Police testify murder defendant’s alibis changed

SKOWHEGAN – As testimony continued on the fourth day of Olland Reese’s murder trial, police said the defendant’s stories didn’t match when he was interviewed after 16-year-old Cody Green’s slaying.

Twenty-year-old Reese is accused of killing the Brunswick girl in Bowdoin. Green was last seen alive on May 26, 2002, according to evidence presented Thursday. The jury trial is expected to continue for at least another week.

Detective Sgt. Eric Baker of the state police replayed a taped interview that he and Sgt. Doug Parlin conducted with Reese on June 23, 2002, at the Old Orchard Beach police station. Reese was living in that coastal town at the time.

Before June 23, Reese maintained he had spent Memorial Day weekend at a residence in Old Orchard Beach and had not seen Green on May 26. During the June 23 interview, however, Reese said his mother, Trudy Bither, her boyfriend, and Reese’s girlfriend, Kara McGinnis, who is now 16, spent that weekend at Bither’s Bowdoin home.

Reese said the family held a barbecue and he ended up staying overnight despite a court order that he and McGinnis not have any contact.

“I know my story changed, but the reason I didn’t come out with this at first is I didn’t want to get Kara in trouble,” Reese said during the taped interview. “That was something I was trying to hide. I spent the whole weekend with Kara.”

Testimony given earlier in the day also showed that Reese gave local police several versions of what happened on the day of Green’s death. Green, who lived on Maquoit Road in Brunswick, was reported missing by her mother but her body was not discovered until June 25. Her body was buried in a shallow grave behind Reese’s mother’s home.

Green’s hands were bound with duct tape and her body wrapped in a sheet, according to a police affidavit. On Wednesday, McGinnis testified that Reese acted “hyper and weird” on the day Green, her close friend, disappeared. McGinnis also told jurors that she noticed a hatchet, now believed to be the murder weapon, had been moved from its usual location inside the Bowdoin home where McGinnis and Reese lived.