Tremont man guilty of manslaughter

ELLSWORTH – After deliberating nearly six hours, a jury found Edwin Graham not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter Monday in the killing last year of his neighbor Zachary Savoy.

A group of Savoy’s relatives who sat through the weeklong trial stared in apparent disbelief as the jury foreman announced the verdict Monday evening in Hancock County Superior Court. Some lowered their heads and wept silently while across the aisle the defendant’s mother, Linda Graham of Tremont, opened her mouth in apparent surprise.

Graham, 26, of Tremont, stood at the defense table next to his attorney, Stephen Juskewitch of Ellsworth, and showed no emotion as the verdict was announced.

Outside the courtroom, members of Savoy’s family said Graham should have been convicted of murder for kicking Savoy in the head, beating him with a baseball bat and stabbing him with a knife hours after the men had met at a Christmas party last year.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Deborah Savoy, Zachary’s mother. “Our son deserved better.”

Peg Letizia, who sat with the Savoys throughout the trial, said no verdict could repair the damage done.

“No matter what they do, Zach is gone and he’s going to be missed,” Letizia said. “He’s more than a piece of evidence to us.”

Letizia found some minor comfort in the lesser conviction of manslaughter, which was included in the murder charge.

“At least he’s off the streets for a while,” she said of Graham. “He’ll never do this to another family again.”

Linda Graham declined comment on the verdict.

According to Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson, the prosecutor in the case, Graham faces up to 40 years for the manslaughter conviction.

Graham was accused of attacking Savoy after they had met at a Christmas party thrown Dec. 21 by Graham’s employer, contractor George Carter. The two men rented neighboring dwellings from Carter and, after the party at Carter’s nearby offices, ended up at Graham’s trailer.

Savoy was found later that night outside the trailer, unconscious in a pool of blood after he and Graham fought.

Graham testified in court Friday that he remembered kicking Savoy and breaking the bat over his head after Savoy refused to leave his trailer, but that he could not recall having stabbed Savoy.

Savoy, 25, died of his injuries the next morning at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Benson said he was disappointed that Graham was found guilty of manslaughter.

“I’m not surprised by the verdict,” Benson said. “I would have preferred a murder conviction.”

Juskewitch said afterward that Graham regretted causing Savoy’s death.

“He’s terribly sorry that it happened,” the defense attorney said. “We believe the jury saw it was not murder.”

The jury began deliberating at 2:30 p.m. Monday after the attorneys made their closing arguments that morning.

In his closing argument, Benson said Graham’s use of deadly force against Savoy was not justifiable. Graham had testified that he thought it was “possible” Savoy might try to kill or sexually assault him, not that such an attack was about to take place, Benson said.

“That’s not a defense,” the prosecutor told the jury. “Zachary Savoy was beaten to death and had no weapons.”

Benson also stressed that Graham initially told police Savoy had hit him with the bat first and that he had been at a woman’s house earlier that night, two assertions Graham later recanted, he said.

Juskewitch, in his closing argument, said the scream heard by Graham’s neighbor Madonna Merchant was not Savoy screaming in pain. It was Graham, who went into a dissociative mental state when he broke the bat over Savoy’s head and a large piece of it bounced back and hit him, he said.

“It’s pure self-defense,” Juskewitch told the jury. “He’s fighting for his life right there.”