Shortly after he was charged with two counts of murder, Matthew Cote allegedly said in a jail call that he “blasted” a woman and “lit the place on fire.”

Matthew Cote, seen at a court hearing in June 2021 via Zoom, is charged with two counts of murder and starting a house fire in Limington. Screenshot from Zoom hearing

Cote, 25, has been accused of shooting his mother, Cheryl Cote, and her boyfriend, Daniel Perkins, early on the morning of June 17, 2021. Cote was also indicted on one count of arson — police believe he’s the one who set the family’s Limington home on fire before fleeing the scene.

Cote has pleaded not guilty to the charges and entered an insanity plea last summer. If he’s found guilty of the crimes, a jury will have to then decide whether his mental state impaired his understanding of wrongdoing. His trial is scheduled for January 2026.

A judge ordered that Cote be evaluated at the Riverview Psychiatric Center, but it’s unclear what the doctors discovered. Family friends and classmates told the Press Herald that Cote has struggled with his mental health, but they were surprised by the charges.

He was at the York County Superior Court Wednesday, where his lawyers asked a judge to throw out statements he made in front of officers after he was taken into custody.

Attorneys called on eight law enforcement witnesses, including two corrections officers at the York County Jail who booked him and helped him make a call.

Cpl. Jason Gaudette said he was sitting about 5 or 6 feet away from Cote when he overheard him say he had “snapped.”

“I remember him saying that he snapped and had enough,” Gaudette testified. Then Cote allegedly said, “I blasted the nasty (expletive)” and “set a fire to hide the nasty bodies because I didn’t want anyone to see them.”

Carlos Gonzalez, another corrections officer who had been working nearby, testified that he only started listening in after hearing Gaudette say “whoa.”

“(Cote) was saying ‘I just lost it,’ that he set fire to the home,” Gonzalez testified.

Neither officer knew who Cote was speaking with.

Superior Court Justice Richard Mulhern said he won’t rule on the matter until after a second hearing in June, during which he’ll hear testimony from a detective and a forensic psychologist who is familiar with Cote’s case.

TROUBLING STATEMENTS

Police say they found Cheryl Cote and Perkins’ bodies at their Hardscrabble Road home that morning while firefighters were trying to put out the flames. They knew Matthew Cote was also living there, and soon realized his vehicle was missing.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the region were told to “be on the lookout” for Cote, warning that he was potentially homicidal, suicidal, armed and schizophrenic.

Maine State Police Sgt. Jessica Shorey said she saw Cote driving a Trailblazer on Cape Road around 9 p.m. and pulled him over in the fire station parking lot. She said she shouted at him to get out of the car and lie on the ground as she was exiting her vehicle.

Cpl. Travis Doughty, then a trooper, arrived within minutes and helped Shorey search Cote for weapons and handcuff him. They, and a handful of other officers who had arrived, waited for detectives to conduct an official interview. Shorey, Doughty and others testified that the only questions they asked were whether Cote wanted water or to sit in the shade.

Cote told them he wanted to stay in the sun because it was probably the last sunlight he would see for a while, Shorey recalled. She said the group of officers told him “multiple times” that someone else was coming to speak with him. Yet he still made several troubling statements in between benign attempts at small talk.

“He was calm and sitting,” Shorey recalled. “He asked us about our favorite music, zodiac signs and things like that.”

Then, unprovoked, he allegedly told officers “once I snapped, I couldn’t stop and I emptied the whole magazine.”

Defense attorney Thomas Connolly suggested these statements were made under fear and without being informed of his rights to remain silent or find a lawyer.

Shorey had drawn her gun as she was getting out of her car, although she testified she had put it away when she was handcuffing him.

Connolly said this was “use of force” and Cote was likely scared of being shot.

Prosecutors suggested Cote volunteered these statements on his own.

“Who was initiating all that conversation?” Assistant Attorney General Bud Ellis asked.

“He was,” Shorey said.