AUGUSTA — A Queens, New York, man indicted on a charges of murder and robbery in connection with the November 2015 beating death of Joseph Marceau is expected to be in court this week to answer to those charges.
Aubrey N. Armstrong, 28, originally was scheduled for arraignment Wednesday at the Capital Judicial Center, but the case was continued. It was not clear Wednesday afternoon whether he will make his initial appearance Thursday or Friday.
He had been arrested in New York almost a year ago on the Maine charges, but has been serving a sentence in New York. Records of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision indicate Armstrong has been housed most recently in a facility in Southport Correctional Facility, Pine City, New York, serving a sentence for third-degree criminal sale of controlled substances.
Assistant Attorney General John Alsop, one of the prosecutors in the case, said Armstrong’s sentence, which began Aug. 8, 2016, was interrupted so that he could be brought to Maine.
Richard Wurpel, interim captain and administrator at the Kennebec County jail, said Wednesday that Armstrong was brought there Tuesday.
Defense attorney Brad Grant has been appointed to represent Armstrong.
Armstrong was the fourth person to be charged in connection with the death of Marceau, 31, of Augusta. Marceau was beaten to death Nov. 23, 2015, in a Washington Street apartment in what authorities have called a drug-related homicide.
One of the other defendants, Zina Marie Fritze, 27, of Augusta, who had been living in the apartment where Marceau’s body was found, died on Jan. 27, 2016, in the Kennebec County jail a day after pleading not guilty to the charges. She was found unresponsive and hanging from a bed sheet in her cell. At the time, jail officials said Fritze had not been considered to be a significant threat to herself.
Michael Sean McQuade, 46, of Augusta, who also had been living in the apartment, and Damik Davis, 27, of New York, face the same charges as Armstrong: intentional or knowing or depraved indifference murder, felony murder and robbery. McQuade and Davis both pleaded not guilty.
The case has been assigned to Justice Daniel Billings and is scheduled to go to trial in November.
Both Davis and McQuade are being held at the Kennebec County jail without bail.
Around 8 p.m. Nov. 23, 2015, neighbors reported a disturbance in a fourth-floor apartment at 75 Washington St. Alsop said Marceau was beaten to death, and no knives or firearms were involved. Police have not released any other details about what they think happened the night he died.
Augusta police and a state police dog searched the neighborhood, and Davis was arrested a short time later. Police originally had questioned Fritze and McQuade two days after Marceau’s body was found, but they had been released without charges.
Armstrong was not identified publicly as a suspect until February 2016, and initially Armstrong fought extradition to Maine.
Marceau, who had lived earlier in Gardiner, lived at the time of the crime about a mile away in an apartment on Winthrop Street.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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