AUGUSTA — A homeless Seattle man appeared in Washington state court Thursday on extradition proceedings that would bring him back to Maine to face a charge he killed an Augusta woman in 1976.
In Maine, more details about the woman he is accused of killing, Blanche M. Kimball, emerged through probate court records Thursday.
And a former Mainer who lives in Seattle said Thursday she frequently saw Raub on the streets of that city and gave him leftovers from the bakery where she worked.
Raub, 63, is charged with criminal homicide and was scheduled for a second appearance in King County District Court in Seattle on Thursday, He has another court date scheduled Nov. 7. He remained held on $1.5 million bail.
No more information was available Thursday about a return to face the Maine charge. It wasn’t clear Thursday whether he had yet been assigned a public defender.
Earlier this week, Maine police went to Seattle with documents charging Raub in the killing.
In 1976, Raub, known at the time as Gary Robert Wilson, was questioned twice as a suspect in Kimball’s slaying when he was caught breaking into a home near hers not long after it happened. He had briefly been a boarder in Kimball’s home.
He was arrested Monday in Seattle on the charge. Police said results of recent DNA tests on blood collected from the slaying scene and from saliva on gum police had Raub chew link him to Kimball’s death.
While Raub has no criminal record in Maine, according to available court records, and there’s no evidence he served prison time in the state, the Seattle Times reported that prosecutors in King County say he has lengthy criminal record. A message left for prosecutor’s office Thursday was not immediately returned.
Kimball, 70, lived alone — with the exception of occasional boarders — in a rambling house masked by trees on State Street near the Hallowell city line. She inherited the Augusta house when her mother, Fanny Brooks, died in 1963.
Kimball’s body was found in the living room/dining room area on the first floor, and investigators concluded she was killed between June 2 and June 12, 1976.
More details revealed
Records at Kennebec County Probate Court show that Kimball was an only child, and her parents were dead at the time of her death.
Her sole heirs were two aunts, both of whom died decades ago, the Kennebec Journal confirmed Thursday.
State records show her mother, Fanny — sometimes spelled Fannie — Eames Kimball, married Abe Brooks in Augusta on May 5, 1919. No further information is available about Brooks.
An only child, Kimball had apparently not made out a will,. After she was stabbed to death in June 1976, her sole heirs were her aunts, Tessie Eames Godfrey, who died in March 1977 in California, and Gladys M. Swan, who lived in Melrose, Mass., and died in 1989.
Swan, with the assistance of local attorney Peter T. Dawson, inherited her niece’s estate.
Records show that Kimball drove a 1969 four-door Chevrolet Impala, which was sold for $175 a month after her death. The furnishings of Kimball’s home at 352 State St. went for $1,100.
The same records show a tenant was living at Kimball’s home from May through October 1976, paying $60 a month. Raub told police at the time that he had boarded with Kimball for one or two weeks before moving elsewhere.
The house was appraised at about $30,000, but that asset did not go through probate court, according to a letter Dawson wrote to Godfrey’s heirs in May 1977.
Once Kimball’s outstanding bills were paid, including funeral costs, estate taxes, fees and other charges, the aunts were to receive $1,383.33 each from her estate.
Records indicate some correspondence about state of Maine retirement benefits. Her obituary said she was a practical nurse and dental technician who had worked for both the state and the Veterans Administration at Togus.
Few other details about Kimball — even a photograph of her — have emerged in the three days since police announced the alleged breakthrough in the cold case.
‘It was very shocking’
Raub’s jail photo, taken after his arrest Monday, shows a man with a mottled face, a bandage atop his mostly bald head, and purple steaks in a white beard.
But Maddy Glover, who graduated in May 2011 from the University of Maine and moved to Seattle, said Raub looks much worse in the photo than he did when she came into contact with him over a couple of months before his arrest.
“He definitely looked pretty horrible in the photo with the bandage and purple streaks,” she said. “He definitely didn’t look that bad” when she knew him.
Glover worked at a bakery in Seattle and her daily commute took her past a niche near American Apparel in the city’s university district where Raub bedded down in a sleeping bag each night.
She started dropping off food for him, loaves of bread and sandwiches leftover from the bakery.
“I finally spoke to him,” she said by phone Thursday from Seattle. “We introduced ourselves and shook hands. I spoke to him on a few other occasions.”
She said he understood that there were days when she wasn’t working and she wouldn’t be leaving food. Sometimes she left food when he wasn’t there, she said.
“He usually had his sleeping bag, and he didn’t appear to ask for handouts,” she said. “Sometimes he would be plodding up the street with a huge backpack. One time I spoke to him, and he said someone had stolen his sleeping bag.”
Glover left the bakery job to work elsewhere and saw him on a bus about three weeks ago.
“That was pretty odd,” she said. “He said he was sort of getting by, and he left the bus, and that was the last time I saw him.”
Then she read about him being arrested this week and charged with the 1976 slaying in Maine.
“It was very shocking,” she said. “I was just sort of sad that I focused on an alleged source of so much pain and hurt for others. It’s a pretty crazy case.
“It’s sad because this is the type of thing that makes me think twice before helping someone.”
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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