Murder trial begins in Caribou Mother tells of finding daughter lying in blood

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CARIBOU – The murder trial of a Limestone woman charged with stabbing to death a Caswell day care provider began Tuesday in Aroostook County Superior Court with graphic videos and testimony from the people who first found the victim.

Laura Kirk, 34, allegedly stabbed Tara L. Bell, 27, at least 10 times late on the night of Dec. 16, 2001, in Bell’s home on Libby Road.

Dressed in a black two-piece suit and a pale-green blouse, Kirk was expressionless throughout much of Tuesday’s testimony.

During testimony from Bell’s mother and a customer whose son found Bell’s body, Kirk was observed wiping tears from her eyes.

Kirk also wiped tears from her eyes when state Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Ference described Bell’s fatal wounds.

“Once bloodshed occurred, this person went down quickly,” Ference said, adding that the two wounds to Bell’s chest were enough to cause her to bleed to death in less than one or two minutes.

The medical examiner said there were four slash and stab wounds on Bell’s head; two major stab wounds to her chest cut her aorta, the major blood vessel leading from the heart, and actually punctured her heart.

There also were four wounds to Bell’s back, and several other slash wounds to her arms and hands, the latter of which Ference described as possible defensive wounds, as if a person were trying to block an attack.

Police never found the knife used to kill Bell, who was found face down in a pool of blood the next morning at about 6 a.m. in her kitchen.

The case is being heard by a jury of four men and 10 women, which includes two alternates. The trial will resume at 9 a.m. today with Justice Andrew Meade presiding.

The slain woman was first discovered by the son of a customer who had brought her two sons to Bell’s home.

Tammy Keiser of Caswell testified that she was still standing in the laundry room of Bell’s home when one of her sons ran ahead into the house.

“He stopped, turned around and he froze, and made a loud ‘Ugh,”‘ Keiser testified, breaking into tears.

She asked him what was wrong, and the boy came running back and said, “I think Tara’s dead. She’s lying in blood,” the mother recalled, quoting her son.

Keiser said she didn’t go into the house, but took the boys and went to another house to call for help.

Glenda and Denton Roy, Bell’s parents, lived less than 500 feet from their daughter.

Glenda Roy testified that her husband called her from work shortly after 6 a.m. to say that he had heard on his police scanner that an ambulance was going to Tara’s house and that he couldn’t reach Tara on the phone.

Glenda Roy said she went to investigate. Sobbing, she testified about what she found.

“I saw Tara’s feet,” she said, crying. “I went further into the kitchen, and that’s when I found her. When I saw Tara, I knew I couldn’t help her.”

Fearing that her 3-year-old granddaughter also might have been hurt, she went to Tara’s bedroom and found the girl still asleep in her mother’s bed. An older granddaughter had spent the night with her grandparents.

During opening statements Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General William Stokes said that both Bell and Kirk were going through divorces.

Kirk’s children used Bell’s day care service, and Bell and Kirk’s husband, Gerald Kirk, had become friends.

Stokes said Laura Kirk “was getting angrier and angrier and more jealous of Tara Bell.” He added that Kirk blamed the victim for the fact that she and her husband were not getting back together.Defense attorney Peter S. Kelley of Caribou painted a different picture.

“This is a horrible human tragedy,” he said, noting that it involved “love, hate, sex and betrayal,” just like a TV movie.

He urged the jury several times to “keep an open mind,” adding that Bell and her husband, Troy Bell, “had a tumultuous history together” and that there had been “a number of separations.”

He noted that Troy Bell was often demeaning and verbally abusive of Tara, especially when he had been drinking.

During Tuesday afternoon, several expert witnesses testified, including Jennifer McCorrison, a forensic DNA analyst for the state.

McCorrison testified that a smear of blood found on Bell’s refrigerator was a positive match to Laura Kirk, as was blood found in Kirk’s van and on a light switch at the home of Kirk’s stepfather, from where she allegedly called a friend after the murder.

Also Tuesday, a three-minute segment of a videotape taken by state police investigators of the crime scene was shown to the jury. The graphic video showed Bell’s body, some of her wounds and a pool of blood.

Kirk’s view of the video was not good, but she did not appear to make any effort to watch. Instead she stared straight ahead or at the floor.