Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

Daughter: Dapolito had blood on his clothes

Kelly Winslow's stepdaughter also recounts seeing blood on the stairs to the basement.

By Ann S. Kim akim@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

ALFRED — On the morning Kelly Winslow was killed, her 13-year-old stepdaughter followed her usual routine of getting ready on her own and taking the bus to school without seeing either of the adults in the house.

Patrick Dapolito

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When the girl returned to their home in Limington, her father, Patrick Dapolito, was at the dining room table. Blood was on his shirt and he looked like he was going to cry. Winslow was not around, which was unusual because she was usually within feet of her husband.

"I asked him where Kelly was. He said it was a long story," the girl, now 14, told a jury in York County Superior Court on Thursday.

Dapolito, 41, is on trial on a charge of murdering Winslow on March 16, 2010. If he's convicted, he will face 25 years to life in prison.

He surrendered to police three days after the shooting, saying it was an accident.

He told authorities that he was high on cocaine when he and Winslow went to sleep on the floor of the bathroom. She was naked and had a handcuff on her right wrist. He was spooning her and had a gun in his right hand, under his head. Dapolito said he woke up when the gun fired.

Dapolito later said that Winslow, 30, was the victim of a drug dispute between him and his suppliers. Dapolito went to a store for coffee and cigarettes and found Winslow dead when he came home, his attorney says.

After the girl's initial encounter with her father that afternoon, Dapolito said he was going to a lake with a book, the girl said. She didn't see him again for two days.

On Thursday, she recalled how frightened she was during that time.

She described blood on the stairs to the basement. Dapolito had put Winslow's body in the freezer there before taking it to his father's property in Upton, in western Maine.

"I thought that Kelly was dead," she said. "Because you put the pieces together and our family's been threatened before."

Testifying was clearly emotionally trying for the girl. Justice John O'Neil called a recess when she began crying as she talked about Winslow and her father being inseparable. Afterward, the judge assured her that the lawyers would be kind and that she could call for a break at any time by raising her hand.

When her voice grew shaky as she later described seeing her father after school, defense attorney David Van Dyke suggested another break. Her mother and sister enveloped her in embraces before she resumed her testimony.

The girl said she thought she heard people downstairs that night. She sent a Facebook message to her older sister, Angel, in Orono, asking her to come get her.

Their messages referred to whether the situation was worse than what they had experienced in the summer of 2009.

Angel Dapolito, 20, testified previously that during that time, Winslow and her father were frightened and traveled frequently, and that strange noises were heard around the house.

Winslow's daughter, meanwhile, had testified that summer was when Dapolito began abusing her mother.

Angel Dapolito had said that the reference to the summer of 2009 was about the adults leaving the younger girls alone. Winslow's daughter, who was close in age to the younger Dapolito sister, had left the Limington home to live with her father a couple of months before her mother's death.

The older sister did not fetch her sister that night but texted her father, who texted back that the younger sister was at her uncle's. The younger sister stayed in her room. She chatted with friends over the Internet until she fell asleep.

During his cross-examination, Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber gently questioned the girl about inconsistencies between her testimony Thursday and statements she made in those online chats or before the grand jury.

Her told her she said in chat messages, "I could put up with him abusing her, but not this" and that her father was high, drunk and abusive.

"It was two years ago. I don't remember," she replied at one point.

In later questioning by Van Dyke, the girl said her stepsister had told her Dapolito was abusing Winslow but that she didn't believe it.

The Dapolito sisters have testified that their stepsister began making the allegations around the time she was angry that Dapolito was being strict with her about boys.

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:

akim@pressherald.com