AUGUSTA — The youngest son of 92-year-old Aurele A. Fecteau denied killing his father Friday under repeated questioning by the prosecutor in the murder trial of a third man, Roland L. Cummings.
On the witness stand, David Fecteau, 49, of Benton, testified he did not go to his father’s house around May 20, 2014, and stab him 16 times.
The testimony came during the second day of the trial of Cummings, 46, of Waterville, who is accused of stabbing Fecteau to death in his Waterville home, as well as burglarizing the home and stealing two rings.
Cummings has denied the charges. His jury trial is underway at the Capital Judicial Center.
It was there on Friday that Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea asked Fecteau about the killing after defense attorney Darrick Banda said the younger Fecteau could not account for his whereabouts any night that week.
Banda also asked him why he inquired about his father possibly being stabbed before being told about the cause of death.
David Fecteau also testified that Cummings had lived with him in his Benton home about a year before Aurele Fecteau’s death and had done some work on a sink at the older man’s home.
Jurors heard from Cummings, too, on Friday. However, it was not in person. His voice was heard when a prosecutor played an audio file of him being interviewed in Skowhegan by two Waterville police officers on May 24, 2014, the day after Aurele Fecteau’s body was discovered by his oldest son, Ernest Fecteau, who had come to check on him.
Cummings says on the recording he first had stopped at Aurele Fecteau’s house about three weeks earlier.
“I was in the neighborhood and I stopped in to see if he needed any work done,” Cummings says.
Cummings tells them that Fecteau had been eating a sandwich in the kitchen at the time.
“He was telling me how he repaired the crack around the front steps,” Cummings says. “He said it took him four hours.”
He says on the recording he had known the Fecteau family, particularly David Fecteau for more than 20 years and that Fecteau’s late mother had taught him to play the piano.
When detectives request a DNA sample from Cummings, he says, “Absolutely. I’ll do it right now if you have (the material.) I have nothing to hide.”
He tells them he doesn’t have a cellphone, but that if they need to talk to him again, David Fecteau knows how to find him.
As Cummings talks to the detectives on Milburn Street in Skowhegan, there are background noises from people playing a game outside as well as sounds of birds.
The defense has suggested someone else killed Aurele Fecteau, and while David Fecteau was on the stand, Banda asked him about his feelings toward his father.
The younger Fecteau testified he could not recall telling a state police investigator that his father always put him down.
So Banda played an audio file of the May 24, 2014, interview. In it, David Fecteau says, “He always put me down. It made me feel like 2 cents. No credit; he never gave me any credit. That’s why I don’t have any self-esteem.”
Fecteau testified that he has received disability income for 25 to 27 years because he is diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and that some of the things he said to police “might not have been accurate.”
Fecteau said that in talking to a woman not long before his father’s death, and shortly after his father had sold a boat he wanted, “I said I wish my father would pass because he was so old.”
With regard to his living arrangements with Cummings, he said Cummings paid him “very, very little” in rent.
“He owed me money, so I told him he had to leave,” Fecteau said. Fecteau also said Cummings had his girlfriend move in as well.
Fecteau testified he was surprised to get a phone call from Cummings, who he said had the nickname “Snoopy,” the day before he learned of his father’s death.
“He had called me up to see if my father needs any work done,” David Fecteau testified. “I said, ‘You don’t have to go over there, because I can do the work for him. I’ve been doing it right along.'”
Fecteau said Cummings previously had repaired a sink for the elder Fecteau.
David Fecteau said he had difficulty recalling his activities around the time his father was killed, including whether he told detectives he stayed the night of May 22, 2014, at the Sidney home of his sister, Ann Bucknam.
“I don’t recall,” David Fecteau testified. “It’s so long ago, and I was distraught.”
During that week, Fecteau said, he was busy using his truck to move a couple into his home.
At the trial on Friday, a detective with the State Police Evidence Collection Team showed the jury cuts that pierced a blanket, a quilt and a sheet as well as a long-sleeved T-shirt worn by the elder Fecteau. Detective Terrence James pointed to marks and items in the bedroom of Fecteau’s 33 Brooklyn Ave. home in Waterville, where Fecteau’s body was discovered on May 23, 2014.
James was part of the evidence collection team that worked at Fecteau’s home.
Another member of the evidence collection team, Detective David Yankowsky of the Maine State Police, testified to finding marks near the lock and near the window on the back door of Aurele Fecteau’s home.
“It was kind of like it was chiseled open with something very pointed,” Yankowsky said. “This one looked like it was stabbed multiple times in order to get into the residence.”
That heavy wooden door, with a clear glass window in the top third, was carried over in front of the jury, and the judge told them they will have it with them in the room where they deliberate on their verdict.
Yankowsky said he usually sees marks from a pry bar or a screwdriver in a break-in. Yankowsky also testified about collecting three pairs of pants, their rear pockets turned out, that were on the floor in a pile next to Fecteau’s body on the bed.
The trial is set to continue for a third day Monday at the Capital Judicial Center. Justice Michaela Murphy told the jurors to check a juror information line Sunday night to see what time to report.
She also requested an update on the timeline, and Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea said the state’s case might be completed Tuesday. Then the defense portion would begin.
More than 80 witnesses are listed for the trial.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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