BANGOR – An Augusta man was charged with murder Thursday for allegedly abducting and killing his 74-year-old mother-in-law before stabbing himself with a knife, police said.

Maine State Police arrested David Grant, 54, as he was being discharged from Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Grant was to be held at the Kennebec County Jail in Augusta while awaiting an appearance Friday in Augusta District Court.

Police said Grant abducted Janet Hagerthy from her Farmingdale home Tuesday evening and killed her. The medical examiner has ruled “multiple traumatic injuries” as the cause of death.

Grant was found early Wednesday morning in his pickup truck off Route 2 in Palmyra with the self-inflicted stab wound. Hagerthy’s body was found by a passer-by later that morning a couple of blocks from her home.

Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the state Public Safety Department, said he wouldn’t talk about a possible motive or evidence that has been gathered.

“We’re not getting into the circumstances or details that will come out in the judicial proceedings that will follow,” he said.

Grant, formerly of Ellsworth and a self-employed carpenter, made headlines when he attacked his estranged wife in July 1987.

He was accused of trying to suffocate his wife with a plastic bag and trying to drown her by holding her head underwater. She also was sexually assaulted during the attack.

Grant was indicted on 14 counts, including attempted murder, and ended up pleading guilty to aggravated assault and two counts of gross sexual misconduct. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison with all but eight years suspended.

During the 1988 sentencing hearing in Hancock Superior Court, Justice Jack Smith told Grant that “the night [your wife] experienced at your hands was more horrifying than anything I have ever experienced in fiction.”

Janet Hagerthy and her daughter Cindy, who later married Grant, reportedly had known Grant since his childhood in the Ellsworth area.

Janet Hagerthy was remembered Thursday by a former Ellsworth neighbor as a friendly, talkative girl who rode the bus with her every day to and from school in the 1940s.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, said Hagerthy was an Ellsworth native and an only child. She estimated that Hagerthy graduated from Ellsworth High School in 1948 or 1949.

“Her maiden name was Cunningham,” the woman said. “She was a Bucksport Road girl all her life.”

She said Hagerthy had known her accused killer since he was a boy.

Grant also grew up in Ellsworth on Bucksport Road, she said

“I feel so sorry for the Grant family,” the woman said. “He’s definitely got a bad problem. I thought he had gotten help and he was doing good.”