AUGUSTA – Peter George Bathgate II used a walking cane to stab 47-year-old Paul Allen to death in a fit of jealous rage, court documents say.
Bathgate, 30, of Augusta, who was arrested Tuesday after a long standoff at an apartment building in Augusta, made his first court appearance Wednesday morning in Kennebec County Superior Court. The judge ordered him held without bail on a single count of murder.
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Justice Michaela Murphy told Bathgate that a conviction on the charge carries a minimum 25-year prison sentence and a maximum sentence of life without opportunity for release.
The charge is to be presented to a grand jury, she said.
An affidavit filed by Maine State Police Detective Adam Kelley says Allen had aroused a murderous rage in Bathgate by flirting with Jessica Jones, 23, of Augusta, who has a 3-year-old daughter with Bathgate.
Jones told investigators that Allen visited her briefly late on Dec. 2. When Bathgate came home later, he called Allen and arranged to meet him near Town Farm Road and Winthrop Street in Hallowell, early on Dec. 3.
According to the affidavit, Jones told police that she drove Bathgate there, and that Bathgate carried a walking cane. Jones then drove a short distance away and parked.
She saw Allen’s truck pass her vehicle twice, the affidavit says. Then she got a phone call from Bathgate and returned to pick him up on Town Farm Road.
Bathgate did not have the cane when Jones picked him up, according to the affidavit. Investigators later found pieces of a broken walking cane near Allen’s body off Winthrop Street, perhaps a mile away.
An autopsy by Dr. Margaret Greenwald, the state’s chief medical examiner, showed that Allen died of “sharp force trauma and blunt force injuries,” including four stab wounds and multiple rib fractures.
On Monday, according to the affidavit, Bathgate called Augusta police Detective Vincente Morris and described Allen’s injuries as “two or three stab wounds to the back” and indicated that Allen “was hit with his own truck.”
Bathgate then told police that he was jealous of the way Allen flirted with Jones — and indicated he knew he was “going to jail for the rest of his life.”
Allen’s body was discovered Sunday, a day after his truck was found on Town Farm Road.
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