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Defendant testifies at murder trial, deliberations to begin tomorrow

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FARMINGTON – A South Portland man accused of stabbing a Fayette woman to death more than 25 years ago testified in front of a packed courtroom today at Franklin County Superior Court. 

Speaking in a loud, clear voice, Thomas H. Mitchell, Jr., 52, of South Portland, told the jury that he did not kill Judith F. Flagg, 23, at her home on the Watson Heights Road in 1983.

“Did you murder Judy Flagg?” Defense attorney Greg Dorr asked his client.

“No, I did not,” Mitchell responded.


Thomas Mitchell Jr. (left), escorted by Kennebec County Sheriff’s Department Cpl. Joshua Staples (right), walks into the Farmington Courthouse.

Behind him, next to the witness stand, a large chalkboard affixed to the wall displayed a pair of numbers: “1 in 69,400,000,000,000,000.” Those numbers, the state’s expert witnesses specializing in DNA evidence claim, are the random match probability that another person could have left the tissue samples the state says were found under Flagg’s fingernails.

Flagg was last seen by her husband, Theodore Flagg, on Jan. 6 1983, sometime in the early hours of the morning as he prepared to go off to work. After getting off work and driving home, Ted Flagg said he found his wife lying on the kitchen floor, having been stabbed in her chest, torso and lower back. The Flagg’s 13-month-old son, Chad, was lying top of her, physically unharmed.

Police collected evidence, including clippings of Judith Flagg’s fingernails and swabs from her mouth, as well as footprints found in the snow leading to the residence’s seldom-used kitchen door. According to witnesses for the state, there was some initial interest in Mitchell, culminating with a search of his residence, but the case eventually went cold.

Then, in 2003, authorities began to look into the case again, assisted by new DNA matching techniques. This eventually led to a testing of the samples taken in 1983 and the arrest of Mitchell. The trial was moved out of Kennebec County to the Franklin County Superior Court after Mitchell’s lawyers successfully argued that the defense was unlikely to get an unbiased jury due to the pretrial publicity.

Much of Mitchell’s testimony dealt with a possible explanation on the part of the defense for the presence of Mitchell’s DNA at the scene. Mitchell said that he had spent a few weekends with his father, who owned the Watson Hill Road residence prior to the Flaggs purchasing it, and on one occasion cut himself in one of the rooms.

In this room, which has been referred to throughout the trial as the “baby’s room” as the Flaggs used it as a nursery, police found signs of a struggle and bloodstains.

In August 1979, Mitchell says, he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

“I got up in kind of a rush,” he said, “and I tripped over my dog and fell on an empty soda bottle.”

That Pepsi bottle, Mitchell testified, cut his shin and “shaved the bone,” leaving a scar. He said he bled profusely from the wound, leaving a puddle of blood on the carpet before his father came in and bandaged his leg. Mitchell and his father, the defendant claimed, then cleaned the carpet with bleach.

Mitchell and his defense have offered that incident as a possible source for DNA found on and about Judith Flagg’s body. Mitchell also said he did visit the Flaggs after the death of his father, as Ted Flagg has testified to, to inquire about some possessions. However, he denied visiting the Flaggs after that, testifying that he and his aunt spent Jan. 6, 1983 in Portland. 

Deputy Attorney General William Stokes spent the entire cross-examination on Mitchell’s alleged accident with the soda bottle. Stokes questioned the timing of the incident, the fact that Mitchell didn’t seek medical attention and that Mitchell testified he had stayed more or less stationary while injured, rather than rushing the bathroom or kitchen to try and stem the blood.

“Do you have an explanation about why your DNA was under Judy Flagg’s nails?” Stokes asked Mitchell.

“I can’t explain that,” Mitchell said. He went on to theorize that Judith Flagg has somehow picked up his DNA from his stays at the residence.

Stokes also called a pair of rebuttal witnesses. He first asked Ted Flagg if he had even used bleach on a carpet to try and remove a stain.

“Accidentally, yes,” Flagg said.

“What happened?” Stokes asked.

“I had a nice, white spot,” Flagg said, saying he had not noticed any discoloration in the baby room’s carpeting.

Stokes also called Cathy MacMillan, a forensic scientist, back to the stand to question her about bleach. MacMillian said that her laboratory used a 10 percent bleach solution to clean up after tests.

“And why do you use bleach?” Stokes asked.

“Because it’s very effective at destroying DNA and bacteria,” she responded.

With both the defense and state having rested their cases, Justice Joseph Jabar told the jury to go home for the day. The judge will give his instructions to the jury tomorrow morning, along with both sides’ closing statements. Deliberation will begin around noon at the latest, Jabar said.

The judge also denied a motion made by the defense to acquit Mitchell. The motion is a common occurrence in criminal cases after the state rests its case. 

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