PORTLAND – A 46-year-old Palmyra man who confessed to a killing in Portland 13 years ago said in a jailhouse interview that he acted in self-defense when he shot a hitchhiker during an altercation.

Stephen Cutting told WGME-TV that he gave William Greenwood a ride the night of April 30, 1995, and the two returned to Cutting’s house and smoked some marijuana. He said Greenwood turned belligerent, which prompted him to take a hunting rifle with him when he drove Greenwood to his home in Westbrook.

Cutting said the shooting took place after the two men got into a fight when he dropped Greenwood off along Warren Avenue. Greenwood’s body was found the next day, but the case remained unsolved.

Cutting was never a suspect and had never met Greenwood before he gave him a ride.

Had he kept the killing a secret, he could have gotten away with it for the rest of his life, he said. But instead, he told his ex-wife over the weekend, who then told authorities.

“It was just eating away at me,” Cutting told the TV station.

In the interview, Cutting broke down in tears when recounting how he read in the newspaper that Greenwood was a father and imagined how his family must have felt.

He said he didn’t report the shooting when it happened because he thought nobody would believe him. But he’s now ready to tell his story, he said, and is ready to accept the consequences.