BANGOR, Maine — A fight over a woman may have led to a November shooting at a Center Street apartment that left one man dead and another wounded, according to information made public Friday during a hearing at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
Robert Mark Kennedy, 38, of Bangor was shot and killed and Barry Jenkins, 40, of New York was shot and injured, Detective Timothy Shaw testified at a probable cause hearing for Thomas “Ferg” Ferguson, held before Superior Court Justice William Anderson.
Anderson found there was probable cause for the charges against Ferguson and ordered that he continue to be held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail.
Ferguson, 37, and Robert “Rocco” Hansley, 27, both of New York City, were arrested on the night of Nov. 27, 2015, outside a Hammond Street apartment. Earlier that morning, the men allegedly shot and killed Kennedy and wounded Jenkins.
Both men are charged with murder and elevated aggravated assault. Ferguson also is charged with tampering with a victim.
Ferguson pleaded not guilty to the charges Friday before the hearing began.
Hansley is scheduled to enter not-guilty pleas on Feb. 26.
All court records tied to the case have been sealed until both men have been arraigned.
Shaw, the lead detective in the case, testified about what he wrote in the affidavits after interviews were conducted with Jenkins and two women who were at the apartment at the time of the shooting.
He said that Jenkins told an officer who rode in the ambulance with him to Eastern Maine Medical Center that Ferguson shot him but Hansley also fired a gun, Shaw testified.
“We were told there was a beef between Kennedy and Ferguson that had been going on for some time,” the detective said. “We were told it was over a girl but exactly what it was about was unclear.”
Shaw said he did not know who the woman might have been.
One of the women at the Center Street apartment told police she was outside smoking when Ferguson and another man went into the apartment, Shaw said. The woman reported that she heard shots, then hid near a fence until they left.
The second woman was inside the apartment, Shaw testified, but changed her story about what she witnessed. The day before her grand jury testimony, she said that while she had been in the bedroom at the time of the shooting, the door was not closed as she had stated before. In her third or fourth statement to police, she reportedly said that she saw the men being shot.
No guns were found in the apartment or on either man when he was arrested, the detective said. A .40-caliber pistol was found at the Hammond Street apartment but it could not be traced to either man.
Heroin was found on Kennedy’s body but no other drugs were found in the apartment or on the defendants when they were arrested, Shaw said.
So far, no fingerprint or DNA evidence has linked either man to the apartment, but ballistics and other tests of evidence have not been completed at the Maine State Police Crime Lab, he said.
Ferguson’s attorney, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor, said outside the courthouse after the hearing that he was not surprised his client was held without bail given he has no ties to Maine and a criminal history in New York. Silverstein described his client as “a musician who was in Bangor to set up some performances.”
“He wanted his opportunity to let me examine the officer in court. He needed to know more about what was known,” Silverstein said. “The information, as you know, hasn’t even started to come our way.”
The longtime criminal defense attorney said that he learned that Jenkins, who had identification with different birth dates on them, and the female witnesses might not be reliable at trial because one was not able to pick Ferguson out of a lineup and the other changed her story several times.
Assistant Attorney General Deb Cashman, who is prosecuting the case, declined to comment on the hearing or the judge’s decisions.
A trial date is not expected to be set for at least six months.
If convicted of murder, each man faces between 25 years and life in prison.