ALFRED — The New York City man accused of fatally shooting a 30-year-old father in Biddeford last week was ordered held without bail Monday in York County Superior Court.
Timothy Ortiz, 20, of Brooklyn made a brief appearance with his attorney, Jon C. Gale, who asked the court for more time to review the case. Ortiz did not enter a plea.
Dressed in a dark suit and led into court by two York County sheriff’s deputies, Ortiz did not speak during the proceeding, and hung his head as he passed members of the news media.
Superior Court Justice Wayne Douglas said he expects the case to go before a grand jury in November.
Ortiz has been held since Sept. 26, when he was arrested in Portland on an unrelated probation violation. He was charged with murder Friday after a court appearance on the probation matter, which stemmed from drug and sex trafficking charges in New York.
A memorial was erected outside the Biddeford duplex where Jonathan Methot, 30, was shot and killed about 1 a.m. on Sept. 26. Timothy Ortiz, 20, of Brooklyn, N.Y., appeared in court Monday to face a murder charge.
Police allege that Ortiz shot and killed Jonathan Methot, 30, of Biddeford, in an apartment at 70 West Cutts St., next door to the apartment Methot shared with his mother, Cheryl.
Cheryl Methot, who watched the proceedings in court Monday, said in an interview afterward that she is frustrated with the lack of information released by investigators so far.
“It’s like I’m up in the air, and nobody’s answering anything,” she said. “I want to know what’s going to happen.”
Investigators have not given a motive for the killing, or said whether Methot and Ortiz knew each other. The police affidavit in support of Ortiz’s arrest was ordered sealed by the judge.
Gale, Ortiz’s attorney, noted that his client has not yet been indicted but intends to plead not guilty in the future. Gale said he has not yet been given access to police reports in the case.
Cheryl Methot said Friday that she had seen Ortiz in and around her neighbor’s apartment several times over the last few months, and that there was heavy foot traffic at all hours at her neighbor’s unit.
“He’d be there for a few weeks and then he’d be gone,” Methot said of Ortiz.
She said that seeing Ortiz again Monday was an emotional experience
Cheryl Methot, the mother of Jonathon Methot, who was shot Sept. 26 in Biddeford, holds a phone with a photo of her son. She said her son had struggled with prescription opiate addiction, but was working to get his life back on track, and “was doing really good.” Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
Methot said she last saw her son alive the night of Sept. 25, when he and two friends watched a football game.
Several hours later, around 1 a.m. on Sept. 26, one of the friends burst into her bedroom, screaming that Jonathan Methot had been shot inside the apartment next door. One of his friends dragged Methot’s body onto a shared wooden porch outside.
“The last thing I’d think I’d see is my son lying on the porch dead,” she said Friday. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”
Cheryl Methot identified the residents of 70 West Cutts St. as Peter and Becky Quimby, who could not be located for comment. No one was home at the unit, and she said people had been moving furniture and belongings out of the apartment Monday.
According to Biddeford police, Peter Quimby was arrested in March at an unidentified West Cutts Street address and charged with aggravated drug trafficking, but there is no sign that the drug case against him moved forward, and the criminal record for someone whose name and age match Quimby’s gives no indication of the allegations.
Homicides are relatively rare in Biddeford, a city of 21,355. There were no killings in 2015, two in 2014, one in 2013, and five total between 2002 and 2012, according to statistics compiled by the FBI.
Jonathan Methot, who had an 8-year-old son, attended Biddeford High School and later earned his GED before taking a job assembling pallets at IFCO in Scarborough.
He had a criminal history in Maine dating to 2005. Most of the charges were misdemeanors, including a charge of operating under the influence. He also was convicted of felony drug trafficking and furnishing scheduled drugs, state records show.
Methot’s mother said her son had struggled with prescription opiate addiction in the past, but was attending drug counseling sessions regularly.
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