Neighbor: Maine woman admitted attacking husband

BANGOR — A woman on trial for using pliers, a box cutter and a plastic baseball bat to kill her husband acknowledged to a neighbor that she smashed his motorcycle with an ax and attacked him with the bat because she was angry that he’d been calling another woman.

The neighbor, Kasey Ramisch, testified Tuesday that there was so much noise coming from defendant Roxanne Jeskey’s home on the night of the killing, June 12, 2011, that she called to see if everything was OK.

That led to a series of short conversations including one in which Jeskey first said “everything is fine” and then admitted using a bat to knock bloody Richard Jeskey’s nose and knock out a tooth, WZON-AM reported.

Ramisch said she was told, “I promise you he’s OK. He’s taking a bath.”

Roxanne Jeskey, who’s using an insanity defense, is accused of killing her husband in a jealous rage. His body, which was naked, was found in a bathtub the following day. The medical examiner said he was beaten and strangled.

Also Tuesday, prosecutors played a voicemail left by Richard Jeskey on the other woman’s phone on the night he died. On the recording, his voice was unintelligible and his breathing was labored.

The woman, Melanie Ryan, testified that Jeskey told him that his wife would kill him if she found out that they’d been talking. The defense objected to the remark.

The trial is expected to continue through the week. Testimony at the Penobscot Judicial Center was being heard by a judge, not a jury, at the defendant’s request.