HOULTON, Maine — More than 100 potential jurors from across Aroostook County crowded into superior court here Thursday to see whether they would be chosen to try the man accused of two murders that shocked the tiny community of Oakfield.
Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter said that he might reconsider a motion for a change of venue if there is trouble seating a jury over the next two days.
According to attorneys, the trial of Matthew Davis is scheduled to start in Houlton on Tuesday, Sept. 6, and could last up to three weeks. Seventy-one people are listed as potential witnesses.
The judge also has yet to rule on a separate motion to prevent some statements Davis made to police, including about his whereabouts in the hours after the crime, from being presented to the jury.
Davis’ attorneys, Daniel Lilley and Amber Tucker, had sought to move the trial out of Aroostook County, arguing that extensive pretrial publicity about the case would make it difficult to find an impartial jury of 12 with two alternates in a region with a total population of fewer than 70,000.
Thursday’s session actually was stalled slightly because 10 potential jurors out of the 123 who were called did not show up. Justice Hunter notified the sheriff’s office to get in touch with the 10, but continued with the selection.
Potential jurors were asked to fill out a 15-page questionnaire, asking them such questions as whether they had a close friend or family member who was a victim of violence, or if they knew the victims.
Davis, 35, is accused of killing Michael Kitchen, 51, and Heidi Pratt, 49, on Monday, Sept. 23, 2013, and then setting their home on fire. The prosecuting attorneys are Assistant Attorney General Leanne Zainea and Donald Macomber.
Davis was present in the courtroom Thursday, looking strikingly different from the time of his arrest. In 2013, he was thin and bald. Davis now has close-cropped hair and a goatee and has gained close to 40 pounds.
Neighbors of the victims heard five or six gunshots at about 4:30 a.m. and then saw a lone male driver leaving the scene of the burning home in a pickup truck, according to an affidavit filed by Maine State Police Detective Elmer Farren.
The bodies of Kitchen and Pratt were found in a bedroom after firefighters were called to put out the fire.
An autopsy conducted at the state medical examiner’s office in Augusta determined that Kitchen died from multiple gunshot wounds and Pratt from a gunshot wound to the neck. The wounds were inflicted by a semi-automatic rifle purchased by Davis, according to the affidavit. Davis never reported the gun stolen and it was found lying across Kitchen’s body in the burned remnants of the home, according to the court document.
Firefighters also found another truck belonging to Katahdin Forest Products on fire at the home when they arrived. Police believe Davis’ spree of mayhem started earlier that morning at the forest products facility in Oakfield, where a flatbed wrecker truck registered to Davis had been backed into the building, and both that truck and office had caught fire. Police said video surveillance from that site shows the same white company truck that was found burning at the Kitchen home leaving the scene.
The truck Davis allegedly drove from the Kitchen home was found burning later that Monday morning on Richardson Road in the neighboring town of Island Falls. Another firearm found inside that vehicle belonged to Davis, according to the affidavit.
Police eventually tracked down Davis and arrested him at about 10:45 a.m. that Monday in another stolen vehicle on Beaver Dam Point Road in Island Falls, according to the affidavit.