A Stowe, Vermont man was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in federal prison this week for murdering two 21-year-old men from western Massachusetts during a 2023 drug robbery, closing out a case that once carried the threat of federal execution. Theodore Bland, 31, pleaded guilty in April to killing Jahim Solomon of Pittsfield and Eric White of Chicopee inside a mobile home on Eden Road in Lowell, Vermont, using a firearm during a drug-trafficking crime.
According to prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Turner told a packed courtroom during the September sentencing that Bland shot White once in the head as he slept in a back bedroom, then shot Solomon in the chest as he returned from the bathroom, firing four more rounds into Solomon's face as he struggled to breathe, according to a Facebook post from MassLive. Federal court filings established that Solomon and White were operating as out-of-state drug sellers in northern Vermont, and Bland targeted them specifically to eliminate competition and steal their inventory, the Caledonian Record reports. As reported by New Bedford Guide, Bland used some of the stolen drugs and a firearm taken from the scene to enlist others to help move the bodies, and he later traded one of the stolen guns for more narcotics he intended to distribute.
A Death Penalty Case That Never Reached Trial
The case had been on track for a capital trial after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi formally authorized federal prosecutors in October 2025 to pursue the death penalty against Bland under federal drug-trafficking homicide statutes, part of a Department of Justice directive reviving federal capital prosecutions, per VTDigger. Federal prosecutors had notified the court of their intent to seek execution, but the plea agreement ultimately removed the death penalty option in exchange for the two consecutive life sentences, according to New Bedford Guide.
The stakes of that decision were unusually high in Vermont, where state law does not permit capital punishment at all. Vermont effectively abolished state-level executions in the mid-1960s, with its last execution carried out in 1954, and the state's most recent federal death sentence came in 2005 against Donald Fell, as CBS News reported at the time. Had Bland's case gone to trial, it could have involved a federal capital sentence in Vermont.
Bodies Hidden a Mile Apart in Eden
Families of White and Solomon reported the two men missing on October 15, 2023, after losing contact during their trip to Vermont. State police located their bodies roughly two weeks later, hidden in two separate wooded locations in Eden, Vermont, about one mile apart, according to New Bedford Guide and prior VTDigger reporting. Bland had the bodies moved to those wooded areas after the killings, which took place at a mobile home on Eden Road in Lowell.
Bland was not a stranger to law enforcement at the time of the murders. He was on state conditions of release stemming from a March 2023 armed-assault incident in South Burlington, and he was later sentenced in federal court in October 2024 to 14 months in prison on a separate unlawful firearm charge tied to that same incident, in which he brandished a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun at a convenience store while smoking crack cocaine, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont.
An Accomplice's Guilty Plea and a Drug Network Under Scrutiny
Bland did not act alone in covering up the killings. Co-defendant Dilan Jiron, 29, of Hyde Park, Vermont, pleaded guilty in July 2025 to firearm conspiracy and to helping Bland conceal the double murder, facing up to 23 years in federal prison, per VTDigger. Court records note that Jiron is the nephew of a Vermont state judge.
U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ophardt described the killings as “depraved, violent murders” committed to increase illicit profits, per New Bedford Guide, while Ashley Barnes said the case shocked Vermont because of its callousness. Judge William K. Sessions III, who imposed the life sentences along with concurrent prison terms on remaining counts, also ordered Bland to pay $12,504.92 in restitution to the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services.
Part of a Broader Violent October
The double slaying occurred amid an unprecedented surge in violence across Vermont in October 2023, when the state recorded eight homicides in a single month, straining regional investigative resources, according to prior VTDigger reporting. The federal prosecution of Bland was coordinated under the Department of Justice's Project Safe Neighborhoods and Operation Take Back America initiatives, which pool federal, state, and local resources to target violent drug networks in rural districts, per the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Defense attorneys, in a September sentencing memorandum, outlined Bland's history of severe drug addiction, which they said began with marijuana in eighth grade and escalated to cocaine, heroin, and opioids through his teenage years, according to VTDigger. Prosecutors countered that Bland had trafficked narcotics in Vermont for years before escalating to murder, using the killings to eliminate competitors and expand his own drug operation.
