AUGUSTA — A man on trial on a charge of attempting to murder a sheriff’s deputy told investigators he struggled mightily to get the guns away from his father the night of May 19, 2017, and hide them from him.
An audio recording of Scott Bubar’s interview by officers five days after his father was shot and killed by police, and Bubar himself was wounded, was played on Friday, the third day of Scott Bubar’s trial, at the Capital Judicial Center.
Bubar, 41, of Brunswick, who is being held at the Kennebec County jail, left the courtroom when the 59-minute interview recording started to be heard. He left during the courtroom several other times as well when other evidence was introduced.
From his hospital bed in Lewiston on May 25, 2017, Bubar tells Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office Detective John Bourque and a second officer that his father, Roger Bubar, asked if he could pick up Scott and bring him to stay for the night in Belgrade.
“I could tell something was wrong, just the way his voice was and what he was saying,” Scott Bubar said, adding that his father suffered from stress from the responsibility of caring for his longtime girlfriend, Jenny Shorey, who is bedridden and dealing with multiple sclerosis.
Scott Bubar said he drove his father’s Ford Mustang back to his father’s 1003 Oakland Road home, and that his father wanted to start drinking, so they picked up alcohol in Oakland and Belgrade.
“Then he wants to go outside and burn the tires on his car,” Bubar said.
As he speaks about the night of the exchange of gunfire with police, his voice shakes and he sounds as though he is crying. At one point, Bourque asks if he needs time to compose himself, but Bubar says no.
Scott Bubar said his father fired several shots inside the trailer, one of which went very close to him.
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.
Scott Bubar said his father “was just screamin’ s—. ‘Get the F out of here, pigs.’ I didn’t even see no cops.”
After Roger Bubar fired another shot, police returned fire, and Roger Bubar was struck in the leg, Scott Bubar said.
Scott Bubar said he wanted to leave the trailer.
“I said I’m going out to surrender; then they shot one more round and I got hit,” Bubar said, adding that he passed out at some point.
He said he recalled going into the bathroom, taking his clothes off and getting into the tub.
“It kept feeling like there were a bunch of bullets inside me turning and burning,” he said.
Bubar, who was shot in the abdomen said he thought he was going to die.
He woke up to the sound of state police using a bullhorn to tell him to come out of the house, and he did so.
“I had to walk past my dad,” Scott Bubar told them. “I knew he was dead at that time.”
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.” Bubar said they had been sliding the loaded gun across the floor to each other, saying they wanted to kill themselves.
The prosecution introduced as evidence photos from the bathroom, including one that showed a green T-shirt balled up on the floor next to the toilet, as well as syringes and spoons on the bathroom vanity.
Bourque testified he first saw that image during a June 13, 2017, meeting with the evidence response team and the attorney general’s office, which investigates all uses of deadly force by law enforcement officers.
Bourque said he applied to the court for a search warrant and retrieved that shirt, which was still in place, and that it was taken first to the state police crime laboratory and then given back to him.
Kennebec County Sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Jacob Pierce says he saw a man with a green T-shirt in the muzzle flash of a gun that was being fired at him that night as Pierce and another officer took cover across the street from the trailer.
Bubar’s blood was found on the green T-shirt; a blood-stained red T-shirt was removed from Roger Bubar’s body at the autopsy.
Bourque also identified dozens of shell casings, both spent and unspent, that were collected from Roger Bubar’s home almost immediately after the incident, as well as a pistol and a single-shot shotgun.
The defense maintains that Roger Bubar did all the shooting that night and say that none of Scott Bubar’s DNA was found on either firearm. DNA experts for both sides are expected to testify next week.
One of the prosecutors, Kenebec County Deputy District Attorney Paul Cavanagh, also introduced as evidence branches of an apple tree that was near Pierce that night, but he did not explain their significance in open court.
The nonjury trial before Justice Michaela Murphy is scheduled to continue Monday morning.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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