Ex-Bangor man charged in slaying Michael Melendez allegedly stabbed his mother to death in Pennsylvania

BANGOR – A 35-year-old man with extensive criminal history in Bangor was charged with stabbing his mother to death in Pennsylvania Wednesday morning.

Michael Anthony “Gizmo” Melendez remained at Allegheny County Jail Wednesday night where he was being held without bail on the criminal homicide charge stemming from an incident at his mother’s home in West Deer township, a small community of about 11,500 people just north of Pittsburgh.

Early Wednesday morning, police were called to the home of Linda Melendez, 56, also formerly of Bangor, and found the woman on her front porch covered in blood, according to police accounts. She was pronounced dead at 1:40 p.m. at a local hospital.

Witnesses told police of hearing the mother screaming, “He’s going to kill me,” and heard Melendez’ 14-year-old daughter saying, “Please Daddy, don’t,” according to a police affidavit.

Melendez fled the home with his daughter and his 21/2-year-old son, using his mother’s car to push a pickup truck out of the way that was blocking his escape.

Authorities issued a police bulletin and located Melendez in Hampton township sometime after he had dropped off his children at a friend’s house. Melendez led police on a chase through several communities before his left front tire blew out, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

What followed was a confrontation with police where Melendez held a knife to his throat and demanded that the police shoot him, according to the police documents.

The police subdued him with pepper spray.

While in custody, Melendez told police that the knife he had on him was not the weapon used in the stabbing, telling them that “it’s at the house. I threw the knife outside the house.”

The stabbing apparently developed out of an earlier domestic dispute Melendez had with his mother’s boyfriend, 61-year-old Gerald Gent over Melendez’ lack of employment and his drug use, according to the criminal complaint by police. Authorities were first called to the home about 8 p.m. Tuesday after Gent tried to escort Melendez out of the house and the fight ensued. The police charged Gent with assault.

Here in Maine, where Melendez lived in the late 1980s and early 1990s and worked as a foreman for a wood floor company in Winterport, he had become well known to police and prosecutors. In 1991 he pled guilty to participating in 13 burglaries in a deal that had prosecutors agree not to pursue charges against Melendez for another two dozen burglaries.

In addition, local police records show that Melendez was convicted in 1989 on charges of criminal threatening as well as operating a motor vehicle after suspension and that he had been arrested on theft and burglary charges.