AUGUSTA — Two more people face murder charges in connection with the death of Joseph Marceau, a 31-year-old Augusta man whose body was found in a Washington Street apartment in November.
Indictments against Zina Marie Fritze, 27, and Michael Sean McQuade, 45 – both of whom lived in the apartment – were handed up Friday by a Kennebec County grand jury but not unsealed until Monday.
The two were indicted on charges of murder, felony murder and robbery, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Monday was the first time police said publicly that Marceau’s death was “a drug-related homicide.” Fritze and McQuade are due for an initial court hearing Tuesday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.
The two were picked up by Augusta police on unrelated probation violation charges Friday.
Fritze and McQuade are the second and third people charged in Marceau’s killing.
Damik Davis, 25, of Queens, New York, was arrested on Nov. 23, 2015, the day police found Marceau’s body on the fourth floor of the apartment building. Davis is being held without bail in the Kennebec County jail.
Fritze and McQuade were told of the indictments Monday, just prior to making initial appearances via video on the probation violation charges.
Fritze, who also has used the last names LoPresti and McQuade, was visible briefly on camera before both she and a judge were told that she would appear in court Tuesday. McQuade’s hearing Monday also was canceled.
Documents in the case against Davis were sealed by a judge at the state’s request, so there is no indication how Marceau was killed.
Marceau lived in an apartment about a mile away on Winthrop Street. Neighbors in the Washington Street apartment building said they heard a series of noises emanating from the apartment occupied by McQuade and Fritze, and records indicate the two were being evicted.
The only charges available earlier Monday against Fritze indicated she was charged with two counts of receiving stolen property and one count of misuse of identification.
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