PORTLAND – A Cumberland County Superior Court jury found LInda Dolloff guilty of trying to kill her husband as he slept in the couple’s Standish home last April.
Dolloff faces up to 30 years in prison on the attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and filing a false report charges on which the jury found her guilty after deliberating less than seven hours.
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She showed no emotion as the verdict was read or when Justice Joyce Wheeler revoked her bail a few minutes later. As she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, she kept her head up.
The jury rejected Dolloff’s contention that an intruder beat her husband, Jeffrey Dolloff, with a softball bat and then shot her as she got up to investigate a noise. Instead, they believed prosecutors who said that Linda Dolloff beat her husband, then shot herself in the abdomen and reported a home invasion.
Defense lawyer Daniel A. Lilley said he was so stunned by the verdict that his belief in the jury system was shaken. But Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson said it showed that the jury was able to sift through circumstantial evidence to come to the right verdict.
“This is a murder case where the victim miraculously survived,” Anderson said. Jurors saw through “the sheer ridiculousness of the intruder story,” she said.
Two of Jeffrey Dolloff’s sisters were in the courtroom for the verdict and Anderson said they called their brother with the news. He was concerned that his wife might be allowed out on bail, Anderson said, but was informed immediately when the judge revoked bail.
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