LEWISTON — Twin boys who witnessed the fatal stabbing of their mother outside a local laundromat in 2018 are back in school and doing well academically, according to the victim’s uncle.

Kimberly Dobbie at the Farmington Public Library in 2016. Submitted photo.

Robert Patterson of Connecticut said the 12-year-old sons of his niece, Kimberly Dobbie, who would have turned 50 this year, are still adjusting to life without their mother and continue to attend therapy sessions.

Dobbie was killed July 15, 2018, by Albert Flick, who was convicted of murder a year later in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn and sentenced to life in prison. She encountered Flick while she and her boys lived temporarily at an Auburn shelter.

It was the second time Flick had been convicted of murder, the first time in 1979 for the stabbing death of his wife, Sandra Flick, in Westbrook.

Patterson said his sister’s sons took a late summer vacation to Martha’s Vineyard for a getaway in the sun and sand, but are back in school, living with their grandmother in Massachusetts.

She is seeking to adopt the boys, but has encountered some difficulties with Maine’s adoption process, Patterson said.

The boys, who are in middle school, both qualified for that school’s geographic spelling bee, he said. One of the boys won last year.

“They’re both smart as heck in school,” he said.

Patterson said he and his wife traveled to Mexico City recently with a church group and brought photographs of late family loved ones to which they paid homage during that city’s celebration of Day of the Dead.

They carried a photo of Dobbie, which they placed on an altar there, he said.

“It’s been a closure, but it hasn’t been,” he said, noting the pain lingers.

Patterson said his sister, Susan, who is in her 70s and lives alone with the boys, has been getting help from friends. Her son is in the process of moving back from Baltimore to help, Patterson added.