PORTLAND (AP) — A boy who was 7 when he saw his mother being gunned down told jurors Monday at the opening of a double murder trial that he watched his father pull the trigger.
The third-grader testified that his father, Joel Hayden, 32, of New Bedford, Mass., was inside his mother’s home in New Gloucester, Maine, when he saw one of the victims, Trevor Mills, fall through a glass door. He said Hayden then shot his mother, while the boy watched.
“He went outside and he shot my mom,” said the boy, who is now 8.
Prosecutors say Hayden killed his estranged girlfriend, 27-year-old Renee Sandora, 27, of New Gloucester, and his longtime friend Mills on July 25, 2011, because he thought they were having an affair.
Hayden’s attorney told jurors that prosecutors will be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his client killed the pair because the gun was never found and DNA from a bullet and shell casing point to someone other than Hayden, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Hayden, driving Mills’ car, was arrested after leading police on a chase that ended in Lyman. Sandora and Mills died hours apart at a Lewiston hospital.
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