BIDDEFORD — The Biddeford teenager who was charged last week with arson and two counts of murder in a Main Street apartment building fire in September is also now facing a concealed weapon charge.
Authorities initially sought to keep the new charge against Dylan Collins a secret, with a judge in Biddeford District Court ordering the new case impounded, including the docket number, the charge, the fact that Collins had already appeared in court by video link from jail to face the charge, and even the judge’s name. The court had no public records of the new case on Wednesday morning when the Portland Press Herald asked about it, although Collins had been arraigned Monday on the concealed weapon charge.
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By Wednesday afternoon, Judge Christine Foster relaxed her impoundment order to allow two documents to be made public: a one-page complaint against Collins and a one-page motion by the York County District Attorney’s Office to have the case sealed on grounds that “release may compromise ongoing investigation.”
“The impoundment order has been modified to include just the affidavit and the warrant. Everything else has been unsealed,” District Attorney Kathryn Slattery said in an email Wednesday afternoon.
Slattery did not respond to a phone message or a subsequent email seeking further information. She was not at Biddeford District Court or York County Superior Court in Alfred to answer questions in person.
Police have offered few details since Collins’ initial arrest Friday on the arson and murder charges in the Sept. 18 fire at 35 Main St. that killed James Ford, 21, and Michael Moore, 23, and displaced two dozen people who lived there. Moore died the day after the fire. Ford died a month later from infections brought on by the toxic chemicals in the smoke he inhaled.
The case remained under investigation for nearly two months without a named suspect before a call Nov. 5 led police to arrest Collins. Biddeford police received a 911 call at 8:53 a.m. that day from a woman identified in the department’s call log records as Donna Pitcher, asking to speak with a detective.
Pitcher “would not tell dispatch if she had an emergency or not,” according to the call log. She called police again at 8:57 a.m. on a non-emergency line and again requested to speak to a detective.
The call log does not specify whether officers took any action as a result of the call. Police declined to comment or release any more details other than to say those calls ultimately led them to arrest Collins.
Collins, 18, of Biddeford, was taken into custody in Saco, where he was working a landscaping job, the day Pitcher called police. He was not immediately arrested, but taken to Southern Maine Medical Center for two days before he was formally charged with murder and arson.
A woman who answered the door at Pitcher’s listed address Wednesday immediately shut the door and denied that she was Pitcher, though she resembled photos of Pitcher on her Twitter and LinkedIn social media accounts.
The Biddeford police call log states that Pitcher’s call was related to a “mental illness” case.
In the concealed weapon case, Collins is charged with a misdemeanor count listed on state statutes pertaining to carrying concealed firearms. The complaint unsealed Wednesday afternoon does not say whether Collins had a concealed firearm when he was taken into custody. The complaint only cites the language from the statute in alleging that Collins “did wear under his clothes or conceal about his person, a firearm, slungshot, knuckles, bowie knife, dirk, stiletto, or other dangerous or deadly weapon usually employed in the attack or defense of a person.”
Collins’ attorney, Amy Fairfield, did not return a phone message seeking clarification about the new charge against her client.
Since Collins’ arrest Friday in the arson and murder case, he has been held without bail at the York County Jail in Alfred. The judge in the concealed weapon case set bail at $5,000 cash, according to the jail.
In another twist since Collins’ arrest, his attorneys in the arson and murder case are fighting to have him held without bail while the case is pending, and the prosecution has filed a motion seeking a hearing before a judge to determine whether Collins should be allowed bail. Typically, prosecutors seek to have defendants held without bail in murder cases, while the defense argues for their client’s release.
“The defendant, Dylan Collins, has agreed to have his right to bail extinguished,” Will Ashe wrote in the motion opposing the bail hearing. Ashe works for Fairfield’s law firm, Fairfield and Associates, and they have been appointed by the court to jointly represent Collins.
The judge in the arson and murder case has not ruled on whether a hearing will be held to determine whether Collins should be allowed bail.
Scott Dolan can be contacted at 791-6304 or at:
Twitter: @scottddolan
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