Opinion ID: 2090217
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cochran's Defense

Text: [¶ 6] Cochran's defense was that someone else murdered Baxter. He presented a number of witnesses to support this defense. Skip Kelley testified that he was an eye witness to the murder of Baxter. Kelley was acquainted with Perley Doyon, Armand Boudreau, Galen Lessard, and Alan Pelletier in the mid-1970s. He delivered drugs and other items for Doyon. According to Kelley, Doyon ran an illegal garage where he altered vehicle identification numbers on cars. Kelley testified that on the night of Baxter's murder he was with Doyon in the office of the garage. Doyon told Boudreau and Lessard to go do what they had to do. Pelletier arrived with a satchel containing money for drugs, and Doyon counted the money. At that time a blue car drove into the garage. Boudreau was the driver, and Baxter was in the passenger seat. Another car followed, driven by Lessard. Kelley testified that he heard talking and laughing, and he saw Boudreau, Lessard, and Pelletier, one after the other, have sex with Baxter in the back seat of the first car. Kelley testified that he saw Doyon pull a gun from under his shirt, exit the office, and order Boudreau, Lessard, and Pelletier to stand against the wall. Doyon then dragged Baxter out of the car and shot her twice. Kelley, who said he saw this from the window in the office overlooking the garage, exited the office and walked over to the car where he saw Baxter with blood coming from her nose, mouth, and chest. Kelley went back to the office partition, took money that he was owed and left. Kelley testified that he did not know Cochran and that Cochran was not at the garage that night. He also testified that a few weeks earlier Baxter had asked Kelley if she could borrow money from him because she owed a drug debt to Doyon. [¶ 7] Two State Police detectives and a Waterville police officer, who had investigated the Baxter murder at different times during the period from 1977 to 1998, testified that they had considered Doyon, Boudreau, Lessard, and Pelletier as suspects. Two of the officers said that Boudreau resembled a composite sketch that was based upon the description of a witness, Clarice Merrill, of a man she had seen in a Ford LTD with a woman. Merrill had seen the man and woman on the night that Baxter's body was discovered and on the River Road, near the location where the body was found. Merrill, who testified at trial, also saw a yellow Volkswagen, with the word Bug written on it, stop on the River Road near the Ford LTD, and she saw two men exit the Volkswagen. Witnesses testified that Doyon, Boudreau, Lessard, and Pelletier were friends, and Doyon was the leader of the group. Lessard's ex-wife testified that she and Lessard owned a yellow Volkswagen with the word Bug written on it. [¶ 8] Dawnann Roberts testified that she was at a garage in 1979 with Doyon, Boudreau, and others. According to Roberts, Boudreau bragged about killing two women, and he said that one had been fucked to death and put in the trunk of a car. Roberts testified that Boudreau said that Doyon paid Pelletier to do the killings because the women owed him drug money. [3]