DOVER-FOXCROFT — The jury-waived trial of a Guilford man accused of fatally stabbing 22-year-old Theodore Smart of Guilford last July will get under way today in Piscataquis County Superior Court.

Roderick “Pud” Edward Cole, 60, was charged with manslaughter after Smart was stabbed in the chest with a serrated steak knife during an altercation over beer at a trailer Cole rented on the Wharf Road in Guilford.

Justice Andrew Mead is also expected to hear testimony in a jury-waived trial for Nancy E. Taylor, 45, of Dover-Foxcroft, who was charged with theft with unauthorized taking. Taylor is accused of taking in excess of $5,000 from Rowell’s Garage in Dover-Foxcroft while she was employed as a bookkeeper there between May 1991 and December 1993.