Waldo County man sentenced to 35 years for strangling girlfriend

By Abigail Curtis - BangorDailyNews.com

January 30, 2012

BELFAST, Maine — As the state’s prosecutor launched into a description of the strangulation death of 42-year-old Pamela Green at the sentencing hearing for her killer Monday morning, a woman ran out of the Waldo County Superior Court room and burst into sobs.

That muted, anguished sound underscored the grisly details given by Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea. Dennis Edgecomb, 41, who pleaded guilty to murder at the beginning of the hearing to the killing of his girlfriend at her Morrill home a year and a half ago, sat quietly next to his defense attorney and listened to the prosecutor’s rendition of the events of that day and as Green’s family members described the pain caused by her murder.

“On July 20, 2010, my whole world changed,” her daughter, 25-year-old Hannah Green, told Justice Robert Murray. “That day I lost my mother, but I also lost my best friend … . We have to carry with us every day for the rest of our lives that we never got to say goodbye.”

Murray ultimately sentenced Edgecomb, formerly of Belfast, to 35 years in the custody of the Maine Department of Corrections. He also must pay $1,225 to the Maine Victims Compensation Program and $500 to Green’s family so that they may purchase a burial marker for her grave.

Zainea said that if the murder case had gone to trial, the state would have called as a witness the 911 dispatcher who received a call from Edgecomb at 12:01 p.m. that day. Edgecomb said that he had strangled a woman and had attempted to do CPR on her, Zainea said.

“But she was not breathing and had not been breathing for quite some time,” the prosecutor said.

Emergency responders found Green lying between a coffee table and the couch, her body marked by bruises and injuries around her neck. She had no signs of a pulse, Zainea said.

According to family members, Green and Edgecomb had been in a relationship for about a year before her death.

That day, Edgecomb called his boss at Belfast Variety and told her he couldn’t come to work because he couldn’t get a ride, Zainea recounted.

“Then he [told his boss] he had killed a woman,” she said. “That they had had a fight. He asked Pam if she wanted to die. She said she did.”

Edgecomb told his boss he did not want to go to jail. He also spoke with a co-worker that day and said that Green had “flipped out” on him earlier that day, and that he choked her, Zainea said.

He later told police that they began fighting when Green found out that he wanted to move from her home. A text message sent to Hannah Green at 11:01 a.m. by her mother read, “He’s threatening to kill me right now, call and you can hear it.”

When Waldo County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Matt Curtis arrived at the home, he sat in the kitchen with Edgecomb, who began making unsolicited remarks. Edgecomb told Curtis that he “just couldn’t stop,” Zainea said.

“As he said that, he made squeezing motions with his hand,” she told the court.

Edgecomb told police that the two had been arguing earlier that day. He said that Green had begun to “flail out” at him, but she never hit him, Zainea said.

He wrestled her over to the couch and began squeezing her around the neck, according to the prosecutor. A police affidavit stated that Green’s face was covered with a cushion and that he stopped choking her when she stopped moving.

“He indicated that he lost it,” Zainea said. “She had never been able to place her hands on him.”

Zainea said that one of the aggravating factors of the murder, in regards to handing down a sentence, is that Green was strangled.

“Strangulation involves a very high level of intentional contact,” she said. “It was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. For a period of time, Pam Green was alive, and struggling for her life. That suggests a very high level of intent … Pam Green did not die instantly. One can only imagine the horror that she experienced.”

Although Edgecomb has a history of substance abuse, he was not high on drugs or alcohol that day, Zainea said.

“He had his wits about him and could have stopped at any time,” she said.

He also had a criminal record, though most of his prior convictions were misdemeanor crimes, she said.

Mitigating factors to consider before handing down the sentence included the fact that Edgecomb has a history of being employed, that he has family support and most importantly that he accepted responsibility for the murder, Zainea said.

Edgecomb declined to give a statement to the court and in an almost inaudible voice told the justice that he pleaded guilty to the charge of murder. His defense attorney, Jeremy Pratt, and Zainea together recommended that he be sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Green’s sister-in-law April Small told the judge that she had a question for Edgecomb.

“He wasn’t married to Pam. He didn’t own the house. Why didn’t he walk away?” she asked. “He took away a mother, a sister, an aunt, a niece, a sister-in-law. No matter how many years Dennis has in prison, at least he still has his life, miserable and restricted though that may be … No one deserves to lose someone in that fashion."

Man accused of murder called 911, court documents say

By Abigail Curtis - BangorDailyNews.com

July 21, 2010

BELFAST, Maine — Dennis Edgecomb told a 911 dispatcher at noon Tuesday that he had just strangled a woman in the Morrill home they shared and that he did not think she was going to live, according to police.

Edgecomb, 39, has been charged with murdering Pamela Green, 42.

“He said he did not want to kill her,” Detective Scott Bryant of the Maine State Police wrote in a probable cause affidavit filed Wednesday afternoon at Waldo County Superior Court. “He said she drove him to [expletive] do it. … He then asked the dispatcher to hold on because he was going to be sick.”

But the police affidavit also said Green had sent a text message to her daughter, Hannah Green, at 11:01 a.m. “He’s threatening to kill me right now, call and you can hear it,” the message read.

Edgecomb, a short, slight man, made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon. Wearing the gray-blue uniform of the Waldo County Jail and bright red handcuffs, he stood beside his court-appointed attorney as Justice Jeffrey Hjelm briefly notified Edgecomb of the murder charge he is facing.

Hjelm agreed to have Edgecomb held without bail until his status conference on Aug. 24 or until his defense attorney, Jeremy Pratt, requests a special Harnish hearing to seek bail.

The courtroom seemed crowded with friends and relatives of Green, 42, most of whom did not want to give a statement to the press.

“She was awesome,” Alex Gilgan of Brewer, a friend of Green’s daughter Hannah, said of Pamela Green outside the courtroom. “She was a lot of fun.”

According to Gilgan and others interviewed in Morrill, Edgecomb and Green had been romantically involved recently.

Edgecomb, who has worked for the past four or five years as a cook at Belfast Variety, told investigating police that the day’s violent events began when he spoke with his mother that morning.

He explained to Bryant and Detective Dean Jackson that he and his mother were planning to look for a new place for him to live on Wednesday because “Pamela was just not right in the head,” according to the affidavit.

“He told us when he got done talking to his mother, Pamela had a fit because she found out he wanted to move,” Bryant wrote in the affidavit.

The two began fighting, according to Edgecomb, who told officers that Green “came out swinging but had nothing in her hands.”

“He said he pushed her on the couch,” Bryant wrote. “He told us when he threw her on the couch she said, ‘That’s going to leave a mark.’ He then held her down and choked her.”

Edgecomb then described to the detectives how he used his hands to choke her around the neck, and said her face was under a cushion and he couldn’t see it.

“He only stopped choking her when she stopped moving,” Bryant wrote in the affidavit.

Autopsy results from Dr. Margaret Greenwald of the state Medical Examiner’s Office, which were included in the court document, indicate that Green had visible bruising around the neck and other injuries “consistent with manual strangulation.”

According to the affidavit, after Edgecomb stopped choking Green he made the 911 call and also phoned his mother, Nancy Edgecomb, and his employer Sharon Benjamin, letting them know what had happened.

“He said he defended himself, freaked out and choked her. He said he thinks she is dead. She is lying there blue and not breathing,” Bryant wrote in the affidavit after listening to the tape of the 911 call Edgecomb made. “She had not been breathing for 10 minutes prior to the call. He said he defended himself and does not want to go to jail. … He tried CPR and it did not work.”

A couple of minutes later, the Waldo County Communications Center received an emergency call from an employee at Belfast Variety who told police Dennis Edgecomb had called saying he just killed someone, Bryant wrote.

Waldo County Sheriff’s Office Deputy James Porter arrived at the North Main Street home and was met at the door by Edgecomb, who was on the phone.

“Dep. Porter stated he made his way into the living area of the home and he observed a female lying on the floor with her shirt pulled up,” Bryant wrote.

Porter immediately began to perform CPR on Green, and overheard Edgecomb telling someone on the phone that they had been arguing and “Pamela came at him,” according to the affidavit.

Edgecomb then said to Porter, “I lost it,” Bryant wrote.

After that, a Belfast Ambulance crew arrived at the house and pronounced Green dead.

According to a criminal history record provided by the Maine State Bureau of Identification, Edgecomb had been convicted of misdemeanor theft in 1988 and of operating under the influence in 2001.

News of the grisly death shook the small community of Morrill.

“I get goosebumps just thinking about it,” said Dana Bagley, who lived next door to Green. “I should’ve been able to hear something. I should’ve been able to do something.”

He met Edgecomb just once, when the man he described as “mild-mannered and friendly” asked to have some scrap metal that had been stored behind Bagley’s garage. Edgecomb had been coming around to Green’s house — either visiting or staying there — for the last six months, Bagley said.

“It’s a tragedy,” he said. “It really hurts. Because it’s so close, it’s personal now.”

Employees at the Morrill General Store remembered Green as a woman who had suffered many difficult health problems but who was “wicked” friendly, funny and loved to have fun.

According to the employees, she had two other children, Felicia and Tim, in addition to Hannah.

“It’s awful,” Di Bartlett said of Green’s death.

She had lived in the small white house on North Main Street for about 10 years, employees said, and often walked to the nearby store.

According to Bartlett, just a half hour before the police sirens came speeding past the store, Green drove past at top speed, heading to her house alone.

“She was driving like 90,” Bartlett said. “She about flipped her vehicle, going around the turn.”

The employees said they knew Edgecomb, but not very well.

“They were dating. They were having problems,” Bartlett said.

Ron Benjamin owns Belfast Variety and knew Edgecomb, who worked in the kitchen.

“Workwise, he’s great,” Benjamin said Wednesday morning at his busy store, saying he was surprised to hear about Green’s death. “I think there’s more to the story than we all know.”

Edgecomb had been scheduled to work last Friday, but called in sick because “somebody beat him up,” Benjamin said.

They were expecting him to work Tuesday afternoon, but then Sharon Benjamin received that phone call from Edgecomb telling her what had happened at Pamela Green’s house.