A Lubec man was sentenced Tuesday to 32 years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend in her home in January 2022.
Paul DeForest, 67, also was given a five-year concurrent sentence for trying to get a fellow jail inmate to burn down a house owned by a potential witness. DeForest would be 99 years old if he lives long enough to complete the sentence and be released.
DeForest did not address Justice Robert Murray at his sentencing, which was held in Machias. Friends and relatives of Eva Cox, who DeForest shot and killed, also were in the courtroom but declined to address the court or to speak with reporters after the hearing.
DeForest decided to plead guilty to murdering Cox to take responsibility for what he called “a tragic mistake,” according to defense attorney Steven Juskewitch. He said the guilty plea was negotiated with the state attorney general’s office.
The shooting happened after DeForest and Cox, who was 58, had a disagreement over their retirement plans, said Juskewitch, who declined to go into specific detail about the argument.
“He’s never tried to evade his responsibility,” Juskewitch said. “He’s not interested in making an excuse.”
Cox’s death was more than a “mistake,” said Lisa Bogue, the state prosecutor who handled the case. DeForest and Cox had been in a long-term relationship, and he made a deliberate choice to shoot and kill her, she said.
“He made a decision to kill another person,” Bogue said.
A statement written by David Case, who owned the house that DeForest sought to have set on fire, was read during the sentencing by a victim witness advocate. Case, who knew the couple, said DeForest is a “narcissist” and described the impact the threat has had on him and his family.
Case carries a firearm wherever he goes and, when he arrives back at his house, he does a security sweep through the house to make sure there are no imminent threats to his safety.
“I do not want to go home,” Case wrote in the statement. “I will never feel 100 percent safe.”
DeForest shot and killed Cox, while a friend of DeForest’s — not Case — was staying at a home on Jim’s Head Road that the couple shared but which was owned by Cox, police have said.
The friend reported the shooting to police two days later. He told police he had dozed off in a bedroom after eating dinner with DeForest and Cox but was awakened by a loud “pop.” He went downstairs, saw Cox lying on the floor and “heard her gurgling and saw blood around her body” as he got closer, court documents say.
He also saw a pistol on a counter near DeForest, who told the friend to leave and then dragged Cox by her arm through a set of French doors onto an outside patio, according to documents.
Cox’s body was found Jan. 11, 2022, in the trunk of her car, which was parked on a neighbor’s property.
DeForest was arrested Jan. 12, 2022, at a house in Virginia, after he called the friend to say he was “headed to West Virginia to get his dog to his daughter before he got caught,” according to court documents.
