Mother of murder suspect denies remembering previous testimony

PORTLAND – The mother of Jeffery “Russ” Gorman took the stand Wednesday in his murder trial but consistently denied remembering key information.

Gorman is on trial in Cumberland County Superior Court for the killing of 25-year-old Amy St. Laurent. The South Berwick woman disappeared Oct. 21, 2001, after a night out in Portland.

St. Laurent’s body was found seven weeks later buried in the woods near the Scarborough home Gorman shared with his mother, Tammy Westbrook.

Justice Nancy Mills had denied a motion by Westbrook’s lawyer, Daniel Lilley, to quash a prosecution subpoena compelling Westbrook to take the stand against her son.

According to Lilley, Westbrook suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression and does not remember the events surrounding St. Laurent’s death.

Last February, Westbrook appeared before the Cumberland County grand jury and testified about something her son told her the day before his arrest in Troy, Ala.

Mills allowed prosecutors to use the record of the grand jury appearance when questioning her.

On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General William Stokes asked Westbrook whether she remembered her Feb. 8 testimony before the grand jury, a phone conversation with her son the day after St. Laurent’s body was found or saying under oath that she would never forget what her son told her he had done to St. Laurent.

To each of the questions, Westbrook said she did not remember.

Prosecutors say that there is no physical evidence that links Gorman to the murder.

Some witnesses say Gorman told them he wanted to have sex with St. Laurent the night she disappeared and others say he lied to police about his whereabouts.

Two witnesses say Gorman said he was carrying a gun in the days before St. Laurent’s death.

Westbrook has said that she has been traumatized since the arrest of her son and the discovery of St. Laurent’s body. She has said that she is on four different medications for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and that she has lost more than 100 pounds.