PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday unanimously upheld the conviction of Kyle Dube, 23, of Orono in the 2013 murder and kidnapping of Glenburn teen Nichole Cable.
Dube, who used another man’s identity to create a fake Facebook page and lure Cable, 15, from her mother’s home, was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Cable’s disappearance on May 12, 2013, and the intense, heartfelt plea for the girl’s safe return made by Kristine Wiley, the slain girl’s mother, touched a nerve in communities around the state.
More than 500 people on May 19, 2013, took to the roadsides, woods and bogs of Glenburn in the search for clues that would explain what might have happened to the Old Town High School sophomore.
Cable’s body was found late the next day in a wooded area of Old Town, where Dube dumped it after strangling her in a kidnapping gone wrong.
In seeking a new trial, Dube’s defense team argued that Superior Court Justice Ann Murray erred by permitting four lay witnesses to testify that a confession describing the victim’s death was in Dube’s handwriting, and she failed to intervene when the prosecutor, in closing argument, repeatedly urged the jury to use “common sense.”
The justices, who heard oral arguments in the appeal last month in Portland, rejected those claims.
“Dube’s contention that the witnesses did not demonstrate a sufficient degree of familiarity with his handwriting is unconvincing,” Justice Thomas Humphrey wrote in the 13-page opinion for the court. “Dube’s co-workers and his girlfriend each asserted some degree of familiarity with Dube’s handwriting, coupled with a description of the circumstances from which this familiarity was acquired. Although Dube’s father did not describe the circumstances by which he became familiar with his son’s handwriting, he testified that he had seen his son’s handwriting on many occasions.”
In rejecting Dube’s attorneys’ argument on the overuse of the words reasonable doubt by the prosecution, Humphrey said: “Generally, jurors’ use of common sense is to be encouraged as long as they ultimately consider whether the evidence establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber, who prosecuted the case with his colleague Leane Zainea, praised the court’s decision.
“We are very pleased with the court’s quick decision in this case,” Macomber said Thursday in an email. “The evidence of Dube’s guilt at trial was overwhelming. The court, like the jury, used its common sense and reason and found Dube’s arguments were without merit.”
Dube’s defense team disagreed.
“Whatever you may think about the decision, the court sets a dangerous precedent by now allowing any Tom, Dick and Harry to act as a handwriting expert,” defense attorney Stephen Smith of Augusta said of the decision Thursday in an email.
The search for Cable, Dube’s arrest and trial gained the attention of national and foreign media outlets. Some called him the “Facebook killer.”
Cable’s parents appeared on the “ Dr. Phil” television show to warn parents about the dangers of teenagers meeting people online. Since Dube’s conviction, at least two television programs about his crime have been produced for true crime series.
Dube is incarcerated at an undisclosed New Hampshire facility as a boarder from the Maine State Prison in Warren, according to information on the Department of Corrections website.
Jody Breton, deputy commissioner for the Department of Corrections, said last month in an email that information about why Dube was in New Hampshire was confidential under Maine law.
Smith has declined to comment on where his client is being held.