Motive unclear in fatal W. Tremont fight Alcohol was factor in beating death

loading...

WEST TREMONT – One young man is dead and another was in Hancock County Jail on Sunday, charged with the beating death of his neighbor after an alcohol-fueled fight.

Zachary Savoy, 25, died of severe head injuries after being hospitalized Friday night. By Saturday morning, police had charged his neighbor, Edwin Graham, also 25, with the attack.

“It’s just two lives wasted, two lives gone,” said Madonna Merchant, who lives with her husband, Mensworth Merchant, just yards from the crime scene on Route 102 in West Tremont, a village on southwestern Mount Desert Island. “It still doesn’t seem possible,” she said Sunday.

State police investigators were still piecing together the events that led to Friday night’s fight.

Savoy’s body was sent to the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta, where an autopsy was conducted Saturday afternoon. His cause of death was deemed to be “multiple blunt and sharp force trauma,” said Sgt. Chris Coleman of the state police Criminal Investigative Division on Sunday.

Throughout the weekend, officers from CID photographed the gravel front drive where Graham and Savoy had struggled, marking dozens of clues with tiny yellow flags. On Sunday, police entered Graham’s gold and white trailer, taking numerous items to be analyzed by the state crime lab, Coleman said.

“We’ve collected a large amount of evidence in this case,” Coleman said. “Every crime scene tells a story. That’s the best evidence we have, because it’s impartial.”

Evidence suggests that the fight started in Graham’s trailer, then spilled out into the yard, but police have not determined what may have sparked it, he said.

Coleman would not specify whether weapons were among the items recovered from the trailer.

Deputy Jeff McFarland of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, who was among the first officers on the scene, said Saturday that a baseball bat had been found nearby, and that “at least one weapon” was believed to have been used in the assault.

Investigators have also been interviewing neighbors to determine what, if any, relationship existed between the two men, Coleman said.

“Certainly, the nature of their relationship is very important to us,” he said.

Savoy, who moved to MDI from Vermont, had lived in an apartment above George Carter’s construction company for about a year. He worked locally as a carpenter. Graham’s trailer sits perhaps 10 yards from the Carter Construction building where Savoy lived. Both men lived alone and neither had been violent or disruptive, the Merchants said.

But the Merchants believe that Graham and Savoy met only on Friday.

“The two of them had never talked to each other until that night,” Mensworth Merchant said. “Zach was kind of a loner – a hard worker. He was a very pleasant guy to speak to.”

Graham, whose family lives barely a mile away, rented his trailer just a few weeks ago and had recently told friends and neighbors that he had given up drinking. He worked for Carter’s construction company as a laborer.

“He seemed like a nice kid who was trying to get his life together,” Merchant said.

Friday evening, Carter hosted a Christmas party for his employees, most of whom live in the immediate neighborhood. The Merchants described the party as a low-key, family affair that ended by 8:30 p.m. Although both Graham and Savoy attended, there was no altercation during the party.

The Merchants went home to bed, but were awakened about 11 p.m., when Graham knocked on their door, hoping to use their telephone because he did not have one.

“He said, ‘Me and the kid next door got in a fight and I knocked him down and need help getting him back up,'” Merchant said. “He said, ‘Zach and I got in a little scrap, I hit him, and now he’s on the ground.'”

Police do not believe that anyone else was involved in the fight, McFarland said. Although Graham later told Merchant that he had been drinking, the man seemed calm and coherent when he arrived at the Merchants’ home, alone, seeking help.

“He seemed completely about his wits,” Mensworth Merchant said.

Merchant followed Graham down to the yard in front of his trailer and found Savoy lying unconscious in the gravel, his head and face beaten severely. Merchant ran back to his home and asked Madonna to call for an ambulance.

Merchant said he covered Savoy with a blanket and talked to him and rubbed his back during the 45 minutes it took for an ambulance to arrive. The young man never regained consciousness and his labored breathing seemed to stop several times, he said.

“I knew how bad his injuries looked, but I didn’t know how bad they were internally – I didn’t dare move him,” Merchant said.

When he realized the severity of the situation, Merchant asked Graham what had happened.

Graham told him that he didn’t know, that he had been drunk, that he had blacked out at some point and awakened to find Savoy lying on the ground. Officers who arrived Friday night verified that the men appeared to have been drinking alcohol, Coleman said.

Throughout the long wait, Graham helped Merchant comfort the injured man and seemed concerned.

“Eddie stayed right beside me the whole time,” Merchant said. “If either one of them hadn’t been drinking, it never would have happened.”

“He [Graham] was fully cooperative, he wasn’t in a fit of rage, he never tried to leave or anything like that,” Madonna Merchant added.

An ambulance rushed Savoy to Mount Desert Island Hospital. He was then taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Eastern Maine Medial Center in Bangor, where he died early Saturday, Coleman said.

State police arrested Graham and booked him into Hancock County Jail early Saturday, initially charging him with aggravated assault. Graham had no visible injuries at the time of his arrest, McFarland said.

But when word of Savoy’s death reached Maine State Police about 7:20 a.m. Saturday, the Attorney General’s Office upgraded the charge to murder, Coleman said.

Graham is expected to make his first appearance in 5th District Court either Wednesday or Thursday, he said.