BURLINGTON, Vt. — The FBI said Friday that it arrested a Washington state woman in the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont.
Teresa Youngblut, 21, was charged in Monday’s killing of Border Patrol Agent David Maland, the FBI said. It said Youngblut and a German man who died in the firefight had been under surveillance for several days.
According to an FBI affidavit, Maland stopped Youngblut and Felix Baukholt on Interstate 91 in Coventry on Monday because Baukholt appeared to have an expired visa.
Youngblut is accused of firing at Maland and other officers. Baukholt attempted to draw a gun, the affidavit states.
Investigators had been performing “periodic surveillance” of the pair since Jan. 14 after an employee at a hotel where they were staying reported concerns about seeing Youngblut carrying a gun and both of them wearing all-black tactical gear. Investigators attempted to question them but they declined to have an extended conversation and said they were in the area looking to buy property.
Maland, whom the FBI confirmed was a U.S. Air Force veteran, was killed close to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Newport Station, part of the Swanton Sector that he was assigned to. The sector encompasses Vermont, parts of New York and New Hampshire, and includes 295 miles (475 kilometers) of international boundary with Canada.
Maland’s family said his career spanned nine years in the military and 15 in the federal government.
“While working in Washington, D.C., he was active security in the Pentagon during 9/11,” their statement said.
Maland also was a K-9 handler. Before heading to the northern border, he served in Texas, near the border with Mexico.
The Minnesota native who family members called by his middle name, Chris, was about to propose marriage to his partner, said an aunt, Joan Maland.
David Maland was the first Border Patrol agent to be killed in the line of duty since Javier Vega Jr. was shot and killed near Santa Monica, Texas, in 2014, according to records provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Vega was initially considered to be off duty at the time of his death, but in 2016 it was re-determined to have been in the line of duty, the agency said.
In 2010, Brian Terry ’s killing exposed the botched federal gun operation known as “Fast and Furious.” Border Patrol Agent Nicholas J. Ivie, of the Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station, was mortally wounded in the line of duty in a remote area near Bisbee, Arizona, in 2012. Border Patrol Agent Isaac Morales was fatally stabbed while off duty in 2017 in Texas.