Bangor man guilty of murder Carmel resident suffered brutal beating and was hogtied

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BANGOR – A Penobscot County jury took just an hour Wednesday afternoon to find a Bangor man guilty of murder.

After a three-day trial, the jury of eight women and four men found Peter Tuller, 35, guilty of murdering Michael Demmons, 47, of Carmel. The verdict was announced about 4:30 p.m.

Tuller faces 25 years to life in prison for killing Demmons on June 25, 2006, in the bedroom of a Bangor apartment.

Justice Joseph Jabar, who presided over the trial in Penobscot County Superior Court, did not set a date for the sentencing hearing, but expected it would be held in a month or two.

Demmons’ sister, Laurie Stevenson, 42, of Brunswick burst into tears, then, hugged and kissed her husband, Scott Stevenson, 41, after the verdict was announced. She said that if Maine had the death penalty, she and her four surviving brothers would ask that Tuller be put to death, but, instead they will urge the judge to send Tuller to prison for life.

“I’m anxious to speak to the judge,” she said on the steps of the courthouse. “Peter Tuller truly was the devil that night, but my brother wasn’t afraid because he had God with him. Someday, we’ll all go to the better place where he is.”

Tuller showed no emotion when the verdict was read. His attorney, Don Brown of Bangor, said outside the courtroom after the verdict was announced that his client was “disappointed.”

Brown told the jury in his closing statement Wednesday that Maria Santos, 46, not Tuller, was the person who wanted Demmons dead and placed the plastic bags over the victim’s head.

Demmons had been living with Santos in her Bangor apartment on Pier Street for about a month.

“She’s a free person and he’s in jail,” Brown said in the courthouse parking lot.

Brown called Santos to the stand Wednesday while the jury was out of the courtroom. She was accompanied by her attorney, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor.

When Brown asked if she would be willing to answer questions about Demmons’ death, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate herself. Jabar ruled that she could not testify before the jury.

The defense attorney called one witness whose testimony the jury did hear.

Sonia Soucy, 38, of Brewer said that in 2003 Santos talked about killing Demmons by suffocating him with a pillow or plastic bags. Under cross-examination, Soucy admitted that she did not call police when Santos discussed her plan or when she learned of Demmons’ death.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson, who prosecuted the case, did not rule out filing charges against Santos.

“An investigation like this is always ongoing,” he said after the verdict was read. “Other charges always can be made.”

There is no statute of limitation in Maine on when murder charges must be filed.

“The evidence [against Tuller] was very compelling,” Benson said, “and obviously, the jury felt the same way.”

Benson’s last witness Wednesday was the man who shared a jail cell with Demmons in the hours after his arrest for murder on June 26, 2006. He said that Tuller confessed to beating Demmons to death.

Todd Wark, 34, testified that while he was in the Penobscot County Jail awaiting trial on a drug trafficking charge, he asked Tuller why he was in jail.

“He said, ‘I killed my best friend last night,'” Wark said. “He told me that he had beaten his best friend to death.”

Wark described Demmons hands as “bloodied and beat up.” He also said that Tuller confessed to beating Demmons in the head and chest.

He told the jury that Tuller also admitted that he hogtied Demmons but said that Santos had put the plastic bags over the victim’s head. Tuller’s former cellmate, who said he got no time off his sentence for his testimony, testified that the defendant told him he struck Demmons with just his fists.

“He told me that the police kept asking him, ‘Where are the weapons, where are the weapons?'” Wark testified. “He said, ‘These were my only weapons,'” the witness said holding up his hands to the jury.

In his closing arguments, Brown said that the photos Bangor police took of Tuller’s hands showed they were not bloody. The attorney also theorized that Santos could have beaten Demmons with an empty vodka bottle.

Security tape footage from a Bangor grocery store showed that Santos bought two half-gallons of vodka on the day Demmons died, but police only recovered one empty bottle, Brown said.

Demmons’ bloody and badly beaten body was found hogtied with plastic trash bags secured over his head in the apartment he shared with Santos.

Dr. Margaret Greenwald, the state medical examiner, testified on Monday that Demmons had 10 to 12 skull fractures and that a majority of his ribs were fractured more than once. He also suffered brain hemorrhages and neck trauma.

The medical examiner said it was unlikely Demmons could have survived his serious injuries even if the plastic bags had not been placed over his head and he had received immediate medical attention.

Because Demmons suffered from cerebral palsy and had the demeanor of a 14-year-old, Laurie Stevenson said earlier this week, he wouldn’t have been able to fight off Tuller.

She and her brothers agreed after the trial that the verdict had given them some closure. They also said they felt their brother had been watching the week’s events unfold.

Demmons’ brother, Don Demmons, 50, of Bangor pointed out that when the jury began deliberating it was raining outside.

“After they announced the verdict, the sun came out,” he said. “That was Michael.”