70 interviewed in Bangor slaying

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BANGOR – Investigators have interviewed at least 70 friends, family members and neighbors of a woman whose body was found downtown during the weekend, but police offered few new details Tuesday.

The body of Christina Simonin, 43, was discovered Saturday night near her Union Street apartment.

Police said Monday it was a homicide.

“I bet we’re pushing, probably, between 70 and 100” interviews, police Detective Sgt. Paul Kenison said Tuesday.

Simonin’s “mangled” body was wrapped in a bed comforter and a tarp, then placed in a plastic bag and left between a shed and a car behind an apartment building at 148 Union St., according to two teenage boys who said they discovered the body.

Questions about how or where Simonin died remained unanswered Tuesday.

“We can’t talk about that” because of the investigation, Kenison said. “We’re making progress.”

Kenison said he could not answer questions about the time of Simonin’s death, whether the department was focusing on a suspect, whether a weapon was used in her death or whether she was sexually assaulted.

“We don’t know that much about her,” Kenison said. “We’re still working on that. We’ve talked with her family, but she’s kind of someone who kept to herself.”

Irvin Stone, who said he dated Simonin “on and off” for the past six months, said Tuesday that Simonin had visited him in the hospital a week before her body was discovered.

That was the last time he saw her alive, he said.

“She was supposed to call me that Sunday, but I never heard from her,” he said.

“I started worrying a couple of days after that. I thought maybe she went to Stetson,” where she has family, he said.

He described her as a sweet, wonderful woman, but said she tended to be reserved about her past.

“She loved cats and stuffed animals, and she loved to dance,” he said in an interview. “She didn’t get into much of her personal life.”

Simonin “liked to drink” and to eat at Ichiban, a Japanese sushi bar on Hammond Street, he said.

One thing she didn’t like was to be called by her given name, Stone said. “She hated that name with a passion,” he said. “She always wanted to be called Chris.”

She had a teenage son and former husband in Connecticut, he recalled from conversations with Simonin.

“I know she missed her son,” who is 14 or 15, Stone said. “Every time she talked about it, she’d break down in tears.

“We had plans of getting married,” he said. “We hadn’t set a date, but we were talking April.”

Simonin was unemployed, had applied for disability and had been evicted from her apartment in mid-February, Stone said, adding she had stayed with him and other friends since that date.

A family member identified the body for police, he said.

Bangor detectives have searched Stone’s apartment twice since her body was found, he said.

According to a previous report, two boys, ages 15 and 17, said they discovered the body in a bag just before 8 p.m. Saturday and thought at first it contained the body of a dog.

The boys, who are residents of Shaw House, a homeless shelter for Bangor-area youth, said they cut open the plastic bag and discovered what they described as a “mangled” body inside and called police.

The Shaw House is at 136 Union St., adjacent to Simonin’s apartment building.

Results of an autopsy Sunday were being withheld.

“Realistically, most of the homicides done in the state are done by someone that knows the victim,” Kenison said. “People should always take precaution … [and] be on their guard. [Still] we’re fortunate to live in a pretty safe area.”

Police identified Simonin’s body Monday afternoon, and Stone said he learned the news from a local TV station.

“That just about floored me,” he said. “I still can’t really believe it. I still expect her to bang on the door. It’s going to take quite awhile for it to sink in.”