Man sentenced to mental hospital in slaying

BANGOR – A Bangor man was committed to Riverview Psychiatric Center, formerly the Augusta Mental Health Institute, after being found guilty Wednesday of murder and attempted murder but not responsible for the crimes due to mental illness.

Walter Travis, 27, was taken from Penobscot County Jail to the facility for convicted criminals suffering from mental illness shortly after Maine Superior Court Justice Roland Cole announced his verdict.

Cole found Travis guilty Wednesday after a 21/2-hour trial in Penobscot County Superior Court of attempting to murder his brother, James Travis, 19, and guilty of murdering Thomas Forni, 51, on June 24, 2003.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor and Maine Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson agreed to present evidence jointly in the jury-waived trial.

“There’s no question he was suffering from a mental disease or defect [at the time of the crimes],” said Cole in announcing his decision. “This is a tragic case. If someone had looked at his issues and there had been mental health intervention at an earlier age, we might not be here.”

Travis’ commitment is for an undetermined amount of time, according to his attorney. People committed under similar circumstances usually spend many years in treatment before being allowed to leave the facility on supervised day passes, Silverstein said after the trial. He predicted that it would be decades, if ever, before Travis could be released from Riverview.

Just three witnesses – a Bangor police detective, a forensic psychiatrist and a forensic psychologist – testified for the prosecution. The defense rested without calling any witnesses.

Ann LeBlanc, director of State Forensic Services, testified that Travis suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, but was competent to stand trial because he had been taking medication while awaiting trial. She said that Travis believed beings called “goyfecals” would suck out his thoughts with tentacles, manipulate them, then put them back into his head. Travis also believed that the beings wanted him to kill people so they could have his and other people’s bodies.

That is why he hit his brother James Travis, 19, with a baseball bat on the evening of June 24 at the home of their father Kevin Travis, according to testimony. After the alleged attack, while the younger brother and their father tried to restrain Travis, the younger brother stabbed his brother repeatedly with a pocketknife in an effort to stop him.

Travis then left the apartment building, located on the corner of Second and Cedar streets in Bangor, bleeding from the abdomen and leaving a trail of blood to Forni’s apartment on First Street, said Detective Brent Beaulieu of the Bangor Police Department.

Travis was found sitting on a couch in the apartment and Forni was dead on the kitchen floor covered by a blanket. Forni died of multiple stab wounds, including a severe laceration of the neck, testified Beaulieu, citing the autopsy report.

Cole praised the cooperation between Benson and Silverstein in the case. The justice also said that the investigation by police was very thorough and helpful.

James Travis attended the trial but declined interviews. No members of Forni’s family were at Wednesday’s proceeding.