BANGOR, Maine — The Louisiana man gunned down on Easter in the city’s first homicide of the year had argued with his alleged killer moments before being shot twice, the victim’s estranged wife said.
Shooting victim Terrence Durel Sr., 36, of New Orleans had sent several threatening texts to 43-year-old Danielle Durel of Bangor before the argument with her boyfriend, Antoinne J. “Prince” Bethea, outside Bethea’s Ohio Street home on Sunday, Danielle Durel said Wednesday.
Terrence Durel was at the house to get their son’s “Easter outfit” when the argument began, Danielle Durel said. She was inside helping the 8-year-old boy change clothes when she heard three gunshots, she said. She ran out of the house, saw Prince and a friend of Terrence’s she identified only as “Primo” wrestling on the ground, and tried to break up the scuffle, she said.
“I still didn’t see any gun,” Danielle Durel said.
That’s when she noticed that her husband was bleeding from his stomach and leg, she said. She drove him to the Eastern Maine Medical Center, where he died later that day.
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Police said Wednesday that they had no new developments in the case. On Monday they announced that they have a warrant to arrest Bethea, 40, of New Haven, Connecticut, on a murder charge. An unnamed organization is offering a reward for information leading to his capture, police said.
Danielle Durel said that she does not know Bethea’s whereabouts. She said she hopes that he is safe.
A background check indicated that Terrence Durel had a string of drug trafficking convictions and was a registered sex offender in Florida.
Contacted in Louisiana, Terrence Durel’s mother, Theresa Durel-Reed, declined to discuss her son’s criminal record, saying only that he “had problems.”
Durel-Reed described her son as a carpenter and construction worker who loved to work with his hands. She said that “he used to draw a lot, like cartoon characters. He made his son’s face look like a cartoon character.”
She said that Danielle Durel told her during an Easter telephone conversation after the shooting that Durel had gone to Ohio Street to get a change of clothes for their son, whom he was visiting. He had been due to return to Louisiana on Tuesday, his mother said.
A Maine native, Danielle Durel said she separated from her husband in December 2015. She said he was physically abusive but could be charming. He had a drug problem and a mercurial personality, she said.
In contrast, she said, Bethea “has never even frowned at me in the six months I have known him. He has been the most happy-go-lucky man I have ever met,” Danielle Durel said. “I have never seen him be violent. I have only been around him for a few months, OK? Every day he is with me he calls his children. He calls my son every day.”
She continued, “Terrence, his friends and Prince are all the same types of people. They are from the streets. They live that life. So have I. I have been on the streets for most of my life.”
Meanwhile, the dead man’s mother said she hopes his accused killer will be apprehended soon.
“I want closure,” she said. “I want the guy arrested.”