BANGOR, Maine — With Friday’s arrest of Zachary Carr, 18, of Bangor for the shooting death of a teenager from the Queen City last week, a record number of accused murderers is being held at the Penobscot County Jail, according to jail officials.
“We do have five,” Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross said Saturday. The previous record was four in 2007.
Carr joins Colin Koehler, 34, Justin Ptaszynski, 27, both of Bangor, Perley Goodrich Jr., 45, of Newport and Nathaneal Nightingale, 31, of Burlington, all of whom are at the Bangor jail awaiting trials.
“Two are in maximum security, and three are in general population,” Ross said.
Ptaszynski and Goodrich are in maximum security, and the other three “are classified as medium security,” he said.
Carr, who turned himself in to Bangor police at 3 p.m. Friday, is the man who police say fatally shot John “Bobby” Surles, 19, during a group fight on Cumberland Street on Wednesday.
Surles died from a single gunshot wound to the chest at 11:08 p.m. Thursday.
Carr is scheduled to make his first court appearance Monday. More details about the crime are expected to be released at that time.
Koehler and Ptaszynski are both charged in the August 2009 killing of Holly Boutilier, 19, of Old Town, who was found stabbed to death in a shack on the Bangor Waterfront.
Koehler was arrested on Aug. 8, 2009, two days after the body was found by a Bangor transient. Koehler was indicted by the Penobscot County grand jury for murder in late August.
Ptaszynski was arrested Sept. 3, 2009, nearly one month after Boutilier’s body was found, and was indicted by the grand jury in September for intentional or knowing murder and hindering apprehension or prosecution.
Koehler and Ptaszynski went for a walk along the Penobscot River with Boutilier the day she died, according to court documents. Ptaszynski told detectives that Koehler used a small, curved Japanese-style knife to kill the woman.
The two men were recorded on video surveillance cameras from Hollywood Slots Hotel & Raceway leaving the area. They are expected to be tried separately, but their trial dates have not been set.
“Koehler and Ptaszynski are in different areas of the jail on different floors,” Ross said. “They’re separated.”
Nightingale was indicted Dec. 28, 2009, on two counts of intentional or knowing murder in the shooting deaths of Michael L. Miller and Valerie J. Miller, both 47, of Webster Plantation.
The couple was found in their trailer on Tucker Ridge Road on Nov. 28, 2009. Both died of small-caliber gunshot wounds to the head, according to the state medical examiner’s office.
Nightingale initially provided investigators with a composite sketch of a female suspect who turned out not to exist.
After his arrest, Nightingale told police he shot the husband and wife, who were his friends, after a botched robbery. He was arrested about two weeks after the late November 2009 slayings.
Goodrich Jr. is accused of shooting his father, Perley Goodrich Sr., 76, in the back and beating his 64-year-old mother, Sandra, with a pistol on Oct. 26, 2009, at the Rutland Road home they shared.
Their son entered his mother’s bedroom, where she was asleep, and asked to use her cell phone, according to a court affidavit. Goodrich Jr. left the room with the phone, but when his mother followed him to the living room, he allegedly grabbed her, struck her with his fists and attempted to bind her hands together with duct tape. He then pulled a handgun and struck her on the head five to six times, leaving her dazed and beaten, the woman told police.
Goodrich Jr. then went to the bedroom where his father was and shot him, according to court documents. When his mother heard the gunshots and her husband exclaim, “He shot me,” she ran to a neighbor’s house, where police were called.
Her son took off, and an intensive police manhunt that lasted more than three days followed.
Goodrich Jr. was arrested on Oct. 30 at a Newport truck stop after a waitress recognized him drinking coffee and called police. He was indicted on one count of intentional or knowing murder and depraved indifference murder and one count of aggravated assault.
All five accused murderers will be held at the Penobscot County Jail until their trials, Ross said.
“It does take a long time to get cases prepared and whatnot,” Ross said. “This is not unusual. We have had individuals awaiting trials for up to two years. We hold them until they’re either sentenced or released.
“Right now we have five, but next year we could have one,” he said.
Ptaszynski’s trial is now “tentatively scheduled for August,” Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson, who is prosecuting both Ptaszynski and Koehler, said last week. None of the other murder trial dates has been set.
BDN writers Nick Sambides Jr., Christopher Cousins and Judy Harrison contributed to this report.