Friends, Family Present Another Side of Mark Dugas

Dugas' friends and family The friends and family of Mark Dugas are struggling to understand his death in the light of last month’s not guilty verdict in the Amy Dugas murder trial.

Mark died of a deep stab wound to the chest, a wound that severed his pulmonary artery. He lived long enough to stumble to a neighbor’s house for help, where he collapsed and died in their entryway on June 4, 2004 in Waldoboro.

Larry Dugas, Mark’s dad, said he felt there was a lot of information that did not surface at the trial, including the fact that Amy Dugas had been on bail for previous domestic assault charges.

Those charges stemmed from an incident where Amy Dugas was alleged to have attacked Mark in February of 2004 after he left her.

Bail conditions set for Amy at the time required that she go to anger management counseling, refrain from drinking and refrain from handling weapons.

Mark even had a good relationship with his ex-wife, Cindy Dickinson, according to Helen and Larry Dugas, of Rockport, Mark’s parents.

“Mark and I grew up together,” said Dickinson. “As we grew up together we also grew apart. But we were still best friends after we got divorced. I want people to know what kind of man Mark was. He had a huge capacity for love.”

“Mark was not a fighter. He just wanted everybody to get along,” said Dickinson. “One of the reasons Mark stayed with Amy is he didn’t want to fail again,” she added. “He wanted to make it work.”

“He worked for me at Bicknell’s,” said Richard Hastings, Mark’s former father-in-law, of Waldoboro. “You couldn’t ask for a better guy.”

“He was always willing to help,” said Dickinson. “He helped my parents so much.”

Even after Mark and Cindy were divorced Mark would drop in to visit with the Hastings, help with lawn work or even install a new doorbell for them.

“Mark was a kidder and he liked to joke,” said Susan Partelow who used to work with Mark at Maine Stone and Landscaping in Rockport.

She recalled coming out to her car in the parking lot one afternoon only to find “every cell phone antenna and help wanted sign he could find plastered all over my vehicle,” laughed Partelow. “And snow plow lights!”

“When he came back from Tennessee with Amy his entire personality changed,” said Partelow. “We knew he was in trouble but he wouldn’t sit down and talk with anybody about it.”

Dickinson said she felt that Mark was being alienated from his friends and family, a typical indicator of abuse.

At several points, Dickinson reported to the Thomaston police encounters she had had with Amy Dugas.

Amy, for example, showed up on the doorstep of the apartment building where Dickinson and her daughter Brie were living at the time. “She went knocking on neighbor’s doors to find me,” said Dickinson.

When Brie called her dad about a school dance one evening, Amy reportedly told Brie that she could not talk to her father but had to talk to Amy.

“That’s when Brie had decided that things were a little too weird for her there,” said Dickinson, who was married to Mark for 11 years.

“I watched this change in Mark. I watched him go from a loving, outgoing guy to a shell of a man,” said Dickinson.

Cindy said that when Mark originally left the state with Amy, “he didn’t even let his close friends know he was leaving the area. He lived for his daughter and he cherished his friendships and poof, it was gone.”

“At the gas pumps Brie looked up and said ‘Mom, there’s my dad,’” said Dickinson. “He looked right up without acknowledging us. ‘Mom, he just walked by’ said Brie.”

After leaning into the window of his own car, where he presumably asked Amy’s permission, Mark “came back and he was crying,” said Dickinson. “He told Brie how much he loved her.”

Friends of Mark Dugas have established a trust fund dedicated to Brie, and to purchasing a headstone for Mark’s grave.

Last Sunday they walked in Rockland for the second time this spring, in an attempt to make people aware that domestic abuse knows no gender lines.

May 05, 2005

The Lincoln County News

Jury Finds Dugas Not Guilty By Mike Colbert and Sherwood Olin

Amy Dugas, the 37-year-old Waldoboro woman accused of killing her husband last June, was acquitted by a Lincoln County Superior Court Jury in Wiscasset on Friday.

After deliberating for more than 12 hours beginning on Thursday, the jury of four men and eight women found Amy Dugas not guilty of murder, and not guilty of manslaughter in the fatal stabbing of Mark Dugas, 39, on the evening of June 4, 2004.

Calling only one witness, Amy Dugas, the defense took less than two hours to state its case.

Before hearing the jury’s verdict on Friday, Justice Roland Cole reminded those gathered in the courtroom that, whatever the verdict, “there are no winners.”

Following the not guilty verdict, members of Mark Dugas’ family gathered outside the courtroom, weeping in disbelief.

On the steps outside the courthouse Amy’s mother, Betty Gallant, told reporters she believed in her daughter “and I believed in her innocence.”

Gallant expressed regret, however, over the loss of her son-in-law.

“We loved him too,” she said.

Had she been convicted of murder, Dugas could have been sentenced to a minimum of 25 years to life in prison. Conviction on the manslaughter charge could have sent Dugas to prison for up to 40 years

Taking the stand on her own behalf, Dugas was led through a recitation of the events of June 4 by her defense attorney Howard F. O’Brien, III.

According to her testimony, an enraged Mark Dugas attacked her with a knife after a conversation about his child support obligations grew into a heated argument. Amy Dugas testified that the couple was discussing the issue while they worked to repair a camper trailer in their front yard.

She testified the couple moved eight times between their marriage in March 2002 and Jan., 2004 in part because Mark was attempting to avoid paying child support. Amy testified that she told Mark during their June 4 conversation that he would have to “deal with it,” and suggested they might have to separate to “do some soul searching to see if this is really going to work or not.”

Shortly after that exchange, according to Amy Dugas, she went into the house to get another beer for Mark and use the bathroom. While in the house, she said she engaged in conversation with her eight year old son, Christopher Hutson, who asked for a snack and wanted her to watch something on television with him.

While Amy was in the living room, she testified that Mark came up behind her, carrying a knife he allegedly retrieved from the camper.

Amy Dugas testified Mark grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the love seat the couple used as a living room sofa. She said Mark was threatening to kill himself and her and said she protected herself with her feet to the best of her ability, at one point successfully kicking the knife away.

According to Amy Dugas, she went into the kitchen to collect herself. Mark picked up the knife and came in after her. The couple fought in the kitchen “pushing and shoving” before somehow losing their balance and falling to the floor.

“I am pulling on his shirt. I am pulling on his arm; just doing whatever I could think to do, to keep him from hurting himself or me,” she said.

According to Amy Dugas, Mark Dugas was mortally injured during the struggle on the floor. When Mark got up,” blood came squirting out on me and on my shoes,” Amy Dugas testified.

Dugas said she could not recall if Mark said anything. She said he gestured to his chest and exited the house toward the shed area, remembering to pick up his pack of cigarettes on the way out.

Amy said she went into the living room and sat on the love seat for a moment, trying to collect herself. She testified that she did not recall picking the knife up or putting it in the sink. Under cross-examination, she testified that she did not recall if Mark was wearing a shirt.

Back in the kitchen, Dugas said she noticed spots of blood on her kitchen table, which was an expensive oak model. Dugas testified she took out some Pledge and a rag and cleaned the table. She testified that she did not notice a 13 by 9 inch pool of blood on the kitchen floor or smears of blood on the wall near the doorway.

“The next thing I know, an EMT is coming through the door,” she said.

Dugas was treated at the scene for cuts on her left thigh and right leg. She said she did not go to the hospital because the family had no insurance and she did not want to incur another bill.

During the investigation police recovered a large knife from the kitchen sink, soaking in a little over two inches of soapy water.

Indicating the knife that caused Mark Dugas’ death, prosecutor Asst. Attorney General Fern LaRochelle asked Amy if she put the knife in the sink.

“It’s possible I may have done that,” said Amy, “but I honestly don’t recall.”

“This knife was flashing around in your face and you didn’t know where it was?” asked LaRochelle.

Amy replied that she did not.

Robert Burns, a forensic specialist with the Maine State Police, told LaRochelle that while Amy’s fingerprints had been taken from a half consumed beer can found in the house and from a can of Pledge cleaner found in the kitchen, no prints could be salvaged from the knife that was soaking in the kitchen sink.

Forensic DNA Analyst Erin Schremser said that blood found on the kitchen sink handle, however, belonged to Amy Dugas.

Dugas testified that she did not remember telling a police officer that “I got him here,” indicating the upper left area of the chest where Mark Dugas was stabbed.

Amy said she was placed in handcuffs on the evening of June 4 and seated in the front seat of a patrol car. She was told she was going to the Waldoboro Police Dept. At the junction of Rt. 1, however, the car took a right, heading toward Wiscasset.

Dugas testified she was growing more upset and said the handcuffs were causing her discomfort. By Hillside Auto, the car pulled over and there was an exchange with the officer, which eventually led to Dugas being charged with assaulting an officer.

Around 10:30 that night, police informed Dugas that her husband was dead. Asked for her reaction Dugas replied: “I said if he is not here, I don’t want to be here either.”

In closing arguments, LaRochelle highlighted inconsistencies in Dugas’ testimony. His comments focused on the nature of the fatal wound, the amounts of blood in the house and what he called Amy Dugas “convenient memory lapses.”

Although Dugas claimed to be wrestling on the floor with Mark at the time Mark was wounded, LaRochelle pointed out that only a few spots of blood marked Amy’s shirt and shoes.

Instead, LaRochelle suggested that Amy Dugas pulled Mark’s shirt over his head, pinning his arms before she stabbed him. He pointed out that the stab wound, 2.5 inches wide by 4.5 inches deep, severing the bronchial artery, was “quite a stab”.

“I submit to you that they have this fight,” he said. “She pulled his shirt over his head and drove a knife four and half inches into his chest… Into a highly volatile atmosphere, she brings a knife, not once but twice, and as a result, her husband dies.”

Based on the size and nature of the wound, LaRochelle contended the couple was standing face to face when Mark Dugas was stabbed. “Left to right, front to back,” he said. “The angle fits perfectly.”

LaRochelle pointed out that Dugas claimed she didn’t hear anything when the neighbor across the street testified she heard Mark yell, and saw him exit his house shirtless.

“Did you hear him scream at all?” asked LaRochelle.

“No sir,” said Amy.

“Remember Mary Stimpson’s testimony?” said LaRochelle.

Stimpson, a neighbor who lives across the street from the Dugas residence, said she heard a cry for help. “It scared me,” said Stimpson. “It alerted me that something was not right.”

Stimpson went to her window where she saw Mark Dugas clutching his chest as he made his way to a neighbor’s house.

LaRochelle made much of the fact that Mark Dugas went to the neighbors for help instead of asking his wife.

Both attorneys highlighted Mark Dugas’ wedding ring that was found on the floor. According to LaRochelle, Mark Dugas must have thrown the ring there, indicating he was done with the marriage, whereupon an enraged Amy Dugas stabbed him.

LaRochelle pointed out that Amy Dugas’ testimony contradicted that of her son, who testified that he observed Mark getting up crying, and saying it hurt. LaRochelle challenged Dugas’ contention that she didn’t notice blood on the floor because she never looked down, asking the jury if her comments made sense.

Dugas told LaRochelle that she did not notice excessive amounts of blood on the floors and walls. “I was just looking straight ahead,” said Amy.

“What about when you were walking around,” asked LaRochelle, “were you looking straight ahead then?”

In his closing remarks, defense attorney O’Brien contended the state didn’t make its case. O’Brien said the defense disagrees with Christopher’s interpretation of events. Where Christopher claimed he saw his mother with a knife, O’Brien said it was a telescope magnet tool she was using, a tool related to the ongoing camper repairs.

“If it is her intention to kill him, why does she go into the other room?” O’Brien said.

O’Brien pointed out that a 12 inch hair secured from Mark Dugas’ wristwatch proved to be Amy’s, which, he claimed, affirmed her statement that Mark grabbed her by the hair. He added the cuts to the back of Amy’s legs made perfect sense if she were on her back kicking at an attacker.

O’Brien pointed out that much of Mark Dugas’ bleeding would have been internal initially. He said the Benners, who lived next door to the Dugas residence, did not notice blood on Mark until he collapsed.

O’Brien additionally charged that the blood in the kitchen could have been Amy’s but no one would know because the state did not test the pool of blood on the floor and the swatches by the door.

“They have not proven murder or manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt,” said O’Brien. “They have not disproven self defense.”

Following the verdict, O’Brien told reporters, Amy “took her life in her hands before the jury, and they believed her.”

Amy has two children, aged 8 and 11 who have been staying with relatives while she has been held in jail for the last 10 months pending the trial.

“Amy is happy,” O’Brien told reporters after the jury rendered a not guilty verdict. “She’ll be able to go home to her kids.”

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