February 10, 2025
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Man guilty in hog-tie murder Maine judge gives out rarely used life sentence

BANGOR – A local man convicted of brutally beating and suffocating a Carmel man was sentenced Friday in Penobscot County Superior Court to life in prison.

Justice Joseph Jabar accepted the prosecution’s recommendation and ordered that Peter Tuller, 35, spend the rest of his life behind bars.

After a three-day trial, a jury convicted Tuller in March of murdering 47-year-old Michael Demmons. Tuller faced between 25 years and life in prison for killing Demmons on June 25, 2006, in the bedroom of a Bangor apartment.

Deputy Attorney General William Stokes, whose office prosecuted the case, said after the sentencing Friday that the brutality of the crime warranted life.

“One of the criteria for life is extreme cruelty that is tantamount to torture,” Stokes said in a phone interview. “This was a brutal way to kill someone.”

Tuller’s attorney, Don Brown of Brewer, recommended his client be sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The attorney said he expected to appeal the verdict and the sentence to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Life sentences in Maine are rare. In 1990, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court outlined seven conditions under which a judge may impose a life sentence. One or more of them must exist for a convicted murderer to be sentenced to life in prison.

They are: murder for hire; murder of a hostage; murder of multiple victims; murder of an on-duty law enforcement officer; murder by an inmate in a penal institution; murder after a previous murder conviction; and murder accompanied by torture, sexual abuse or other extreme cruelty inflicted on the victim.

Demmons was found badly beaten and hog-tied, with plastic garbage bags over his head, in the Pier Street apartment of Maria Santos, 46. He had been staying with Santos, who was described at the trial as a friend, for about a month. Tuller was described as her ex-boyfriend.

At the trial, Dr. Margaret Greenwald, the state medical examiner, testified 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.

Demmons was described by his sister, Laurie Stevenson, 42, of Brunswick, as having the demeanor of a 14-year-old. She said shortly after his death that her brother suffered from cerebral palsy and would not have been able to fight off Tuller.

Stevenson said after the verdict that she and other family members would ask that Tuller be sentenced to life in prison. She also said that she did not believe Santos was involved in her brother’s death.

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

In a telephone interview Friday afternoon, Brown repeated what he told the jury – Tuller was not the only person responsible for Demmons’ murder.

The jury did not hear testimony from Santos because, with the jury out of the room, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate herself. Jabar ruled that the jury could not hear her make that declaration.

Sonia Soucy, 38, of Brewer testified 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.

“We have no plans to charge [Santos] at this time,” Stokes said Friday.

The only evidence that could be used to prosecute Santos would come from Tuller, who’s not a credible witness, the prosecutor said.

Brown strongly disagreed.

“I think at some point somebody has to hold the attorney general’s office accountable,” he said. “The problem is they’ve let someone I think is far more dangerous [than Peter Tuller] roam the streets. We’ve had jurors from this case call and say they hope she’s charged based on the facts of the case they heard and their verdict.”

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

990-8207


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