AUBURN, Maine — A Lewiston man charged with murder in connection with the hit-and-run death Tuesday of his pregnant girlfriend made his first court appearance Friday in Androscoggin County Superior Court.
Evaristo De Deus, 33, is charged with intentional or knowing murder and depraved indifference murder, according to Assistant Attorney General Deb Cashman, who is prosecuting the case.
He has not been charged in connection with the death of the fetus, she said. Maine does not have a fetal homicide law.
De Deus was not asked to enter a plea because he has not yet been indicted by the Androscoggin County grand jury.
Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford ordered that De Deus be held without bail, according to Cashman. The judge also ordered that the probable cause affidavit be sealed until after the grand jury convenes and De Deus is asked to enter a plea.
De Deus allegedly struck and killed Laudrinha Kubelso, 32, with his SUV as she was walking on Howe Street in Lewiston.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said that De Deus arrived at the Androscoggin County Jail at 6 p.m. Thursday. State police and Lewiston police detectives brought De Deus back to Maine from New York, where he was arrested Wednesday morning at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport as he attempted to flee to Haiti, according to a previously published report.
The case is being investigated as a domestic violence-related death, Cashman said Friday.
If convicted of murder, De Deus faces between 25 years and life in prison.