AUGUSTA — Nearly three years after a West Gardiner man was shot in Waterville and died days later from the injury, a Superior Court justice has found the New York man accused of the murder to be not guilty of the crime.

After summing up the evidence presented last week during the three-day murder trial of Jashawn Lipscombe, Justice Deborah Cashman said Thursday that prosecutors had failed to prove that Lipscombe, 23, was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He was accused of acting intentionally or knowingly as the person who fatally shot Joseph Tracy in 2020.

Following the verdict, Tracy’s family left the courtroom immediately. Lipscombe, now 23, showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

Reached later Thursday, Dan Tracy, the victim’s father, said he didn’t have much to say yet.

Joseph Tracy, 33, was shot June 6, 2020, in an apartment at the Home Place Inn at 150 College Ave. in Waterville. He was taken by LifeFlight helicopter from Thayer Center for Health in Waterville to Maine Medical Center in Portland, then transferred to the Androscoggin Hospice House in Auburn, where he died June 8.

In closing arguments last week, prosecutor Bud Ellis, an assistant attorney general, said the state’s case was based on circumstantial — or indirect — evidence that Lipscombe shot and killed Tracy, and said there was ample evidence to reach that common-sense conclusion.

“Jashawn Lipscombe is the only logical conclusion as to who fired the shot, at close range, and then fled the scene, disposed of the gun and took all kinds of deceptive actions not to be caught and to get away from there,” Ellis said. “He’s the one who fired the pistol that shot Joseph Tracy in the back and ended up killing him.”

But Lipscombe’s attorneys argued that prosecutors were asking the court to convict their client on leaps of faith.

“We know Joseph Tracy was killed. It’s the state’s burden to prove who did that, beyond a reasonable doubt,” Andrew B. Wright, one of Lipscombe’s attorneys, said. “No one puts Jashawn at the scene. There is no scientific evidence showing Jashawn had anything to do with this crime. No DNA. He was in the proximity of the crime, but was not at the crime scene itself. Being on the streets of Waterville is not a crime. There is no evidence as to why Jashawn Lipscombe would ever have any problem with Joe Tracy, or why he’d shoot him.”

Because Lipscombe waived his right to a jury trial, Cashman decided the outcome of the case.

Police documents, unsealed before the trial, say witnesses told police that Lipscombe shot Tracy because he was angry that Tracy was late in giving him a ride to Bangor International Airport.

Among those witnesses was Jarae Lipscombe, brother of Jashawn Lipscombe, whose name has also been spelled Jashaun in court papers. Both are New York residents.

Jarae Lipscombe, 26, was sentenced in January to five years in prison, with all but three years suspended, after he was found guilty in 2022 of hindering apprehension or prosecution because he lied to police and helped his brother flee from a crime scene and then flee the state and remain at large for about nine months.

Jashawn Lipscombe was apprehended in March 2021 in New York City and was brought to Maine to face trial in the murder of Tracy. He pleaded not guilty to the murder charge in 2021.

The investigation detailed in the police affidavit shows that a shooting at the Home Place Inn was reported via 911 to Waterville police and the victim, who had been shot at close range in the back, was alive but emergency responders did not think he would survive. Officers were given a false description by Jarae Lipscombe of a man who fled the shooting scene.

Police found Tracy and Jarae Lipscombe, whose relationship to the then unidentified suspect wasn’t known, in the bathroom of the apartment. While Tracy could not move, he was able to talk but would not say who had shot him.

According to the affidavit, Jarae Lipscombe said he heard a disturbance and a gunshot after Tracy had gone into the apartment to use the bathroom. Then a man ran out of the apartment, nearly hitting him, and Jarae Lipscombe remained behind, cradling Tracy.

Police later stopped a man who did not match the description that had been provided, and let him go after the man reportedly gave an officer a fake name.

Police documents also included details of text messages between the brothers that prosecutors said would show their agitated state of mind before the shooting, but they were not allowed to be admitted at trial because they were deemed hearsay.

While a gun was recovered not far from the scene of the shooting, it was not tied directly to the weapon that used in the shooting.

Lipscombe’s attorneys had argued that the state’s evidence did not conclusively tie their client to the crime, nor did it rule out other suspects.

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