PORTLAND – Renee Sandora called 911 on Monday to report that her boyfriend had shot her and a friend. She spoke for 35 seconds before the call went dead.

“My boyfriend just shot me. He shot his friend, too. I’ve got four kids,” Sandora said, according to a police affidavit. Sandora said the gunman was inside the house and she was outside, but she was unable to leave because he had her car keys. The children were in her car.

On the recording, according to the affidavit, Sandora can be heard talking to someone else.

“What — are you going to kill me in front of my kids?” she asked.

Maine State Police charged Joel Hayden, 29, of New Bedford, Mass., with two counts of murder Wednesday after his release from Maine Medical Center in Portland. Hayden is scheduled to appear in Cumberland County Superior Court today.

Sandora, 27, and the friend, 28-year-old Trevor Mills of New Bedford, died at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston on Tuesday, a day after the shootings at Sandora’s home in New Gloucester.

The 7-year-old son of Sandora and Hayden witnessed the shootings. The child told a detective that his parents had been arguing about visiting “Auntie” and that Hayden was holding car keys away from Sandora, according to the affidavit. The boy told police that Hayden pushed Mills through a door, breaking the glass, before firing on Mills and Sandora.

Neighbors saw the child running in the yard, yelling “don’t shoot” and “don’t leave” as a car sped away, according to the affidavit. Hayden was placed in police custody Monday night after he crashed his car in Lyman during a chase. He had been in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon.

Hayden and Sandora had four children together — the 7-year-old boy is the eldest and the youngest are 3-month-old twins. The age of the fourth child was not known.

Sandora’s parents told police that the couple and their children lived at the mobile home on Bennett Road where the shootings occurred. Sandora’s parents said Sandora and Hayden had been arguing incessantly since June and that Sandora would kick out Hayden, who would return later. They said Hayden was accusing her of having a relationship with Mills, whom police described as Hayden’s longtime friend.

In 2008, Sandora twice sought protection-from-abuse orders in Portland District Court against Hayden. Both complaints were dismissed — the first because Sandora did not appear at the hearing, and the second at her request. Police said there were no active orders at the time of the shootings.

In her complaint for the first order in May 2008, Sandora wrote that Hayden had attacked her and pushed her down. The complaint was dismissed and the temporary order was terminated after she failed to appear for the hearing.

In October 2008, Sandora wrote in a second complaint that Hayden had been verbally harassing her, threatening her and had stolen her car. On a separate page, she wrote: “Threatened to tie me up and burn my house down with me in it. Kill anyone in my home and drowned me in their blood. Cut out my unborn child (8 wks pregnant).”

A judge granted the order, which among other stipulations prohibited Hayden from contacting Sandora. Hayden was allowed to have supervised visits with his son through a program approved by Sandora.

In February 2009, Sandora asked for termination of the order. She wrote that their son had been asking for his father, who was serving an 11-month sentence at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham. She was the only one who could bring him to the center, she wrote. Hayden had been arrested by Auburn police and convicted on a felony charge of eluding an officer.

The case file contains letters that Hayden sent to Sandora while he was incarcerated. In one letter, he wrote about missing their son and regretting that he had never taken him trick-or-treating at Halloween. Hayden told her he realized that taking pills affected his reality — leading to “thinking nuts,” talking crazy and acting “paranoid skitso.”

He expressed hope that they could be friends even if they didn’t remain a couple, and praised her for having a good heart and being a loving mother. He apologized for disappointing her and breaking promises.

“I’m sorry for it all, all the verbal mental and physical,” Hayden wrote, “and i look at you as a real good person cause you are i just got problems with my self i guess cause you do nothing wrong.”

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

akim@pressherald.com

 

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