BANGOR — Robert Burton was “frustrated and aggravated” when he visited lifelong friend George Miles in Abbot, two days before Stephanie Gebo died of gunshot wounds at her home in Parkman.
Miles offered that testimony Tuesday morning, on the second day of Burton’s trial, at the Penobscot Judicial Center on a charge of murder in connection with Gebo’s death. Miles said that Burton wanted to “slap” Gebo and called her a dirty name.
If you need help
If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic violence, help is available through the state’s toll-free hotline at 1-866-834-4357.
“He had a mean demeanor look on his face with dark eyes,” Miles testified. “He said that this weren’t over yet.”
Miles said Burton was jealous, thinking Gebo was “talking with other guys” via text. He thought she was cheating on him.
The statement about slapping Gebo, however, never appeared in any police reports during the investigation or in prosecutor’s notes. “I’m positive Rob said that,” Miles said.
He said he told Burton not to do anything stupid, and Burton promised that he wouldn’t.
Cpl. Micah Perkins, of the Maine State Police, who was with the Major Crimes’ Evidence Response Team at Gebo’s home the morning her body was discovered, took the stand Tuesday afternoon. Perkins testified on direct examination by the prosecution team that investigators discovered several pages of handwritten notes in Burton’s backpack outside the home he had shared for two years with Gebo.
In the notes, Burton accuses Gebo of looking for sex with any random man, craving “quick easy sex,” Perkins said.
“Have you been loyal to me?” Burton asks, as he lists in the notes the names of area men he wondered if Gebo had sexual relations with, using crude, vulgar language.
Zachary Brandmeir, one of two defense attorneys representing Burton, said there was no way to know if Gebo had ever seen the notes or when they were written.
Perkins went on to testify that the mounting screws on a window lock near Gebo’s bed had been removed and the latch set had been rigged to rise up with the window if it were opened.
Perkins also noted that four spent 9 mm shells were found in the house, but only three bullets were found.
Hunter Tzovarras, Burton’s other defense attorney, said outside the courtroom that Gebo had shot Burton and that a bullet found by investigators in the ceiling was the one that went through his client’s upper body. He would not speculate where the fourth bullet ended up.
Earlier in the day Tuesday, Gebo’s best friend, Erika Moulton, of Parkman, testified that Gebo wasn’t happy in her relationship with Burton, but she never told Moulton that she feared for her life or that Burton had threatened her or acted out in a violent way. Moulton told Gebo to get a protection order against Burton anyway, for “a paper trail.”
“She was happy as soon as he was gone,” Moulton said of the couple’s breakup the weekend before Gebo died.
In Monday’s testimony, a witness said that Gebo started sleeping with a gun next to her on Monday, May 31, and said that Gebo said “the gun sleeps on his side of the bed.”
Also on Monday, friends and former workmates testified before Justice Robert Mullen that they knew Gebo carried a gun and that she had said that “she was not going to let him get her first.”
Prosecutors presented copies of text messages exchanged between Gebo and former co-worker Elaine Watson, of Newport, which appeared to show Gebo was scared but ready for whatever was to come.
Gebo showed her the gun she carried, a small handgun, reportedly saying, “If he comes near me, I have to protect myself and my children.”
Gebo’s daughter Sidney, now 15, who found her mother the morning of June 5 lying face down in a pool of blood, also testified Monday. She testified that she never really got along with Burton and that the relationship between Burton and her mother was “very tense, a lot of fighting.”
Burton, 40, took authorities on the longest manhunt in state history in June 2015.
He is charged with murder in the shooting death of Gebo, then 37, in the Parkman home they once shared in Piscataquis County. A jury of nine men and six women was selected Friday for the trial.
Burton walked into the Piscataquis County Jail in Dover-Foxcroft on Aug. 11, 2015, and surrendered peacefully.
He had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.
Gebo, a single mother of two, was shot to death with a pistol, according to police. She had broken up with Burton the previous weekend. Gebo was killed the day after Burton’s probation for a domestic violence conviction that had sent him to prison for 10 years ended.
Medical Examiner Margaret Greenwald, who conducted the autopsy on Gebo’s remains on June 7, 2015, found multiple gunshot wounds to the lungs, spinal area and trachea and determined the death was a homicide.
According to an affidavit, Perkins found four shell casings from a 9 mm handgun and an open window in the bedroom where Gebo’s body was found.
Piscataquis County Sheriff John Goggin told WVII-TV in July 2015 that Burton had climbed in through the window. Goggin said Burton was wounded by Stephanie Gebo before he turned the gun on her.
“As he was climbing through the window that night, his would-be victim had a handgun and she shot at him,” Goggin said in the interview with the Bangor TV station. “He wasn’t armed at that time. She wounded him slightly, they got in a tussle over the gun, and he just lost it. He got the gun away from her and he shot her and he killed her.”
The gun never was found.
The trial is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
dharlow@centralmaine.com
Twitter:@Doug_Harlow
Send questions/comments to the editors.
