BANGOR, Maine — A former co-worker of the man accused of luring a 15-year-old girl to her death using a fake Facebook page testified Tuesday that Kyle Dube’s face was scratched by a client the night before Nichole Cable died.
Clifford Redman of Monticello also told the jury that Dube showed up for work the day after the Glenburn girl was killed with fresh scratches on his face in different places.
Redman told jurors that he and Dube worked for the Getchell Agency in May 2013. The weekend of May 11-12 they were at a house caring for a woman with a mental illness who became violent on Saturday, Redman testified.
“She attacked us and clawed Kyle’s face near his eye that day,” Redman said. “We filled out an incident report. When I saw him on Monday [May 13, 2013] he had a couple by his nose he hadn’t had before.”
The prosecution showed the jury a photo of Dube with scratches above and next to his left eye. In the picture, Dube also had scratches left of his nose and on his upper lip.
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber said in his opening statement Monday that Dube’s DNA was found under Cable’s fingernails.
Redman and two other men who worked with Dube testified on the second day of his trial at the Penobscot Judicial Center. A Bangor police detective trained in computer forensics also took the stand.
Dube is accused of luring Cable out of her mother’s home in Glenburn on Mother’s Day nearly two years ago by using someone else’s identity on Facebook, then killing her in an abduction gone wrong. Dube allegedly planned to kidnap the girl, hide her, then find her and play the hero.
He has pleaded not guilty to one count each of kidnapping and murder in the May 12, 2013, death of the Old Town High School student. Dube created a phony Facebook page using the identity of Bryan Butterfield, his then-girlfriend’s former boyfriend, to convince Cable to leave her Glenburn home and meet him, according to the prosecution.
Jack Merritt of Old Town told the jury Tuesday that he arrived at work at 8:45 p.m. May 12, 2013, and Dube left 10 or 15 minutes later and returned about 6 a.m. the next day. Merritt said Dube told him to tell anyone who asked that he had been at the house all night.
Merritt said that workers were expected to spend the night at the client’s home and not leave. At least half of the nights Dube was supposed to spend the night, he did not, said Merritt.
Izuchukwu Onyejekwe of Bangor disagreed with Merritt’s account. A student at Husson University then and now, he testified that Dube did not show up to replace him on the morning of May 13 as scheduled. Onyejekwe said that he remembered the date because on May 11, he had been off for graduation and his brother was visiting, but he did go to work at 10 p.m. May 12.
“I had to wake Clifford [Redman] up because Kyle was not there and I had to leave to have breakfast with my brother and get him to the airport,” Onyejekwe said.
Onyejekwe also was asked to examine a 17-page document to determine which pages looked like they had been written by Dube and which did not. The man said he was familiar with Dube’s handwriting because of daily reports and occasional incident reports Dube had written while working for the agency.
The document was not identified and it was not submitted Tuesday as evidence. Last week, Superior Court Justice Ann Murray ruled that a 17-page document reportedly written by Dube and given to a fellow inmate when the defendant was housed at the Maine State Prison could be admitted. The inmate, Scott Ford, has refused to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
On Tuesday, Onyejekwe went through it page by page. Once he said that all but five or six pages appeared to be written by Dube. The second time he said all but three were penned by the defendant.
Brent Beaulieu of the Bangor Police Department testified Tuesday morning about how he traced the fake Facebook page created to lure 15-year-old Nichole Cable from her home and an AOL email address to Dube’s cellphone and a computer with an IP address registered to his father, Gregory Dube.
Facebook chats between Butterfield and Cable on the afternoon of May 12, 2013, the day the victim disappeared, were shown to the jury. They included plans for the two to meet to smoke marijuana and directions to Cable’s mother’s house in Glenburn.
The chats ended at 9:18 p.m., Beaulieu told the jury. There was no communication on Facebook or email after that. The Facebook account for Bryan Butterfield was deactivated on May 13, 2013.
Under cross-examination, Beaulieu said that anyone who knew the passwords for Bryan Butterfield’s email and Facebook page could have accessed it. The detective testified that both accounts were accessed by a cellphone owned by Dube. Beaulieu also said that someone other than Dube could have used the phone.
Cable’s body was found late May 20, 2013, in a wooded area of Old Town. The teenager died of “asphyxia due to compression of the neck,” according to Dr. Margaret Greenwald of the state medical examiner’s office. Greenwald is to testify later this week.
The defendant was questioned at least twice by investigators but never confessed to killing Cable, according to court documents. He allegedly told his then 16-year-old girlfriend and his brother that he had slain Cable and dumped her body in Old Town.
If Dube is convicted of murder, he faces between 25 years and life in prison. He is being held without bail.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and would like to talk with an advocate, call 866-834-4357, TRS800-787-3224. This free, confidential service is available 24/7 and is accessible from anywhere in Maine.