A man charged with murder in a 2016 Portland shooting death will serve a 240-day sentence in a California jail for drug possession before he is extradited to Maine.

Aristotle Stilley Portland Police department

Aristotle Stilley, 22, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor methamphetamine possession during a hearing in Sacramento this week, according to California jail records and a statement by the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

He is currently being held at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove, just south of Sacramento in Sacramento County. His projected release date is Feb. 9, 2021.

Police allege Stilley shot and killed David Anderson, 36, who was inside a third-floor apartment on Gilman Street in Portland on March 15, 2016. Anderson was one of four guests at the apartment in addition to the full-time resident, but it’s unclear who the alleged target of the shooting may have been, or if Stilley and Anderson knew each other.

A Portland police spokesman, Lt. Robert Martin, said Stilley will not be released from custody at the conclusion of the sentence in California, but transferred directly to Maine, where he will answer for the murder charge.

David Anderson

Stilley was arrested in Sacramento after a routine traffic stop there in October, and a records check by the officer who stopped him indicated Stilley was wanted for murder in Maine. He was arrested without incident. Police and prosecutors obtained an indictment of Stilley for murder in August, but the charge remained sealed until after his arrest.

Sacramento police, working with investigators in Portland, had been looking for Stilley since he was indicted, but it was a run-of-the-mill traffic stop in the wee hours of the morning that brought him into custody, a Sacramento police spokesman said previously.

At first, police in Portland had little to go on, and the case remained unsolved for four years. The gunman covered his face with a mask and a hood when he entered the apartment complex, which is equipped with surveillance cameras.

Whoever killed Anderson also was careful to pick up the brass shell casings that were ejected from the semi-automatic handgun used to shoot him, denying police a potentially valuable lead.

Police have declined to release any information about how they linked Stilley to the homicide and what evidence they have that may connect him to the shooting. It’s also unclear what the motive may have been for the shooting.