State and local police investigate a shooting June 6, 2020, at Home Place Inn at 150 College Ave. in Waterville. Joseph Tracy, 33, was taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland. He died June 8 of his injuries. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel file Buy this Photo

Jashaun Lipscombe was so angry at Joseph Tracy for being an hour late that he allegedly shot him and left him for dead.

That apparent motivation is revealed in a newly unsealed police affidavit in the state’s murder case against Lipscombe, who allegedly shot Tracy in Waterville June 6, 2020, after Tracy arrived late to give him a ride to the Bangor airport.

Tracy, 33, of West Gardiner, died two days later on June 8, with the state medical examiner ruling his death a homicide and the cause of death, a gunshot wound to the neck and back with spinal cord perforation.

Joseph Tracy Provided by Jessica Poulin

Those details had remained secret until recently when the police affidavit was unsealed, revealing a convoluted tale of how Lipscombe, 21, of East 122nd Street in New York City met Tracy in a room at Home Place Inn on College Avenue in Waterville. Lipscombe allegedly became enraged, shot Tracy, fled, and was arrested this past March in New York City, where he lives.

Lipscombe, who was indicted on murder charges May 21 by a grand jury in Kennebec County, is being held in New York on other charges and is expected to be brought to Maine this month.

The 10-page affidavit, dated July 7, 2020, is signed by Maine State Police Detective Joshua Birmingham who attended the autopsy June 8, 2020. He notes in the document that the details of the case were provided to him by other investigating officers.

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Tracy’s father, Dan Tracy of West Gardiner, said Tuesday that he was unaware the affidavit had been unsealed. Provided with a copy, he said after reading it that he was stunned at the details surrounding his son’s shooting.

“I don’t know any of the people, any of their names — none of it,” Dan Tracy said. “Joe was very private, and we didn’t know any of that.”

The affidavit says that on June 6 last year, Waterville police received a 911 call about a shooting at 150 College Ave. and Waterville police Sgt. Lincoln Ryder notified Waterville Detective Chase Fabian that the victim was still alive, but responders did not think he would survive. Officers were given a description of a man who fled the scene. Waterville Sgt. Jason Longley told Fabian at the scene that he went to apartment B47 where he found Tracy and Jarae Lipscombe (whom police later learned is the brother of Jashaun Lipscombe).

A wounded Tracy was talking but unable to move and he would not reveal who shot him, according to Longley. Tracy was taken to the Thayer Center for Health in Waterville and then by LifeFlight helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland. He died June 8 at Androscoggin Hospice House in Auburn.

Jarae Lipscombe told police at the time that Tracy had gone into the apartment at Home Place Inn to use the bathroom and he, Jarae Lipscombe, heard a disturbance in the apartment and then a gunshot. Then, he said, a man ran out of the apartment, nearly running into him.

Later, a police officer stopped a man walking on nearby Central Avenue who didn’t match the description first responders were given of the suspect, so the officer let him go, according to the affidavit. Authorities later learned the man, Jashaun Lipscombe, had given the officer a false name.

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Jarae Lipscombe and the woman who rented the apartment where the shooting occurred were interviewed by Waterville and state police at the Waterville Police Department. The woman, who agreed to have her apartment searched by police, said she did not know Joseph Tracy, but he had arrived at her apartment that morning with Jarae Lipscombe, another man and a woman.

Jarae Lipscombe told police that he called 911 after the shooting and rendered aid to Tracy, the affidavit says.

Two days later, a man found a small semi-automatic .25-caliber pistol behind a garage on nearby Greenwood Street and the caliber ammunition type matched the spent casing that was found on the ground just outside the door to the apartment where the shooting had occurred, according to the affidavit.

Waterville police obtained video from the area that captured a man matching the description of Jashaun Lipscombe, it says.

Meanwhile, police interviewed a woman who said she used drugs and that is how she knew Jarae Lipscombe, who introduced her to his brother, Jashaun Lipscombe. She told police Jarae’s girlfriend called and asked her to pick up Jashaun Lipscombe on Vigue Street, which she did, and she drove him and his girlfriend to Madison.

She also drove Jarae Lipscombe and his girlfriend to Auburn, where he lives, and on the way, she overheard him say Jashaun Lipscombe woke up in a bad mood that morning “but they got him calmed down.” She said she also heard them say Joseph Tracy was supposed to take the Lipscombes to the airport to pick up Jashaun’s girlfriend but he was an hour late getting to Waterville so Jashaun shot him.

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She said she heard them say Jashaun threw the gun over the fence after the shooting.

Meanwhile, police interviewed a man who lives on East Madison Road in Madison who said Jashaun Lipscombe and a woman stayed overnight at his house and he drove them to a Motel 6 in Lewiston, stopping on the way at Circle K, a convenience store in Fairfield. Video and forensic evidence confirmed his report, the affidavit says.

Marc Malon, spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office, said last week in an email that the next step in the case is an arraignment, which has not yet been scheduled, and then a trial would be held in Maine. Assistant Attorney General Bud Ellis handled the indictment, he said.

Dan Tracy, Tracy’s father, said last week after the indictment that Maine State Police called him March 4 this year and told him Jashaun Lipscombe had been arrested in New York City after authorities there observed him entering a building in Queens. Police told him Lipscombe would be brought to Maine this month, according to Dan Tracy.

He said neurologists said last year that his son would likely have been a quadriplegic, had he lived.

After the shooting, Dan Tracy and his wife, Cindy, went to the Portland hospital where their son was in the intensive care unit on the sixth floor, but they were told they could not see him right away because of the coronavirus pandemic. Joseph Tracy was ultimately moved to the Androscoggin Hospice House, where he died, surrounded by his family.

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