PORTLAND — The man charged with killing his neighbor in a Brunswick neighborhood in April pleaded not guilty to murder during an appearance Thursday at Cumberland County Superior Court.

Tanner Dostie, 45, was arrested at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Bath on April 10 and charged with the killing of 61-year-old Dennis Blasens, his across-the-street neighbor.

Blasens, a Navy veteran and father of two, was Dostie’s neighbor for about a decade. Blasens was known to help Dostie repair his truck.

Dostie appeared briefly in a Portland courtroom Thursday alongside his attorneys, Daniel Wentworth and Zachary Fey, and pleaded not guilty to one count of intentional or knowing murder. He is being held without bail at the Cumberland County Jail.

According to court documents and 911 transcripts, a woman running an AA meeting last month called police, saying that Dostie was acting erratically and making unwelcome sexual remarks to women.

When police arrived, he made several concerning remarks and told officers that he had killed Blasens. Dostie went on to describe fatally stabbing Blasens after he came over that morning, dismembering his body with a chainsaw and burning the remains in a firepit behind his home.

Dostie claimed to be on drugs and at one point crawled toward police on all fours during a scuffle with police. He was carrying a knife, and an officer used a taser on Dostie at least a dozen times.

Maine State Police later found human remains and evidence of the killing, including parts of a chainsaw, burned on Dostie’s property, court documents allege.

The killing shocked members of the tight-knit neighborhood on Randall Circle in Brunswick. Family and friends last week remembered Blasens as a funny, generous man and a proud veteran.

Dostie’s attorney, Zachary Fey, declined to comment after the hearing.

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