The Abbot man accused of slaying his ex-girlfriend then leading police on the longest manhunt in Maine history told jurors Monday that he and his alleged victim discussed a future together 24 hours before she was shot and killed.
Robert Burton, 40, of Abbot testified in his own defense on the sixth day of his murder trial being held at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. He denied breaking into Stephanie Ginn Gebo’s Parkman home on June 4, 2015, and deliberately shooting her in the back three times.
After breaking up on May 30, 2015, the two reconciled on June 3, 2015, and, after having sex, discussed moving out of state with Ginn Gebo’s two children, he said.
“We talked about the next two years,” Burton told the jury. “She wanted to move to a warmer climate and asked if I’d be willing to move with her and the kids. I told her ‘yes.’”
He also said they were planning to go on a date Saturday and rent a motel room in Newport.
Dressed in slacks and a long-sleeved shirt that covered tattoos on his hands and wrists, Burton calmly answered questions but became emotional when he talked about his son’s death from wounds he suffered while serving in Afghanistan.
Questioning of Burton by defense attorney Zachary Brandmeir of Bangor is set to continue Tuesday. The defense began presenting its case late Friday afternoon after the prosecution rested its case.
Defense attorneys have maintained that Burton shot Ginn Gebo in self-defense during a struggle for her gun after she shot him in the shoulder. Prosecutors have said he killed her intentionally over the breakup.
Burton’s trial began Oct. 25. The case is expected to go to jurors late Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.
He said Monday that he met Ginn Gebo in March 2013 on an online dating site and he moved into her Parkman home the following August. He testified that things went well until mid-May 2015 when a female friend of Ginn Gebo’s told him about her multiple infidelities before Burton met her.
“There was very little jealousy from all of this,” he testified. “I was really hurt. I respected her. It was awful to imagine Stephanie was doing other things with men like that. It crushed me. I was devastated.”
Last week, the woman, Erika Moulton denied having the conversation with Burton but a list of sexually explicit questions and accusations in his handwriting was found in his backpack outside the victim’s home.
Ginn Gebo shot Burton in the left shoulder with a handgun she’d told friends she slept with for protection after breaking up with him on May 30, 2015, according to the evidence presented at the trial. She then was shot three times in the back with the same gun.
The murder weapon had not been found.
Sixty-eight days after Ginn Gebo died, Burton turned himself in at the Piscataquis County Jail in Dover-Foxcroft on Aug. 11, 2015. He was clean shaven and appeared to be in good health, a jail employee testified last week.
Last year, he turned down an offer from prosecutors to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a 60-year sentence, his attorney has said.
Burton, a convicted felon, is also charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He was prohibited from possessing or handling a gun due to domestic violence convictions. Ginn Gebo was not the victim in those incidents, according to investigators.
Superior Court Justice Robert Mullen, who is presiding over the jury trial, will decide if Burton is guilty on that charge.
If convicted of murder, he faces between 25 years and life in prison. The maximum sentence on the gun charge is five years in prison.