AUGUSTA — The gunshot slayings of two people in a rural area of Manchester early Christmas morning were revenge for a burglary and were tied intricately to illegal drugs and firearms dealings, according to court documents.
The documents were released Tuesday afternoon, shortly after a New York man pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in the fatal shootings of an Augusta man and woman about 3:30 a.m. as they sat in a Chevrolet Trailblazer on Sanford Road.
David W. Marble Jr., of Rochester, New York, was arraigned Tuesday at the Capital Judicial Center before Justice Michaela Murphy.
Marble, 29, who most recently lived on Sewall Street in Augusta and who used the nickname “Dee Money,” was indicted Feb. 18 by the Kennebec County grand jury on charges of intentional or knowing murder for causing the deaths of Eric Williams, 35, and Bonnie Royer, 26, on Dec. 25, 2015, with the use of Sig Sauer P250 pistol.
Marble also was indicted on a charge of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. The indictment cites his prior convictions in Monroe County, New York, for robbery and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.
A 12-page affidavit seeking an arrest warrant for Marble indicates that he believed Williams had burglarized his apartment just two hours earlier while Marble was being driven to the Portland area on a drug run.
The affidavit was filed with the court by Maine State Police Detective Christopher A. Tremblay.
It had been sealed from public view until after Marble’s arraignment, when Assistant Attorney General Meg Elam asked the judge to unseal it.
It says Williams, two other men and a woman – not Royer – burglarized Marble’s Sewall Street apartment between 12:30 and 1:15 a.m. Dec. 25, stealing televisions, backpacks, a gun and drugs. It says they did so after learning that Marble was being driven to Westbrook, meaning the drug or “stash” house would be unoccupied. One man interviewed by police said Williams had a key to Marble’s apartment; however, another man told police one of the burglars entered the apartment by climbing in a window and opening the door for the others.
The affidavit says Marble had been questioned by police on Dec. 4, 2015, about the Nov. 23, 2015, beating death of Joseph Marceau, 31, which took place on Washington Street in Augusta. He denied being involved, but Tremblay’s affidavit says, ” ‘Dee Money’ admitted indirectly that he is an area drug dealer.”
STOLEN ITEMS TAKEN TO AUGUSTA HOME
After the stolen items were taken to a home on Ridge Road in Augusta, Williams got dropped off at his Easy Street house by one of the other perpetrators, according to the affidavit.
The woman involved in the burglary said Royer called her later to say Marble called Williams and said he had been “cleaned out.”
Other people, including an unnamed informant, told police that Williams had been working for Marble. They said Williams, nicknamed “Chunkie,” was to collect Marble’s money from another drug dealer nicknamed “2Tall” on Dec. 23, but failed to return with the money to Marble’s apartment.
The affidavit also says Marble arranged to buy two handguns, including a 9 mm Smith & Wesson, that same day, paying cash for the firearms and giving heroin to the people who went to get them for him. It says a Sig Sauer had been bought for Marble a day earlier as well under the same arrangement.
Phone records obtained via search warrants helped police track the whereabouts of Marble, the victims and a number of people on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25. One of Marble’s outgoing texts at 3:21 a.m. Dec. 25, says, “It had to be Eric I am with him now we taking a trip.”
Police responded to Royer’s call for help made at 3:34 a.m. Dec. 25.
“I’m on the (Pit) Road. I’ve just been shot,” she told the Somerset County Communications Center worker who answered the 911 call.
Those were Royer’s last words, according to a transcript of a call log obtained through a Freedom of Access Act request filed by the Kennebec Journal.
That call was passed through immediately to the Augusta Regional Communications Center, allowing the E911 workers to map the location while remaining on the open line with Royer.
“This is Somerset. I have a caller on the line and she wasn’t able to give her address, but she said that she just got shot.”
The two ask the caller repeatedly for more information, telling her to touch any key on her phone if she couldn’t talk about her location.
The Somerset worker tells the Augusta center: “It sounds like outside. I didn’t hear any background noise like a TV or anything, so I don’t know if she is outside, in a car or what. That’s all she said.”
Williams’ sport utility vehicle was found on Sanford Road in Manchester, not far from where the couple lived on Easy Street in Augusta.
Both had been shot to death.
POLICE FIND COUPLE DEAD
When police arrived, they found Williams at the wheel of the maroon Chevrolet Trailblazer, his foot still pressing the accelerator, a bullet hole in the top of his head. Royer was in the front passenger seat, her door partly open and a white cellphone in her lap. She, too, was bleeding from the head, and an initial examination by an investigator from the state medical examiner’s office showed she had been shot in the neck and the back of her head, the affidavit says.
Detectives reported finding a knife inside her left boot, a Suboxone wrapper in her left sock, and a pipe with drug residue in her waistband.
Police had said earlier that the deaths were drug-related, but until Tuesday all of the court documents in the case were sealed except for the initial complaint and subsequent indictment.
An item on Marble’s Facebook page posted on Dec. 29, says “This was a good Christmas after all everybody got to present this year and I was not in locked up.” Another of the posts on Marble’s page, from Dec. 28, says, “Forgive me GOD FOR I HAVE SIN. Spiritus Sancti.” The latter entry was cited in the arrest affidavit.
The affidavit also says Marble denied he had anything to do with their deaths when he was questioned by Williams’ and Royer’s friends on Christmas Day.
On Tuesday, 15 family members and friends of the victims watched the brief arraignment hearing.
The judge said it appears that a trial on the charges will be held in 2017.
“My client has agreed to waive the Harnish hearing bail right,” defense attorney Pamela Ames told the judge. A Harnish hearing is held to determine whether someone facing a serious charge should be held without bail.
Marble, who has been held without bail since his arrest four days after the couple were found dead, pleaded not guilty to all the charges. He was accompanied by Ames and attorney David Geller.
On Tuesday, the 6-foot-2 Marble wore his usual black-framed glasses, and his wrists were cuffed to a heavy belt cinched around his waist and connected by a chain to cuffs around his ankles.
MEETING IN JUDGE’S CHAMBERS
While the arraignment was brief, the attorneys and the judge were in the judge’s chambers for more than a half-hour before the proceeding.
When they emerged, the indictment had been amended by the judge to drop multiple references to Marble as “AKA DEE MONEY,” and to correct Marble’s date of birth.
Ames said after the hearing that she wanted the reference to Marble’s nickname removed.
“It’s inflammatory, not only to him personally but based on some of the comments that have been repeatedly made by the governor without using Mr. Marble’s given name,” she said.
At a town hall meeting in Bridgton in early January, Gov. Paul LePage talked of Maine’s drug problem, saying, “These are guys with the name Dee Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”
Those remarks drew a firestorm of criticism, with many people accusing LePage of racism.
A week after the bodies of Williams and Royer were discovered, neighbors, friends, and family members took part in a memorial vigil outside the couple’s home.
At the vigil, Williams was described by his father as “a big-hearted guy” who would drop everything to help someone else. He was a graduate of Cony High School and Kennebec Valley Community College, where he studied electrical line work.
Royer, who had a 6-year-old daughter and attended Cony High School, was remembered by a friend as someone who was “full of life and had such a kind, big heart.”
Marble has convictions in Rochester, New York, for forcible robbery and faces charges there of aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, driving without a license, leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. Those charges are related to a July 18, 2015, traffic accident in Rochester in which Marble is accused of hitting a 50-year-old pedestrian, according to a New York accident report.
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