FARMINGTON, Maine — The son of a convicted murderer pleaded guilty Monday in Franklin County Superior Court to killing his grandmother with a hammer shortly before Christmas 2014, according to the Maine attorney general’s office.
Dana Craney Jr., 23, of Wilton was sentenced to 35 years behind bars for murder by Superior Court Justice Robert Mullen in an agreement with prosecutors, according to Timothy Feeley, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
By pleading guilty, Craney admitted that he killed his 67-year-old maternal grandmother, Joanne Goudreau, who was found dead in her backyard on Dec. 20, 2014. An autopsy lists her cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, according to a previously published report.
Craney was scheduled to be tried in June, Defense attorney Walter “Woody” Hanstein of Farmington said after Monday’s hearing.
The attorney described his client’s life as “troubled” and his relationship with Goudreau, with whom Craney lived, as “difficult.”
Assistant Attorney General Deb Cashman, who prosecuted the case, said late Monday afternoon that Craney had no criminal history and has documented mental health problems.
“Defendants always have the right to enter a guilty plea rather than go to trial,” she said. “This sentencing agreement was acceptable to the family of the victim and acceptable to the state.”
Cashman also said that sentences in other cases in which a defendant has admitted to killing a relative have been in the 30-year range.
Craney faced between 25 years and life in prison on the murder conviction.
Craney’s father, Dana Craney, was convicted in 1993 of killing Leon Michaud, a 73-year-old used furniture dealer and auctioneer. Michaud was found shot to death in a culvert on a rural Auburn road in 1990, according to Sun Journal archives.
Dana Craney and Willard Eastman, 41, of North Carolina both were convicted in Michaud’s death.
Dana Craney, now 53, is incarcerated at the Maine State Prison in Warren, according to the Maine Department of Corrections. His earliest release date is 2029. Eastman died in July while incarcerated at the Warren facility, according to a previously published report.
According to the Sun Journal, Dana Craney’s estranged wife called police about his involvement in Michaud’s murder. Dana Craney Jr. was 5 months old when his father was arrested.
The Associated Press reported that witnesses in the trial against the elder Craney testified that he admitted killing Michaud for money on Dec. 20, 1990 — the same date Craney Jr. killed his grandmother 24 years later — because his rent was due and because he had no Christmas presents for his children.
It was “just a coincidence” that the two crimes occurred on the same date more than two decades apart, Hanstein said Monday after the plea change and sentencing.
BDN writer Nok-Noi Ricker contributed to this report.