BANGOR, Maine — The existence of murder charges and warrants against two men police say shot and killed three local people in a drug-related homicide in August was kept secret to give police a chance to find them before they knew they were wanted, a state prosecutor said Tuesday.
“In circumstances where we don’t know where they are, it gives us an advantage,” said Assistant Attorney General William Stokes, head of the criminal division in the Maine attorney general’s office.
Nicholas J. Sexton, 31 of Warwick, R.I., and Randall “Ricky” Daluz, 34, of Brockton, Mass., were secretly indicted by the Penobscot County grand jury on Sept. 26, after which fugitive from justice warrants against them were issued.
Sexton and Daluz, who had overlapping sentences at a Maine prison a few years ago, remained at large Tuesday and were the subject of a nationwide manhunt.
They are charged with three counts of knowing or intentional murder and one count of arson in the deaths of Daniel T. Borders, 26, of Hermon; Nicolle A. Lugdon, 24, of Eddington; and Lucas A. Tuscano, 28, of Bradford, whose bodies were found burned beyond recognition inside a white Pontiac sedan with Rhode Island plates that was discovered on fire early on Aug. 13 in Bangor.
“Everything is secret about the grand jury. Everything that goes on is confidential,” Stokes said. “What we occasionally do, when we have people whose whereabouts are not immediately known, is impound the indictment and warrant. It’s so we can get a head start on locating them.”
“Impounding an indictment is not unusual,” the state prosecutor said.
“What is unusual is the dispatcher in Brockton was happy to talk to you,” Stokes added, referring to the dispatcher from the Brockton (Mass.) Police Department who confirmed for the Bangor Daily News last Friday that officers in his department were looking for Sexton.
“Once that happened, it really destroyed the advantage we had for having an impounded indictment and warrant,” Stokes said. “That is why I asked the court to unseal the indictment.”
Stokes successfully petitioned a judge on Monday morning to release the information about the triple murder suspects and the case, and that information was released at an afternoon press conference at the Bangor police station.
Whether law enforcement had the two out-of-state suspects under surveillance is something Stokes said he wouldn’t discuss. Maine investigators have worked with several police agencies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Bangor police Lt. Tim Reid said Monday, and Stokes added Tuesday that the FBI also is a partnering agency.
Both Sexton and Daluz were still on the lam Tuesday evening. Their names have been added to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, Bangor police Sgt. Jim Buckley said.
“If they [law enforcement officers] come up with them anywhere in the country, it should come up on their computer,” the sergeant said, alerting them to the fact that the men are wanted in Maine for a triple homicide.
Photos, fingerprints, height, weight, date of birth, Social Security numbers and other identifying items, such as tattoos, can be put into the national repository for criminal justice information, Greg Comcowich, a special agent with the FBI in Boston, said Tuesday.
Daluz has a tattoo on his left arm, according to a background check of him by the BDN through the Maine State Bureau of Identification.
The three homicide victims were shot and their bodies were set on fire inside a car left in the back parking lot of Automatic Distributors at 22 Target Industrial Circle, Reid said.
Both Sexton and Daluz have stabbed people in the past in the Bangor region, spent time in the same prison and have drug convictions, according to BDN archives.
Sexton stabbed a 35-year-old Bangor man in the neck early on July 31, 2005, in the parking lot of the Leadbetters Mini Stop on Hammond Street and was sentenced in March 2006 to serve two years in the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.
While Sexton was in prison, Daluz was arrested at gunpoint by Orono police officers in June 2006 for stabbing a 30-year-old Swanville man at the Irving station in Orono. He was convicted of aggravated assault in March 2007 and sentenced to a year in prison at Windham.
Whether the two met while in prison is something Stokes said he did not know. Messages left Tuesday with Jody Breton, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, about whether the two served time in the same unit were not immediately returned.
Shortly after Sexton was discharged from prison, in early 2008, he was arrested again in Bangor and charged with drug possession. He was sentenced in April 2008 to 90 days in jail and a $400 fine.
Daluz was arrested by the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency for having cocaine base in 2011. On Feb. 23 of this year he pleaded guilty to felony illegal importation of drugs and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and a $400 fine.
Massachusetts privacy laws do not allow the public to run statewide criminal background checks, and the law bars law enforcement and prosecutors from sharing any criminal conviction data, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s spokeswoman, Bridget Norton Middleton, said Tuesday.
She said to get conviction data, reporters must check with the individual courts.
Sexton also has convictions from Brockton, Mass., according to Brockton Enterprise reporter Justin Graeber, who ran his name at the Brockton District Court.
“He was convicted of breaking and entering in the nighttime … and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in 2003, and disorderly conduct in 2000,” he said.
“Nicholas Sexton and Randall Daluz are considered armed and extremely dangerous,” Reid said Monday. “Anyone with information concerning their whereabouts [is] urged to call their local law enforcement agency.”
The Bangor Police Department can be reached at 947-7382. The department’s anonymous tip line can be reached by pressing ext. 6.
Good job….Do what is best to catch these guys, these posters here dont need to know every little detail what is going on with this investigation. They will survive..
Ah…yes…BROCKTON.
Worse than Boston ever thought of being!
This thing is bad all the way around. Obvious career criminals & a very, very dark downside to the insanity of hard core drug involvement.
“What is unusual is the dispatcher in Brockton was happy to talk to you,” Stokes added.
It may be the Brockton division of the Keystone Kops, but it’s been almost two months since this thing went down w/out any results. Will be interesting to see what shakes out eventually. These two suspects don’t look like criminal masterminds.
good job bdn with your big mouth just like you gave away information about the gps in the drug heist whos side are you on you are not on the side of law and order the police should charge the editor for every pharmacy robber who gets away from now on
Exactly, I appreciate the BDN’s effort to get the story out there but they have worked against the general interest of the public with some of the information they have released recently.
Just relax a little Nok-Noi, you have the rest of your life to sell papers. Respect the efforts to catch these guys before they know the cops are coming. And lets not teach the drug store robbers how the cops are trying to catch them.
You don’t think they know the cops are coming? Anyone with an IQ over 50 should be able to figure out that if you kill three people (who you were seen with the same night), it’s only a matter of time before the cops show up.
SEEMS LIKE THE BANGOR POLICE DEPT ARE DAMNED IF THEY DO AND DAMNED IF THEY DON T!
Oh please, if the BDN can figure it out (a month and a half later…), you can be sure the criminals were already two steps ahead of the game.
The GPS tracking units are nothing new and have been in use for sometime. This is not the first time the BDN has published that information. Dye packs have been used by banks for a very long time but people still rob banks.
Try doing some thinking before you go on a pointless rant.
angry
Only when it comes to stupidity.
No compromise , “with your big mouth” ?
Yours must be a hard, sad life.
At some point the public knowing that they are wanted makes sense.
It works for the FBI TEN MOSTED WANTED LIST … and a TV show, too.
What is YOUR solution ?
We all read your silly complaint, and it just don’t hunt .
Hot off the press :
1 OF 2 TRIPLE-HOMICIDE SUSPECTS REPORTEDLY ARRESTED IN MASS.
18 mins ago
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — One of two men sought on fugitive from justice warrants in connection with a triple homicide in Bangor on Aug. 13 ..
See, how well it worked, Joe ?
I have to agree 100% with you. Many people on the Wanted List have actually been apprehended because the public spotted them and reported it. By keeping this information SECRET as we have heard over and over by the AG’s office and the BPD, they not only keep the public worried and scared but also in danger. Why wouldnt they want innocent people to know who to be on the lookout for? Is more innocent lives lost worth that?…I dont think so. This thing went national this morning on HLN and now one of them is behind bars…you cannot make me believe there is no correlation in that.
Don’t read it.
The job of a newspaper is to inform the public, not help the police.
not if it goes against a court ordered secret indictment
The paper didn’t break any laws.
Read. It was the Brockton police who let the cat out of the bag.
What does a pharmacy robbery have to do with a triple homicide and it’s suspects? Aren’t they two separate stories, and two separate incidences? Jeeez, if I were a reporter for the BDN, I would certainly consider them separate and distinct………….give it a break.
If Sexton was arrested shortly after being released shouldn’t the suspended part of his sentence kicked in? He shouldn’t have even been on the streets. And since it was widely reported that police knew who the victims left the apartment with I think he probably knew he was being looked for. Maybe if it hadn’t taken a month to issue a warrant they would’ve both been caught.
Don’t you love our justice system???
“In circumstances where we don’t know where they are, it gives us an
advantage,” said Assistant Attorney General William Stokes, head of the
criminal division in the Maine attorney general’s office. OH YEA.. RIGHT! There are a million set of eyes out there that, could have possibly, identified those two VIOLENT repeat felons and the DA’s office want to keep it a secret who they are. Another “Fast and Furious”.
Attorney General’s Office. The District Attorney’s Office has nothing to do with this…Fast and Furious is a federal debacle that armed thugs with American weapons which backfired and killed dozens of people including a Border Patrol agent…nothing to do with this. The issue is that they didn’t need any help until the Grand Jury Indicted these individuals. When there are no charges, no one can be arrested beyond a couple of days after a crime. It is called probable cause and it diminishes over time. Does anyone here ever understand, even one time, that an arrest does nothing if the person can be bailed from jail. These things take time and and hundreds of interviews. Because someone “heard” what happened through Facebook or a druggie friend, does not make a good case against someone. These comments are borderline ridiculous at times. People will be arrested and then will be prosecuted and then will be sentenced. It is never about the arrest except on the television. It is all about the strength of the case and the ability to PROVE that the person did the crime. An early arrest can sometimes cause a case to go down the tubes and you only have one shot at prosecution (double jeopardy). I am sure these cops and prosecutors couldnt do our jobs and we cannot do theirs. Enjoy the articles and let the reporters do their jobs as well. People slam on the BDN and staff constantly. In this age of endless streams of information, it is still difficult to confirm information from those sources.
Sad there was a need for this article to explain what should be obvious. And sadder that BDN missed the point of their own article.
You screwed it all up, BDN.
Where is social responsibility in the media? There isn’t any. It’s not about “keeping the public informed,” it’s about readership and ad sales, plain and simple. That’s business… but please don’t pretend your intentions are sincere.
It’s not as if this article made me buy the paper today.
I’m glad we have nosy reporters.
Readership isn’t limited to print edition circulation, hence our discussion here.
Exactly. How does this sort of journalism sell newspapers? Especially when more people read the articles online than in the paper?
Social responsibility? Well, as a citizen, I would want to know whether the guy next to me at McDonald’s is being sought by the police in a triple-murder case.
I agree, and think it’s the press JOB to make us aware of such things if they have information to that effect.
I also think that LE needs to carefully weigh their desire to keep details of their investigations secret versus the impact on public safety of doing that. In this case, I admit that I don’t know all the rational that LE might have had for keeping the identity of Sexton and what he looked like a secret, but based on the very basic facts of this case that I know, it seems ridiculous that they thought Sexton might be caught unawares after he knew he was seen leaving the party with the victims and it was his car they were burned in.
get these S.O.B and make them pay
The BDN is doing some fine reporting on this story. Nice job and keep up the good work.
Why does this comment not surprise me!
If law enforcement is actively looking for an individual, the word gets out very quickly that the person of interest is being sought. “Secret” indictments or not, there is no way the public is not going to find that an individual is wanted. The public may, in fact, be the best resource for tracking down these thugs. If the public is kept in the dark, valuable information may not make its way to law enforcement.
Omg such horrible punishment for the crimes they have commited ONLY IN FRIGGIN Maine! Judges need to be re elected,not there for life! You would see a difference,,,Mainers are FRIGGIN SICK OF IT!
I wouldn’t be surprised if law enforcement knows where one or both of these “men” are. Just because there is a warrant out doesn’t mean the first beat cop that sees them grabs them and carts them back to Bangor. These men are viewed as armed and very dangerous. There will be a lot of planning that goes into this take down, not Bid Laden scale, but worthy of a great deal of planning.
they got daluz in mass new Bedford another arm pit
Randall Daluz was just arrested in Mass. Good job!!! Now go get the other one boys!
The BDN had a huge bold headline 15 minutes that said they got the Daluz dude. Then it mysteriously disappeared.
When you look at the size of the BDN on Monday and see how few pages there are, it’s quite apparent the paper is in serious trouble. Much of that teeny, tiny edition is ads, so the actual news content is extremely small. So, if the paper can try to eek out some kind of story to sell more papers they will do it. The purpose of the BDN is NOT to report news, it’s to generate revenue. The word ‘newspaper’ really now is an oxymoron. It’s actually a “history paper”. In BDN’s defense, however, this web-site is quite informative. They also do a public service by letting readers vent in this comment section.
So, do you subscribe?
Not any more! Cancelled about a month ago. I do like, however, as I mentioned in my first comment, the on-line version. It is up-to-date and FREE! AND, I don’t have to recycle the paper.
Well, that sounds kind of selfish. With that sort of attitude, it’s no wonder the newspapers are having issues. We get the paper delivered every morning that it’s published. I value having the paper in my hands without the need of a computer or network or electricity. Recycling doesn’t take any effort with curbside pickup AND we help keep people employed from the people who make the ink and the newsprint to the people who work for the Bangor Daily News to the person who delivers it. I love getting the paper!
I’m always a little surprised that people who profess to be concerned about the environment keep having massive amounts of paper delivered to their door by fossil fuel burning cars and they never seem to notice the contradiction. Forests are cut down and lots of really nasty chemicals are used, both air and water pollution are generated by making paper. Then there’s all that ink that is produced and used as newsprint but never read by anyone! All this paper is delivered to your door and you probably read less than 10% of the words in it. Recycling the paper may make a slight difference but it’s not even close to the environmental savings that would occur if all those trees could still be standing and all those chemicals could never have been produced and all those vehicles used to deliver the newspapers could have remained in their garages. I’m all for a free press and an informed public, but we now had MUCH more efficient and non-polluting ways of delivering what journalists have to say than by cutting down our forests and polluting our rivers and air.
I see what you’re saying, but then EVERYTHING could be analyzed like that. I do what I can in other areas of my life, but sometimes I feel that the costs are worth it. I see the paper as freedom from the computer sometimes. It’s a convenience I value.
Huh? Why is it selfish? The BDN offers it at no charge AND it’s far more up-to-date than the print edition. The BDN gets paid for the service by the many, many advertisers on the website. It’s a win-win. They offer it FREE, I use it and the advertisers foot the bill. Why is that a problem for you? Besides, the delivery would be mid-afternoon where I live, but I can ‘read’ the paper early in the morning. So, again, why is this selfish? The BDN encourages me to do it–so why do YOU have a problem with it? If you get a coupon in the mail for a product and it’s FREE, do you throw it away because it would be ‘selfish’?
You know as well as I do that this is nowhere near a win-win for the newspaper industry.
Oops, sorry you didn’t read my post correctly. I didn’t say my reading the BDN on-line was a win-win for the newspaper industry. I was referring to the on-line edition of the BDN. I find it quite ironic and amusing that you praise the actual paper you get, but you also are on-line, as evident by your posting where you can communicate with other readers. Let’s see you do that with a piece of paper. If the on-line edition isn’t good enough for you, THEN WHY ON EARTH ARE READING IT RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
I am reading my email, right now, if you want to know. And I never ever ever said that the online edition isn’t “good enough” for me. I was responding to comments about how people don’t like nor buy the paper version. I think that they compliment each other-I am not advocating one over the other.
What’s amusing is that people think that online editions make money for the newspapers.
They no longer own the building on Maine Street. They have half the number of “reporters” they had in the seventies, they have far more “syndicated’ folks on the op-ed page, leading to a far less local flavor.
The New York Times is “in trouble” the Bangor Daily News (that I grew up with) is dead!
I see no record in the Registry of Deeds indicating the publisher no longer owns the building.
“The purpose of the BDN is NOT to report news, it’s to generate revenue.”
Yes, newspapers are a business. And that business is informing the public. I can guarantee you that no editor is thinking of selling newspapers. That’s not an editor’s job. And the publisher is too busy looking after the entire operation to concern himself with a particular story. There are bigger things for him to worry about.
“Massachusetts privacy laws do not allow the public to run statewide criminal background checks, and the law bars law enforcement and prosecutors from sharing any criminal conviction data …”
So how’s that working out for you folks in the Bay State?
The BDN valued the “scoop” higher than LE’s need for the advantage.
It’s not the press job to work for LE, but it IS their job to keep the public informed. It’s very important that the press and our government are two separate entities!
I think there’s a good argument to be made that the BDN should have reported about Sexton much sooner than they did, given that he was an “armed and extremely dangerous” individual and could have been traveling amongst us with none of us having any idea about what he looked like for the past 6 weeks! Don’t you think that the press has an obligation to inform the public in a situation like this so we can try to avoid becoming yet another victim of his? Two weeks ago, if Sexton had knocked on my door and said his car was broken down and he needed to use my phone to call AAA, I probably would have let him in because I would have had NO idea who he was. That said, there are times when it’s probably appropriate for the press to not report everything they know about an investigation but in this case it obviously did no harm since the suspects were arrested AFTER the suspects were known to all of us, NOT while we were being kept in the dark as to their identity.
How do we get Mass to come up here and pick up the rest of their trash?
Hmmmmm. Considered ” armed and dangerous” thats an obvious.
If he comes around my area…….I will utilize the 2nd amendment.
I own a gun and I know how to use it.
Can we just pick off wanted men if they come around our area?
Well, not exactly, but if wanted a wanted murderer somehow gets in your house and says anything you interpret as threatening your life….in most Maine homes, he won’t be telling his “recollection” of your discussion in court.
Maine has among the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the nation, and among the lowest violent crime rate and I’m thinking that’s probably not entirely a coincidence.
Well, sure, but “coming around our area” is not the same as getting in one’s house. It seemed that the person who made that comment was saying that if he spots the guy anywhere near him, he’ll shoot him down. I’m all for guns, ownership, classes, etc., but the Wild West scenario he alluded to seemed too much.
I agree with you, thus the “not exactly” at the beginning of my post.
No…… if he comes on my property …..He will not like the greeting at the door. If he threatens… well then you figure it out. I am exercising my 2nd amendment right. He his on the run. I would imagine looking for money , food and whatever it takes to survive.
The Second Amendment protects your right to own a gun. It does not grant you the right to shoot people with it.
With these guys track records, convictions and violent tendency’s why the heck were they not incarcerated longer for previous crimes? Maine needs not only the death penalty, but needs to crack down so much harder on criminals like these. Criminal’s like this expect 3 hots and a cot with t.v, conjugal visit’s and all the gang related activity within the prison walls as possible. Come on Maine get harder and set a standard.
So many scared little sheep in Bangor.
Apparently the BDN didn’t like my last comment as they deleted it. It was not explicit, or racial by any means, in-fact it was a call to the State to get harder on men whose criminal backgrounds were as violent as these men were.
I guess the BDN has taken a page out of Obama’s book… control the media and censor the people who actually confront the government and state on their failures. Let me say this. If the state government would have done a better job at locking men like this away three people would still have been alive today. Now three little kids have no parents, and have to grow up without them.
Though these parents were troubled and had some unfortunate current and past experiences, though they didn’t deserve to die like that.
Drugs are an issue in our state, crime is rising, poverty levels are getting higher, and local police are getting their hands tied even more.
Good, contributing, hard working Maine citizens are becoming victims and are scared for their families, and the future of our state because of the lack of initiative by our state government to hold criminals such as these accountable.
So in conclusion. Stop tying the hands of our public servants, stop BDN censoring voices like mine who are demanding accountability from our state, and may I ask that the State of Maine get harder on men like this who are victimizing people in our community for their own selfish, and criminal ambitions.
SET THE STANDARD!