PORTLAND – On Sept. 7, 2008, shortly before James Angelo was shot while working as a security guard at Mercy Hospital, a surveillance camera at a nearby business captured grainy images of two shadowy figures in the vicinity of the shooting, Assistant Police Chief Michael Sauschuck said Wednesday.

Sauschuck said he believes those two people were somehow involved in the shooting, and he hopes the lure of a $30,000 cash reward will prompt one of them to contact police.

Additional Photos

Eileen Skinner, president and CEO of Mercy Hospital, participates in a news conference Wednesday at the Portland Police Department with Assistant Chief Michael Sauschuck. They hope to generate new leads in the 2008 shooting of hospital security guard James Angelo. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

James Angelo File photo

The reward was first offered soon after the slaying. Police and Mercy Hospital officials held a press conference Wednesday to remind the public that the offer still stands, although it will expire Dec. 31.

Sauschuck said detectives working on the case have hit a lull, but they expect publicity about the reward will generate fresh leads.

“We really want to get the word back out there again,” Sauschuck said. “We firmly believe that somebody in the community is aware of who did this.”

Mercy Hospital posted a $20,000 reward in 2008, and Maine Medical Center later added $10,000, for information leading to the arrest of whoever shot Angelo, who was 27 when he was killed.

Angelo was a popular employee known for his cheerful smile, said Eileen Skinner, Mercy Hospital’s president. She said Portland’s hospital community is seeking justice.

She recalled getting the early morning phone call about the shooting, and how the emergency room staff worked to save Angelo’s life as he lay in a hospital parking lot, comforting him as he was taken to Maine Medical Center’s trauma unit.

She described meeting with grieving members of the hospital staff and Angelo’s family. As she spoke, Skinner began to weep.

“I can’t believe I am still crying,” she said.

Angelo fled war-torn Sudan and came to Portland in 1995. His four sisters and two of his brothers live in Portland, along with their mother, and a third brother is in the Army. Their father died two years ago.

Lilly Angelo, 28, James Angelo’s younger sister, said she won’t feel safe until the killer is found. She said her family is pleased that Portland police are still working on the case, but they had expected an arrest by now.

“I feel like it’s not going as we planned,” she said. “It’s very frustrating, knowing that the person is out there somewhere.”

Angelo worked nights as an unarmed security guard at the hospital. At 4 a.m. on Sept. 7, 2008, while beginning an outdoor patrol, he was shot in the back of the neck in a hospital parking lot along Winter Street.

Soon after the shooting, a hospital employee saw a short black man wearing a light-colored, sweatshirt-style jacket covered in a pattern, Sauschuck said. The man ran south on Winter Street and turned right on Spring Street.

Sauschuck said Angelo was a random victim who was hit by a stray bullet as multiple gunshots were fired during a drug-related confrontation near the hospital. He said Angelo was not involved with drugs.

The random nature of the shooting has made the crime difficult to solve, Sauschuck said.

Anyone with information about the shooting can call the police department’s Criminal Investigations Division at 874-8524.

To provide information anonymously, people may contact police by text. To “Text a Tip,” mobile phone users should text the keyword “GOTCHA” plus their message to 274637 (CRIMES). 

Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 699-6261 or at:

tbell@mainetoday.com

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