Details of ’83 murder recounted

WISCASSET – The last time Boyd Smith and Joel Fuller saw each other was two decades ago as they sat drinking in a Belfast bar.

The two faced off again Wednesday in Superior Court, where Fuller is standing trial for the shooting death of Mervin “Sonny” Grotton, 46, at his Belfast home the night of Dec. 16, 1983. The trial was moved from Belfast to Wiscasset because of publicity.

The state contends that Grotton’s death was the result of a murder-for-hire conspiracy ordered by Grotton’s wife, Norma Grotton Small, set in motion by Smith, and completed by the actions of triggerman Fuller. The alleged conspiracy was eventually uncovered and the three were indicted for Grotton’s murder in 2001.

Fuller, now 47, was the person who hid behind a woodpile in Grotton’s yard that winter night and fired the three shots that ended his life, according to the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson. Shell casings from a .30-30-caliber rifle were found beside the woodpile the night of the killing.

Small, 62, of Gas, Kan., was convicted for her part in the case last August by a Sagadahoc County Superior Court jury. She is serving a life sentence for murder. Smith, 42, of Brooks, was acquitted when he stood trial in Penobscot County Superior Court last February.

Seated in the witness stand 15 feet from Fuller, Smith told the jury hearing Fuller’s case Wednesday that he set up a meeting with Fuller in Rollie’s Cafe in Belfast on behalf of Small sometime in the spring of 1983. The state contends that Small wanted her husband dead so she could collect his insurance and pension.

Smith told the jury that Small had pressured him for weeks to kill her husband but that he didn’t have the stomach for it. He said he learned that when he went through a “dry run” under Small’s directions.

“Nauseous, shaking and just sick to my stomach just thinking about it,” Smith said of the reaction he experienced as he lurked outside the Grotton home waiting for him to arrive from his job at a Rhode Island Navy base. A 26-year career Navy man, Grotton commuted to the base on Mondays and came home on Fridays.

Smith said that when he told Small he could not go through with the murder, she demanded he find someone who could. He said he went looking for Fuller because “he had a reputation of being somebody who would do anything for money.”

Smith said Small had offered him $10,000. He said he told Fuller that Small was willing to pay to have her husband killed.

Smith testified that when Fuller agreed to meet with Small, Smith provided him with her name and address and washed his hands of the matter.

“Whatever they did, it was between the two of them. I didn’t want anything more to do with it,” Smith said he told Fuller and Small.

Under cross-examination from defense attorney Jeffrey Silverstein, Smith admitted that he lied to authorities about his involvement in the crime when questioned about his activities. Police were aware of Smith’s connection to the family because he lived at Small’s home until a few months before the murder.

Smith also admitted to Silverstein that he continued to lie about his involvement when questioned over the following years. Smith said he repeatedly denied involvement when questioned by undercover agents posing as friends of Fuller and during most of a six-hour interview with investigators on the day he was arrested in May 2001.

Smith said he continued to socialize with Small after the murder and even held his wedding at her home. He said he did so because he realized what Small was capable of and figured it was best to remain on her good side.

“At that point I was afraid not to associate with her,” he said. “I was afraid if I cut myself off, so to speak, she would send somebody after me.”

Also testifying Wednesday was Larry Phillips, 45, of Waterville, a childhood friend of Fuller’s who claimed that Fuller revealed the details of the crime to him one night when they were riding around Waldo County drinking.

Despite undergoing a grueling cross-examination from Silverstein, Phillips never deviated from his claim that Fuller told him he “waited behind a woodpile” to shoot “some guy in the service.” He said Fuller told him that when his victim “got to the door he shot him in the back and he was lying on the ground pleading to him and he shot him through the hand and head.”

The state’s chief medical examiner testified earlier in the trial that Grotton was felled by three shots, including one that passed through his right wrist and left jaw.

Phillips said Fuller indicated that he dumped the murder weapon in a brook in Belmont. A group of children found a .30-30 rifle in the same stream a few years after the murder and turned it over to police.

The rifle was found damaged and experts were unable conclusively to tie the shells found at the scene to the rifle found in the brook, according to testimony offered by Roy Gallant of the state police crime laboratory. Gallant stressed that he could not rule out that the shells may have been fired from the rifle.

During his cross-examination, Silverstein questioned Phillips about his lengthy criminal history and the fact that he is awaiting resolution of federal and state weapons and drug charges that have the potential of sending him to prison for 25 years to life. Phillips insisted that authorities never promised him leniency in return for his testimony against Fuller.

Fuller is serving a 50-year sentence and a life sentence for two drug-related killings that occurred in Waldo County within two years of Grotton’s murder.