Wife of murder suspect fighting to regain custody of her two sons

MACHIAS — The wife of a man accused of shooting to death his neighbors as they stood in a road opposite his eastside district Machiasport home on Aug. 29, is fighting to regain custody of her two sons from a foster home in Orland.

Anita Uffelman appeared in Machias District Court Thursday before Judge Douglas A. Clapp, who had ordered the Uffelman children removed from their mother at a Sept. 22 child custody hearing.

Richard B. Uffelman, 43, is charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Michael G. and Florence C. Phillips on Aug. 29, 1989. Uffelman, who claims a relative of the Phillipses fired at his family on June 20, maintains that the Aug. 29 incident was an act of self-defense.

Uffelman called state police to report the incident and was taken to Troop J Barracks in East Machias, where he was arrested several hours later. He has been confined to a maximum-security cell at the Washington County Jail in Machias since then.

Anita Uffelman and her two sons, Gerard A. Uffelman, 10, and Richard F. Uffelman, who was 12 at the time, were forced to leave their home after the incident, as police prepared to conduct their investigation. The family stayed with Phillip Harvey and his wife in Dennysville until Sept. 2, 1989.

On Sept. 3, they moved in with John and Sandie Flaherty in Dennysville, where they remained until leaving for Audubon, N.J., to stay with Francis Uffelman, Mrs. Uffelman’s 80-year-old father-in-law, on Sept. 11.

Plans were already in motion on Aug. 31 to remove the boys from Anita Uffelman. Detective Matthew Stewart and Sgt. William Caron met with DHS child protective supervisor Cindy Chagnon and Carol Geel, a caseworker with DHS, at Troop J Barracks.

The Sept. 22 custody hearing had been scheduled when Stewart met Anita Uffelman and her sons at the Greyhound bus terminal in Bangor on Sept. 11. Stewart reported asking her if she would return for the hearing. According to the detective, “she indicated that she would be doing so.”

After Mrs. Uffelman and the boys missed the Sept. 22 court date, Stewart notified Audubon police, who reported that the family had left Audubon the previous week and had moved to Watertown, N.Y.

According to records from Jackson Brook Institute in South Portland, where the boys underwent five weeks of court-ordered evaluation, the boys “were apprehended in Watertown, N.Y., by the police there … (and) were returned from New York on Monday, Sept. 25.”

The institute was contacted on Sept. 18 requesting that it conduct an extensive evaluation of the boys.

Mrs. Uffelman, who now lives in Ellsworth, is allowed only one one-hour visit with her children each week. She said Thursday that, as a result of last week’s hearing, visitations could be extended to weekends provided she undergoes a regular program of psychological therapy.

Richard Uffelman, who went on a hunger strike in late February, has seen his sons only once since September. He refused food, he said at the time, to protest the action taken by DHS to remove his sons from his wife.

Francis Uffelman, meanwhile, is angered by DHS tactics and methods used in removing the boys from their mother. The 80-year-old paternal grandfather said recently that he was not allowed to speak by phone with the boys to wish them seasonal greetings over the holidays.

“They’re destroying this family,” Francis Uffelman explained. “Those boys need their mother.”

“They’re good boys,” Anita Uffelman said after last week’s hearing. “I wake up at two in the morning and I miss them so much.”