AUGUSTA — A judge presiding over the jury-waived trial of a Brunswick man charged in connection with a fatal May 2017 shootout in Belgrade heard testimony this week about shotgun shells, pellets, broken glass, DNA and other evidence collected from the scene.
Scott Bubar is charged with aggravated attempted murder – for allegedly trying to kill Sgt. Jacob Pierce of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office – and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon. The trial at the Capital Judicial Center will enter its sixth day Wednesday.
Bubar, 41, was shot and wounded by Pierce, and Bubar’s father, Roger Bubar, 65, was killed by Pierce in the exchange of gunfire late on May 19, 2017.
Scott Bubar’s attorneys say their client did not fire the weapons found in Roger Bubar’s mobile home: a 9 mm pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun, both of which belonged to Roger Bubar.
Testifying on behalf of the defense Tuesday was Heather Miller Coyle, an associate professor in the Forensic Science Department at Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice & Forensic Sciences in West Haven, Connecticut. Coyle also runs Identacode Consulting LLC.
She said she analyzed DNA reports from the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory, which tested the firearms and other items recovered from the scene and concluded that Scott Bubar hadn’t touched the weapons.
“Scott Bubar is excluded from the 12-gauge shotgun,” she said. “Scott Bubar is excluded from the 9 mm handgun.” Both times, she repeated, “Exclusions are absolute, indicating no evidence of contact with the firearm.”
Glass from a shattered window in a door that is sealed with police evidence tape is seen at the front entrance to a mobile home at 1003 Oakland Road in Belgrade on May 22, 2017.
Coyle said she agreed with most of the conclusions from scientists at the state laboratory. However, she said that they had thresholds below which they could offer no conclusive data.
“I can look at all data and see that those remaining alleles (DNA coding sites on a chromosome) do not match to Scott Bubar,” Coyle said.
The state’s experts listened in the courtroom as Coyle testified.
The defense maintains no evidence ties Scott Bubar to the weapons. And his attorneys have said that he tried to get the firearms away from his father.
From his hospital bed several days after the shootout, Bubar told investigators, on an audio recording played in court, that he tried to get his father to stop. The medical examiner testified that Roger Bubar’s blood-alcohol level was 0.163 and that tests showed he had measurable quantities of various drugs in his system, including clonazepam (an anti-anxiety medication), cocaine, morphine, Ritalin or a byproduct, and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Scott Bubar said he was nearly hit when his father fired several shots inside the trailer.
When police knocked on the door that night – in response to neighbors’ complaints about tire noise and shots – Roger Bubar ordered them off the property.
After Roger Bubar fired another shot, police returned fire, and Roger Bubar was struck in the leg, Scott Bubar said. Roger Bubar fired again, and both he and his son were hit when Pierce returned fire.
Scott Bubar also said he feared guns and suffered from PTSD from an incident years ago: “I took a loaded gun from my parents twice when they wanted to kill themselves. I took it and buried it under the house,” he said.
Monday’s testimony involved the collection of spent and unfired shotgun shells containing buckshot and bird shot, and defense attorney Scott Hess told the judge that no one in the trailer at 1003 Oakland Road intended to kill a law enforcement officer.
There also was testimony about shots that had been fired inside the trailer before police arrived and about where some shots broke windows and the glass in the front door.
Pierce testified last week that he fired two bursts of his rifle at the trailer, both times after hearing glass break and seeing the muzzle flash of a shotgun. Once he saw the flash in a bedroom window and once at the front door.
He testified he saw a green shirt in the muzzle flash, and Scott Bubar’s blood was found on a green T-shirt recovered from the bathroom in the home about a month after the incident.
Roger Bubar was seen several times that night in a red shirt, and he was wearing it as he lay dead on the hallway floor in several photographs entered as evidence at the trial.
A number of law enforcement officers have testified about the event and the ensuing investigation, and Maine State Police Trooper Scott Bryant is expected to be the final witness for the prosecution on Wednesday.
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