Heroin charges may be dropped

BANGOR – Drug charges against a former Bangor man are expected to be dismissed now that Michael “Gizmo” Melendez is serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania for murdering his mother in a fight over drugs.

Assistant Attorney General Bill Savage said Wednesday he has filed a motion seeking to dismiss the possession of heroin charge.

Melendez, 37, was indicted on the Class C felony by a Penobscot County grand jury in September, a week after he was charged with criminal homicide in Pennsylvania for fatally stabbing Linda Melendez, 56.

Both were addicted to heroin, according to testimony at his trial.

“We think he’s right where he belongs – in prison for the rest of his life,” Savage said Wednesday from his Bangor office. “We believe justice has been served.”

Melendez was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole after a jury-waived trial last month in Pittsburgh. Judge Jeffrey A. Manning ruled that Melendez was mentally competent when he stabbed his mother 36 times in a fight over drugs on Aug. 28, 2002, in West Deer, Pa., a township of 11,500 people just north of Pittsburgh. Defense attorney Kathleen Cribbins had argued that his history of depression from childhood compounded his substance abuse problems so that he was unable to form the specific intent to kill.

Melendez’s then 13-year-old daughter, Nichole, testified she saw the trouble brewing and hid all the kitchen knives, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported last month. She said she scooped up her 2-year-old brother and cowered in a second-floor room until the fighting stopped.

She said her grandmother sometimes ordered her to steal merchandise to be exchanged for drugs. She said her “Nanna” and her father sometimes made her steal drugs from the other.

Nichole and her brother now live with a paternal aunt in an undisclosed location, according to media reports published in Pittsburgh.

Melendez found the knives and chased his mother outside, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her back inside where he continued to stab her, according to trial testimony.

He then fled with his two children, whom he dropped off at a friend’s home before leading police on a chase. It ended when a tire blew on the truck Melendez was driving. Outside the vehicle, he held a knife to his own throat and tried to goad police into shooting him. He was subdued with pepper spray.

While the charges against Melendez here were substantial, according to Savage, the decision to seek their dismissal was made after considering the costs to the taxpayers of pursuing the case.