Officials have identified the two people killed in a house explosion in Granville as Liam O’Sullivan, 20, and Sarah O’Sullivan, 46, both of Essex Junction, after investigators said a propane leak inside the home caused the blast. The explosion was ruled accidental.
First responders were called around 7:45 p.m. Saturday, and one of the deaths came at the scene while the other victim was taken to Gifford Medical Center in Randolph and later died there. Three other adults were hospitalized, including two with minor injuries and one with critical injuries.
For Brenda Buker, the moment sounded like something else. She said she and her husband were having dinner in Granville when they heard and felt a loud boom that shook their house, knocked items off the walls and stopped their conversation mid-sentence. At first, she thought it might have been fireworks, and she said the area is so rural that Granville rarely draws attention.
That early guess did not match what investigators later found. The Department of Public Safety Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit determined the blast was a fatal house explosion caused by a propane leak, a finding that turned a confusing noise into a deadly emergency and answered the question neighbors were left with after windows shattered and the air smelled wrong minutes later.
The missing piece now is how the leak developed inside the home, because the facts released so far stop at the cause, not the chain of events behind it. What is clear is that the explosion killed two people, injured three others and left Granville with a sudden disaster that no one in the house or nearby expected that night.
