ALFRED — Patrick Dapolito started explaining his wife’s death two days after her fatal shooting.

By then, Dapolito had already discovered Kelly Winslow’s body in their Limington home and placed it in their basement freezer before transporting it to his father’s property in western Maine, he testified this morning in his murder trial in York County Superior Court.

He had planned to fly to Florida and drive back to Maine with his father, but instead got in touch with an ex-girlfriend and her family. They, along with his oldest daughter, gathered in the home of one of the family members.

That is when Dapolito started telling people his wife’s death was an accident. He said this morning that he borrowed some real-life elements in crafting his story.

The couple did, in fact, sleep on the bathroom floor frequently, did use handcuffs and had gone through a time when they slept with a gun under the pillow, Dapolito told the jury.

Dapolito initially told authorities that a gun was in his hand as he fell asleep and that he woke when it fired accidentally.

Today, he testified that he had left the house on the morning of March 16, 2010, did some cocaine, went to a store and found Winslow dead when he returned. She had been shot with a gun that he believed was last kept in their closet. On his laptop was a message: “We shall return.”

Dapolito’s defense maintains that Winslow was the victim of a dispute he had started among his associates in his marijuana-distribution business.

At the time, he said, he decided he would fall on his sword. He said a combination of factors – including conversations with his eldest daughter, his parents and his lawyer – influenced him to talk about what actually happened.
 

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