Frederick Johnson enters the courtroom at Cumberland County Courthouse on Monday morning. The state dismissed the murder charge against Johnson, whom police originally accused of killing Bethany Kelley. At right is attorney Nicole Milam. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

A man who was accused of killing a woman in Portland two years ago is being released from jail after the state dropped the murder charge.

Frederick Johnson, 47, entered an Alford plea Monday to an aggravated assault charge against 23-year-old Bethany Kelley, who was found dead near Whole Foods Market on Nov. 18, 2022.

An Alford plea means that Johnson maintains his innocence but admits the state could have convinced a jury he was guilty of assault. He was sentenced Monday to a little less than two years behind bars, which he has already served.

“Frederick Johnson maintains, and is, an innocent man,” said Tina Nadeau, one of his defense attorneys. “He has not admitted that he harmed Bethany Kelley in any way or form.”

A prosecutor for the state said they still believe Johnson strangled Kelley, but they decided to drop the murder case and agree to a time-served sentence after blood testing revealed Kelley had a “potentially lethal level” of drugs in her system. They could not completely rule out that her death was the result of a fatal overdose, making it harder to convince a jury this was murder.

“This was the only agreement that could be reached,” Assistant Attorney General Bud Ellis said in court.

Kelley’s family, meanwhile, had spent two years navigating grief while preparing for a trial that was scheduled to take place next month. They believe her death was the result of a murder that no one will be held responsible for.

Bethany Kelley. Photo courtesy of Carrie Fellows

“We know justice isn’t being served right now,” Carrie Fellows, Kelley’s aunt, said in court. “But we have a higher God that will have justice for this, for what this person has done to our family.”

Johnson was charged with murder on Feb. 21, 2023, four months after Kelley’s body was found between a parked car and a fence on Kennebec Street.

Police believed there were signs of a struggle. She was at an unusual position on the side of the road, Ellis said, with dirt and grass on her pants. There were marks on the side of the car, including a dent in the door and a boot print matching Kelley’s shoe.

Police quickly determined Johnson and a second man, Brian Chabak, had been with Kelley the night of her death. Ellis said police viewed hours of surveillance camera footage from several businesses, which showed the trio walking together and eventually stopping behind a car on Kennebec Street. Johnson and Kelley were homeless at the time.

Video showed Chabak emerge from behind the car and walk east, Ellis said. Then Johnson could be seen leaving two and a half minutes later.

“It is important to note that after reviewing hours of video, Bethany never left that scene,” Ellis said.

Ellis said the state found a mixture of two male DNA profiles under Kelley’s nails and on her right hand, and that they believe one profile “was consistent with the defendant” and excluded Chabak.

But the videos were grainy, and there wasn’t enough DNA evidence for thorough testing, said Nadeau.

Nadeau also challenged the investigation by Portland police. Investigators had narrowed their sights on Johnson so fast, she said, that they failed to consider evidence that Kelley’s death was the result of an overdose.

“There’s not even a murder here,” Nadeau said after Monday’s hearing. “This wasn’t a homicide. The monster here was fentanyl. No one would be in that courtroom today if it wasn’t for fentanyl.”

Spokesperson Danna Hayes for the Office of the Maine Attorney General declined to share what substances were detected in Kelley’s blood.

Kelley’s final autopsy report did include “acute intoxication” in its findings, Hayes said, but the state didn’t have that information until weeks after the initial autopsy was conducted on Nov. 18, 2022. The state had to send Kelley’s blood to a lab outside Maine that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner uses regularly.

Bethany Kelley’s aunt Carrie Fellows, of New Gloucester, is comforted by victim advocate Suna Shaw while testifying at a hearing for Frederick Johnson, whom police originally accused of killing Kelley. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

A “manual strangulation” finding likely shaped the state’s investigation early on, since it was one of the first things Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Liam Funte reported during the initial autopsy. Ellis said that Funte observed hemorrhaging in Kelley’s neck muscles, thyroid, left eye and contusions and abrasions to her face.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not respond to an email Monday requesting more information on Kelley’s autopsy report.

Johnson also pleaded guilty Monday to felony charges for possessing fentanyl in 2020 and theft for an incident in December 2022, when he admitted to stealing a woman’s purse from a bar on Exchange Street, which contained her phone, her credit cards and $3,900 in cash. Various other charges from 2021 and 2022 were dismissed.

“He pled guilty to the things he actually did,” Nadeau said.

Nadeau said in court Monday that Johnson will be released to a sober living program. He only addressed the court briefly to enter his pleas, and he was not sentenced to any probation.

Kelley’s sister and mother joined the hearing on Zoom and cried as a victim advocate read their statements to the court.

Fellows, Kelley’s aunt, struggled to speak as she recalled taking her niece and her siblings to the beach when they were younger.

“I know you guys will remember when we found those shells, and they were all perfectly white,” she said, the rest of Kelley’s family crying over Zoom. She recalled walking on a beach more recently and finding a similar collection of perfect white shells. She felt it was a sign.

Bethany Kelley, center, at Two Lights Lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth with her sister Melissa Green, left, and her aunt, Carrie Fellows. Photo courtesy of Carrie Fellows

“Justice will be served in this,” she said. “I know it doesn’t look like it, … I know it looks so wrong, even what we’re seeing right now, it’s so wrong, but God will have his way.”

Kelley’s family has said in previous interviews that she had fallen into depression and was struggling with substance use around the time of her death. But that never changed who she was.

“When she loved someone, she did anything that she could to make them happy,” her sister Melissa Green wrote in a statement read by a victim witness advocate. “She was unforgettable.”

Contributed photo of Bethany Kelley.

Kelley’s mother said she loved to draw and play dress up. She remembered her daughter taking her first steps at the Eastern Promenade when she was barely a year old.

Kelley moved to Oregon when she was a teenager to live with her mother. She came back to Portland a few years before her death and gave birth to a son in the same hospital where she was born, her mother said.

“I remember her being so happy,” Julie Kelley said in her written statement. “She loved him more than anything, and he did her. Now all I have is pictures of her in happy days. … Now, he will never have the chance to know her.”