A year has passed since 56-year-old Robert Bruso was allegedly murdered in Palermo, and his daughter Taylor Bruso has one question: Why?
Bruso was a hardworking man who ran a business pouring concrete for foundations and slabs, she said. He took pride in his pickup trucks and loved golden retrievers and the Red Sox. And he was so kind that people sometimes wondered if he was religious, Taylor said.
“He would just do his job. He wasn’t into drama or anything like that,” Taylor said. “He just kept to himself.”
In September, police charged Kirby Bradford, 59, with Bruso’s murder, which they say occurred on or around Feb. 8, 2025. The two men had been friends for more than 20 years.
Very little information about the case has been made public in the year since Bruso was killed, but recent interviews with people close to Bruso offer some details of the circumstances surrounding the Palermo man’s death.
The case’s affidavit which typically lays out at least some of the central facts of a case has been impounded by the court, which prevents information contained in the document from being viewed by the public.
Bradford was indicted in November and arraigned on the murder charge in December. Since then, the Bangor Daily News has formally requested that the judge presiding over the case make the affidavit public.
Bradford is due to appear in court in Belfast on April 7 for a dispositional conference on his case.
Taylor said this week that when a detective came to her door last April, two months after her father died, she was shocked and afraid.
“I don’t even really remember what he said. I just remember saying, ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,’” she said.
She was told that her father’s body had been found on his property.
Taylor had last been in touch with her father in late January. Bruso was quiet and reserved, and Taylor says she took after him. The pair showed their love by teasing. Taylor is a Swiftie, and her dad was a football fan, but not of the Kansas City Chiefs.
“He would always complain about Taylor and Travis Kelce,” she said, referring to Taylor Swift, who is engaged to one of the team’s star players. “He was sick of seeing her on the TV since they’d always show him.”
In turn, she’d rib him about his “pavement princess”, a 2024 GMC Denali with a custom root beer-colored finish.
When Bruso dropped out of contact, Taylor didn’t start worrying right away. He could be slow to return calls and often hunkered down in the wintertime once his work was over for the season, tinkering with his tractor and trucks.
But as time wore on, Bruso’s family and friends grew concerned. After not hearing from her father for a few weeks, Taylor went to his house on Boots and Saddle Road. But his truck and beloved golden retriever, Lennie, weren’t there, so she figured he was out.
Tiffany Paradis, who was in a relationship with Bruso on and off over the course of two dozen years, was worried, too. At least two mutual friends went to pound on his door, but got no answer.
After that, Paradis went to check on Bruso and saw that his truck was back in the driveway. She didn’t want to pry, so she drove away.
But she texted Taylor from the driveway, “I said ‘Hey, the white truck is home so he must be ok.’”
In hindsight, she thinks it’s possible that Bradford had the truck and later brought it back to Bruso’s house.
Finally, in April, the family asked police to make a wellness check. Officers found Bruso’s body. His dog Lennie has never been found.
It took more than four months for police to arrest Bradford, who did auto-body work and had been working on Bruso’s trucks as recently as January, Paradis said. The two first met more than two decades earlier when they worked for the same contractor. At the time, Bradford had been recently incarcerated for drunk driving, she said.
Bradford has a lengthy criminal record, according to his state criminal history report, starting when he was 18 and found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing government administration. Over the next several years, he was found guilty of other misdemeanors such as carrying a concealed weapon and criminal mischief.
In 1999, he was found guilty of being a habitual motor vehicle offender, a felony, and sentenced to five years of prison, with all but three years suspended.
Not long after he got out, Bradford and Bruso met working for the same contractor. Paradis says Bradford was clean and sober for a long time. According to his criminal history report, he went for more than a decade without being charged with any crimes.
In July, 2025, however, months after Bruso was found dead, Bradford was arrested and charged with possession of more than 2 grams of cocaine base. He was also charged with illegally possessing a firearm, which he was prohibited from doing under the Controlled Substances Act, according to his criminal history report.
He was released. But in August he was arrested again after allegedly robbing a shoe store in Waterville, according to his criminal history report and news reports.
He was still in jail on those charges when he was charged in September with Bruso’s murder.
As they await Bradford’s trial, Bruso’s family and friends are left with few answers as to what could have gone on between the two men last winter in Palermo.
Paradis says that Bruso kept substantial amounts of money at his house, and it could have made him a target.
“Bob had cash,” she said. “He didn’t really do banks.”
Bruso wasn’t confrontational, Paradis said. She never saw him fight or ever holler. “He didn’t have a mean bone in his body,” she said.
He was devoted to his daughter, and even bought a piece of property next to his when she was a little girl in case she wanted to build a house there someday.
“He was just a stand-up guy,” Taylor said.
Paradis said she is hoping that Bob and his family get justice. “Everybody knows what kind of person Bob was,” she said. “And he didn’t deserve this.”