Tuesday, May 22, 2012
By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
SKOWHEGAN -- Jurors on Thursday watched a silent, videotaped walk-through of the scene of a Pittston home invasion as investigators saw it just hours after a father and daughter were maimed by a machete-wielding intruder.
TRIAL BEGINS: Daniel L. Fortune, center, is escorted by deputies into the Somerset County Superior Court in Skowhegan on the first day of his trial on Thursday.
Staff photo by David Leaming
The scene begins with the bucolic exterior of a multilevel, yellow-sided house with green grass, leaves on trees, a pool yet to be opened for the season, and a garage with a car in one bay and a number of household items in another.
Inside, however, the camera follows trails of dark red blood on brown print carpeting, wood and tile floors. Ceilings show gash marks. Light-colored walls show large spots of brown, dried blood.
Items on the floor appear to have been knocked from the walls. Blood soaks a dark green material on the floor outside the upstairs bedroom of Nicole Guerrette, then 10.
Blood is also pooled outside the home's master bedroom. It seeps through the floor into the ceiling below and drops onto the music keyboard in another daughter's room.
After being shown the video, jurors heard four members of the Guerrette family testify Thursday about what they experienced when the attack began inside their home at 1:57 a.m. May 28, 2008.
It was the opening day in Somerset County Superior Court in the trial of Daniel Fortune, 22, of Augusta, one of two men charged with committing the home invasion. He faces charges of aggravated attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft and conspiracy to commit robbery, among other offenses.
Leo R. Hylton, 20, of Augusta, pleaded guilty to charges related to the attack and was sentenced Feb. 26 to 90 years in prison with all but 50 years suspended.
Fortune and Hylton are foster brothers who shared an apartment at the time the offenses occurred.
Investigators say the pair planned the attack on William Guerrette's home to get bail money for a charge against Fortune and to get Guerrette to drop an earlier theft charge against Fortune.
Thursday, Fortune's attorney, Pamela Ames, said her client went along for the ride from Augusta to Pittston and even showed Hylton the way -- but that Fortune went into the house only to bring out his foster brother.
"Two years ago, on May 29, 2008, the police got their man. They arrested Leo Hylton," Ames said. "Leo Hylton said, 'I'm the man who did it. I did it all.'"
Ames said in her opening statement that Hylton admitted the attack in a letter to the Guerrette family in which Hylton wrote, "My weakness, my need to help those I love, my unwavering loyalty has caused all this senseless pain."
Deputy District Attorney Alan Kelley said a Nov. 17, 2007, theft by Fortune of more than $100,000 worth of property from the Guerrette home was the catalyst for the home invasion.
In court Thursday, Ames agreed Fortune had committed that theft.
All four Guerrette family members who testified Thursday afternoon talked of being awakened by the newly acquired home security system siren and a loud computerized voice repeating "Intruder. Intruder. Please leave immediately. The authorities are responding."
They thought it was a false alarm -- a frequent occurrence -- but William Guerrette, then 48, got up to investigate, all the Guerrettes who testified said Thursday.
His wife, Melanie, told the court she knew something was wrong when she heard him scream and saw him return almost immediately to the bedroom -- clutching the left side of his head, which was bleeding -- and begin searching the closet for his gun.
When he left the room, she testified she locked the doors and climbed out a bathroom window, and went running through the woods to get help.
She testified she thought the intruders would come after her, and she thought her family was dead or dying.
Nicole Guerrette, now 12, testified she came out of her bedroom to see what was wrong and heard her father tell her to go back. She said she blacked out, and later found herself in her bed, telling police her name and hearing them say they would get her out.
Nicole responded to the prosecutor's questions Thursday in a clear, confident voice. She wore her brown hair long, two long pinkish scars visible on the left side of her face. She spent more than three weeks hospitalized and has permanent brain damage, her mother testified.
Nicole's sister, Ashley Guerrette, now 17, testified she had hidden under her bed, crawling out once to grab her cell phone and call 911.
Her brother, Ryan Guerrette, now 20, testified he heard loud thumping and screams upstairs and left his ground-floor room to take refuge behind furniture in the pool area.
He testified he and Fortune had been friends and baseball and basketball teammates at Gardiner Area High School.
Ryan Guerrette also said Fortune been a frequent visitor to the home and had attended an unauthorized party he had hosted while the rest of his family was out of state.
That was when William Guerrette's safe was stolen, according to court documents.
At trial Thursday, Ryan Guerrette did not look at Fortune, until Kelley asked him to identify him.
Justice Michaela Murphy, at Ames' request, told jurors that Fortune was in custody. He was wearing a blue sport coat and a white shirt and tie. Shackles on his ankles were shielded from view by a curtain around the bottom of the defense table.
Fortune spoke quietly to his attorney and took notes during some of the testimony.
The trial is scheduled to continue today and for six more days.
The prosecutor told the jurors they may hear from more than 30 witnesses over that time.
Betty Adams -- 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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