A former Maine man faces life in prison after a Massachusetts jury convicted him Tuesday in the 1994 slaying of a Worcester man who walked out of a bar, got into a car with several men and was never seen again.

A Worcester Superior Court jury found John Fredette, 51, guilty of first-degree murder in the slaying of Kevin Harkins, according to a news release from Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.

The conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Judge Janet Kenton-Walker is scheduled to impose the sentence at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Fredette, who was living in Saco when he was arrested in 2012, is the second man to be convicted for the murder of Kevin Harkins, according to the news release.

Matteo Trotto was found guilty of first-degree murder last month. A third defendant, Elias Samia of Worcester, has also been charged with Harkins’ murder and is set for an Oct. 16 trial in Worcester.

“Now, for the second time, Kevin Harkins has some justice, and his family has some justice,” Early said in the release.

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Harkins, 36, disappeared after being called from Suney’s Pub on Chandler Street in Worcester around 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 15, 1994, according to investigators.

Prosecutors said Harkins was murdered because he reneged on a deal to give false testimony in Fredette’s drug trial earlier that day in exchange for a bag of cocaine. Fredette was convicted in the drug trial and sentenced to four to six years in prison in 1994.

Harkins’ body was never found. He left some personal items on the bar, but he never returned and was declared dead in 2008 by the Worcester Family and Probate Court, according to the news release.

Exactly 18 years after Harkins disappeared, Fredette was arrested in the parking lot of the Maine Mall in South Portland. The U.S. Marshals Service’s Maine Violent Offender Task Force took him into custody with help from local police.

The jury convicted Fredette after hearing more than three days of testimony and deliberating Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.


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