Details about a shooting death in Windham became public this week as a man charged with murdering his wife in their home made his first court appearance on Tuesday.

Noah Gaston, 33, was charged with the murder of his wife, Alicia Gaston, 34, on Friday, Jan. 22, roughly a week after he fatally shot her in the abdomen with a 12-gauge shotgun at their home on Brookhaven Drive. Gaston was visiting his mother in Kingsfield at the time of the arrest.

Gaston made his first court appearance at the Cumberland County Courthouse before Justice Michaela Murphy. Gaston will be held without bail at the Cumberland County Jail, prior to a bail hearing Feb. 8. If convicted, Gaston could spend at least 25 years to life in jail.

Gaston, who wore a blue, button-down shirt and khaki pants, spoke only a few times, once to say he understood the charges brought against him. When he spoke, his voice was subdued.

According to a Maine State Police affidavit, written by the primary investigator Detective Ethel Ross, the charge is partially based on inconsistencies between his statements and forensic evidence, as well as interviews with Gaston’s 8-year-old daughter.

According to the affidavit, Gaston told investigators that he heard noises from an intruder downstairs in the early morning of Jan. 14. After checking to find his two daughters in bed, the affidavit said, he stood at the top of the stairs and heard “noises that sounded like walkie-talkies and things moving downstairs.”

Gaston told police that he grabbed his gun, which was not loaded, and loaded it with a single shell before returning to the top of the stairs.

In the affidavit, Gaston said his wife had just started up the stairs when he shot her and she fell to the bottom of the stairs. Gaston said he thought he was shooting at an intruder and that “she was going to make it to him before he could fire.” He said he realized it was his wife as soon as she fell back.

According to the affidavit, Gaston made inconsistent statements regarding the location of his wife at the time of the shooting. Gaston told Ross his wife was “running upstairs, closing the gap, at the bottom of the stairs, and halfway up the stairs.”

A reconstruction of the shooting indicated Alicia Gaston was standing between the first and second step from the top of the staircase when she was shot, according to the affidavit.

An officer from the Windham Police Department asked Gaston at the scene if he and his wife had been in an argument. He said they had not.

According to the affidavit, in an interview with Ross, Gaston’s 8-year-old daughter said she “heard mom and dad arguing in their scared voices. She said she heard mom fall down the stairs and say ouch and start crying and then she heard muffled noises.”

According to the affidavit, a white iPhone was located near Alicia Gaston’s side when the Windham police responded to the scene. The phone, which Noah Gaston used to call 911 at 6:17 a.m., had also been used to make a call to the EBT Automated Benefits line for the state of Maine about 3 minutes prior to the emergency call. The affidavit did not make clear whether Noah or Alicia Gaston placed the EBT call.

An EBT card holds food supplement benefits and is used like a debit card, according to the state’s website.

A piece of a broken EBT card was located on the second step from the top of the stairs during the investigation.

Outside the courthouse Tuesday, Gaston’s lawyer, Luke Rioux, a criminal defense attorney based in Portland, said the trial will show the shooting to be “a tragedy. But it was an accident, not a murder.”

After the shooting on Jan. 14, a web page was established on the crowdfunding website YouCaring, titled “Help Noah.” The organizer was listed as Noah Gaston, and the location as Maine.

The first donation was made on Jan. 17, and during the course of five days, $1,850 was contributed from friends and extended family members of Gaston.

None of the contributors contacted by the Lakes Region Weekly would comment.

During the weekend, the crowdfunding page was shut down. A representative from YouCaring said that the “fundraiser page for Noah Gaston was removed as we determined it wasn’t a good fit for our site.”

He said the company would not provide any more information as to why the page was removed or how it was flagged for removal.

In a phone conversation, Rioux said he was not aware of the crowdfunding page, and he didn’t believe Gaston had personally set up the page.

Gaston and his family were living in Windham temporarily while their friends were abroad, according to their former landlord, Michael Cressey. The Gastons had lived in a Cressey-owned, single-family home on Flaggy Meadow Road in Gorham for about six years.

Online resumes show Gaston was executive chef at New Morning Natural Foods in Biddeford, and had recently started his own business, Farmhouse Culinary, as a private chef.

Noah Gaston, center, appeared in court Tuesday with attorneys Luke Rioux, left, and Temma Donahue, right. Gaston has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of his wife after an investigation by Maine State Police showed inconsistencies between his statements and physical evidence.