AUGUSTA — Ten women and six men were selected as jurors Friday for the trial of Roland L. Cummings, 46, of Waterville, who is charged with murder in the May 2014 stabbing death of 92-year-old Aurele Fecteau.
Cummings has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The trial is set to begin Thursday at the Capital Judicial Center and expected to go through the next week or so, Justice Michaela Murphy told those selected.
Following the daylong jury selection process, Murphy cautioned those selected not to read or listen to news media reports about the case or do any research on it.
Earlier Friday, before addressing the 150 people called in for the jury pool, Murphy spoke to Cummings and the attorneys in a courtroom at the Capital Judicial Center, saying the trial actually would begin in the larger, all-purpose room where she would swear in the jurors, then hand out questionnaires.
She invited Cummings and the attorneys to go in with her, but they declined.
Cummings, dressed in a blue, long-sleeved dress shirt and black pants, also said he would allow his attorneys, Ronald Bourget and Darrick Banda, to attend proceedings without him when the judge questioned the jurors individually as part of the selection process.
The prosecutors are Assistant Attorneys General Leane Zainea and Donald Macomber.
Fecteau’s body was found on May 23, 2014, at his 33 Brooklyn Ave. home in Waterville – authorities believe it was three days after the killing – by his son Ernest Fecteau and Ernest Fecteau’s wife, who came to check on him. Aurele Fecteau was a 1940 graduate of Winslow High School and was survived by seven children.
Police said Fecteau’s home was burglarized and items were stolen.
Cummings was arrested June 6, 2014, and charged with the killing after his DNA was found on Fecteau’s trousers, police said. Cummings has been in custody since then.
According to court documents, Cummings told authorities that his DNA was on Fecteau’s pants because he had robbed him of $2 that he found while rifling through a pair of Fecteau’s pants during a visit several weeks before the slaying. The same documents say Cummings willingly provided a DNA sample on May 24, 2014, telling police, “I have nothing to hide.”
Cummings had done odd jobs for Fecteau in the past.
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