on Sept. 25, 2020 on two felony charges of dispensing a controlled drug – with one count with death resulting, records show.
Ball, then of Sunapee, is charged with selling fentanyl to Gina L. Carr, 29, of Sutton, N.H. and that she later died from the drug, then-New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald said at the time.
Sunapee Police Sgt. Nick Boisvert said Friday his department last fall put out a local community alert when Ball failed to appear for one of her court hearings in the fatal overdose case. He said local police eventually believed Ball had left town, but hoped somebody could provide a lead.
This week the Marshals Service in Vermont working with their colleagues from New Hampshire got a possible lead and it netted the arrest.
Carr had a promising career in education when she died, according to the Nashua Telegraph. She taught skiing and worked as a paraprofessional serving students with disabilities at Kearsarge Regional School District, the Telegraph reported. The University of New Hampshire graduate majored in horticulture.
Carr was a Nashua native and grew up in Merrimack and Litchfield before she moved with her family to Sutton in 2004, according to her obituary. She left behind two children, including a 1-week-old daughter and 3-year-old son, records show.