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Virginia Cookson was terrified of her ex-fiance to the point of “hysterically crying” and hyperventilating when he showed up to her job in the weeks before she was killed, according to court testimony.
Family and friends set up daily check-ins during the weeks before Cookson, 39, was found dead on the floor of her Larkin Street home on Sept. 25, 2024, Assistant Attorney General Kate Bozeman said Monday during the fifth day of a murder trial.
Richard Thorpe, 44, is charged with depraved indifference murder. Dozens of witnesses testified last week in Penobscot County Superior Court during his trial.
Cookson was found with bruises on her face and an electrical cord tied around her neck. A co-worker who called 911 said that they thought Thorpe had “finally done what Virginia was afraid he would do and that he had killed her,” Bozeman said.
Thorpe allegedly confessed to a cellmate in 2024 that he “choked out” Cookson, but did not say he killed her, according to the cellmate’s testimony.
“Richard Thorpe, the same man that Virginia had been fearful was going to kill her in the days leading up to this, murdered her just like every single piece of evidence points to,” Bozeman said. “He strangled her, he choked the life out of her with that cord.”
Bangor police did an “outstanding job” investigating Cookson’s death but it was “flawed,” Thorpe’s defense attorney, Jim Howaniec, said Monday.
There is more to the story and it’s up to the jury to decide if police “turned over every stone and went the extra mile,” Howaniec said. He pointed to Bangor police not checking to see what Cookson bought at a convenience store the last time she was seen alive and not forensically testing a cracked phone found near the backdoor to her house.
Thorpe was on a “drug bender” and acting erratically in the days before but that does not mean he committed murder, Howaniec said.
It has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Thorpe killed Cookson, Howaniec said.
“With all these extreme emotions in this case, it’s probably gonna require a superhuman effort, superhuman courage,” Howaniec said. “But if you put your emotions aside and analyze the actual investigation in this case, you will find that there is in fact reasonable doubt. There are just too many loose ends. You will have done the right thing.”
Thorpe was arrested two days after Cookson’s death, in a stolen car in Massachusetts. He fled after killing her, and there is overwhelming evidence to show that, Bozeman said.
Police zeroed in on Thorpe early in the investigation, but “he was an obvious suspect from the moment that Virginia’s body was found for very good reason,” Bozeman said.
The jury is scheduled to deliberate Monday afternoon.