Test results awaited in Verona fatality

ELLSWORTH – The Hancock County District Attorney’s Office is waiting for test results before charges are filed in connection with an accident last June in Verona that killed a 14-year-old girl from Prospect.

Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Pat Larsen said Friday that the accident that killed Hope Porter is still under investigation. He said no charges have been filed yet in the case because he is waiting for the results of DNA tests that should indicate who was driving the truck in which Porter and four other people were riding when it went off Route 1 near the Waldo-Hancock Bridge.

Investigators say Paul Mason, 27, of Frankfort was driving the truck on June 20 when it sped off after Bucksport police Officer Ryan Knight pulled the vehicle over on Route 1 for erratic operation.

Larsen said that Mason is contesting police allegations that he was driving the truck when the accident happened. The assistant district attorney said his office had to get a search warrant to get a blood sample from Mason to see if his blood matches a sample of blood found on the truck’s steering wheel at the accident scene. The District Attorney’s Office has not yet received the results of the DNA tests of Mason’s blood, he said.

Larsen said he expects charges to be filed within the next two months.

“We should know something by the December grand jury,” he said. It was unclear Friday afternoon whether Mason has hired an attorney.

Alcohol and speed are believed to have been factors in the wreck, according to state police. Friends of the truck’s occupants said the day after the wreck that the group had been at a friend’s house in Bucksport shortly before the accident.

Porter and April Kane, 16, of Orland tried to get out of the truck when it was pulled over, according to Sgt. Tim Varney of the Maine State Police. He said they got as far as opening the truck door when Mason sped off toward the Waldo-Hancock Bridge.

Officer Knight pursued the truck and reached an approximate estimated speed of 70 mph trying to catch up to the fleeing vehicle, according to Bucksport police Chief Douglas Gray.

The truck went off the left side of Route 1 and left tire marks on the grass in front of Island Pool and Spa where the road makes a sharp right turn east of the bridge. It came back onto the pavement and went off the opposite side of the road, snapping a utility pole in half and flipping over a guardrail near the end of the bridge before coming to rest at the bottom of an embankment, police said.

Kane, Mason, his 22-year-old brother, Adam Mason of Searsport, and 19-year-old Bucksport resident Nicholas Leach all were taken after the accident to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. They were treated and eventually released.

All five passengers had been in the cab of the truck, with Porter and Kane sitting in the laps of the men, according to state police.