SACO — A 59-year-old Saco woman died after being stabbed inside a Saco supermarket on Wednesday afternoon and her assailant is being charged with murder, according to the Maine State Police.
State police spokesman Stephen McCausland identified the victim as Wendy Boudreau, a mother of five adult children. State police and local police questioned 31-year-old Connor S. MacCalister of Saco before arresting her on a charge of murder Wednesday evening.
Police said MacCalister stabbed Boudreau near the ice cream freezers inside Shaw’s Supermarket just before 3 p.m.
Two local emergency medical technicians were in the store at the time and immediately started administering medical assistance.
Boudreau was transported to Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford, where she died.
“There is no indication the women knew each other, and police are still working on a motive,” McCausland said in a statement Wednesday night.
An autopsy on Boudreau will be performed Thursday by the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta.
Saco Police Department detectives took MacCalister into custody at Shaw’s store at 4 Scammon Street. She was later taken to the Saco Police Department and interviewed by state and local police.
Shortly after 7 p.m., police informed MacCalister that she was being charged with murder.
She was being held Wednesday night at the York County Jail in Alfred. Typically, murder suspects are not able to make bail until they have had their initial court appearance.
MacCalister is expected to make her first court appearance Friday at 1 p.m. at York County Superior Court in Alfred, according to the attorney general’s office. It wasn’t immediately clear if MacCalister has an attorney.
MacCalister does have a criminal record in Maine, according to the State Bureau of Identification. She was charged by Biddeford police with criminal mischief in April 2012, a Class D misdemeanor offense.
Biddeford Deputy Police Chief JoAnne Fisk said MacCalister had lived in a Biddeford group home, a residential living arrangement where two or more individuals, typically with some type of disability, live and receive support from an agency.
Boudreau and her husband, Jeffrey, live on Bonython Avenue in Saco. Neighbors say the couple lived on the street for more than 30 years and have five adult children.
Their next-door neighbor, Scott Garland, said the Boudreaus are good neighbors and pleasant to be around. Garland said he would often watch Wendy playing with her grandchildren, who were frequent visitors to their home.
Another neighbor, Annette Lavallee, said her children grew up with the Boudreau’s children. Lavallee has lived on Bonython Avenue for nearly 40 years.
Lavallee said Wendy Boudreau helped out her husband by working in his contracting business. He operates Jeffrey Boudreau General Contractor, according to his website.
“It’s going to be an awful loss for the whole family,” Lavallee said. “All I know is she was an awesome woman.”
Saco Police Chief Bradley Paul said several customers and store employees intervened when MacCalister attacked Boudreau. They were able to subdue MacCalister until police arrived.
WCSH-TV reported that Boudreau was stabbed in the neck by MacCalister near the store’s frozen-food section.
“As I walked towards the frozen food section there was police caution tape in one of the aisles. I looked down the aisle and there was a massive pool of blood with the lady’s purse lying next to it, almost in the pool,” Colin Esposito, a shopper, told WCSH-TV.
Other shoppers told the television station that they heard loud shouting and that the victim was stabbed in the neck.
WCSH-TV said shoppers were allowed inside the store for more than an hour after the stabbing took place, but the store was closed by 5 p.m.
On Wednesday evening, customers continued to park and approach the supermarket door, where a sign stated: “Closed due to an emergency we are closed at the time!”
Three police cars and the state police major crimes unit evidence vehicle idled nearby, surrounded with police tape. Police investigators said there is surveillance video, which they are reviewing.
“You never know what people are going to do, what people are going to say, or how they’re going to react to different things,” Esposito said. You really have to be careful with how you are around people.”
McCausland could recall three incidents involving violence at Maine supermarkets during his 27 years with the state police. None of those cases happened inside a store.
One of the most highly publicized cases involved a Tennessee drifter and his girlfriend who pleaded guilty in 1998 to abducting 59-year-old Virginia Jackson in the parking lot of a Shaw’s supermarket in Scarborough. The couple abducted Jackson at knifepoint, beat her to death and left her body at the bottom of an embankment. They stole her pickup truck and were later arrested in Florida.
Staff Writer Matt Byrne in Saco contributed to this story.
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