FARMINGTON – The Massachusetts man accused of fatally stabbing an 81-year-old woman pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in court Friday.

Juan A. Contreras, 27, of 92 Chester Lane, Waltham, Mass., will be held in a Maine jail without bail until a court date on June 5 to update the status of the trial.
 

 

FARMINGTON — A Massachusetts man who is accused of fatally stabbing an 81-year-old woman last summer is expected to plead not guilty today, his attorney said.

Juan Contreras, 27, of Waltham faces a murder charge in the death of Grace Burton. According to a police affidavit, Burton was stabbed 35 times and died from the wounds she suffered in her apartment in Farmington on June 21.

Contreras will be arraigned at 10 a.m. today in Franklin County Superior Court. David Sanders, Contreras’ court-appointed attorney, said Thursday that defense attorneys normally advise clients to plead not guilty unless a plea agreement is reached with the prosecution, which has not happened in this case.

Contreras has been held without bail since his arrest Nov. 17 in Waltham. Last week, a grand jury indicted him on one count of murder. Franklin County Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy has said that a trial is unlikely before November.

A police officer’s hunch, DNA evidence and Burton’s detailed description of her attacker before she died led to the arrest of Contreras, according to a police affidavit.

Contreras crashed his bicycle on a road in Farmington a month after Burton’s death, the affidavit says. Sgt. Michael Adcock, the officer on the scene, learned that Contreras was living in a trailer park near the Margaret Chase Smith Apartments, where Burton was killed.

Adcock got suspicious when Contreras disappeared from town several weeks after the killing, and passed on the hunch to Maine State Police, the affidavit says.

Police believe Burton’s killer cut a screen and entered through an unlocked window of her first-floor apartment. The attacker left a trail of blood outside the apartment and near the window. Contreras’ wife told police that Contreras had cuts on his hand on the night of Burton’s death. Contreras told her that he had cut his hand whittling wood, the affidavit says.

Amanda Contreras also told police that her husband ran to a back bedroom to avoid investigators who were gathering DNA samples in her neighborhood in the weeks after the slaying.

Morning Sentinel Staff Writer David Robinson can be contacted at 861-9287 or at:

drobinson@centralmaine.com