AUBURN — Brian Nichols pleaded guilty Friday in the Androscoggin County Courthouse to the murder of his wife, Jane Tetreault, by shooting her at their Turner home in 2010.

Nichols, 46, is scheduled to be sentenced May 24. Under a plea agreement, it will be capped at 42 years.

Clad in a blue jail suit, his wrists and ankles shackled, Nichols answered, “Yes, sir,” to Justice Robert Clifford’s questions about Nichols’ understanding of the proceedings and his intention to waive his right to a jury trial, which had been scheduled for May.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese outlined the case the state was prepared to present had he gone to trial:

Nichols admitted to several people that he shot and killed Tetreault. He said he believed she had been cheating on him, but investigators found no evidence to support that claim.

Family members, including Tetreault, 38, had planned to have Nichols involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation on the night of the shooting.

Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Detective Kevin Nichols would have testified that at 3:30 a.m. May 8, 2010, he was dispatched to Brian Nichols’ house for a man who reportedly called 911 to say he’d shot his wife.

The detective, then a patrol deputy, knew it was his aunt and uncle’s home and didn’t believe his uncle had shot his aunt, because another aunt had told him Tetreault wasn’t staying at the house and his uncle was supposed to have been admitted earlier for psychiatric evaluation.

When the deputy arrived, Brian Nichols was leaving and told the deputy, “It’s over. I did it. Take care of my kids for me.” The deputy asked about Tetreault and Nichols said, “She’s in bed. Dead. I shot her.”

He said he used a .30-30-caliber rifle, which was leaning against a Subaru parked in the garage.

Brian Nichols told his nephew that Tetreault had been having sex with his brother and that Nichols hadn’t slept in three days.

Nichols’ elder son came out of the house and said his mother was lying in her bed, dead. The deputy followed him into the house and saw Tetreault’s body.

Marchese said Jack Tetreault, Brian Nichols’ father-in-law, would have testified that he had owned a cleaning service where his daughter worked and was taking over the business. He and his daughter had planned to “blue paper” Nichols the night she was killed. She had told her father that Nichols had been acting erratically and had stopped eating and sleeping.

Jane Tetreault was supposed to leave her shift at L.L. Bean, a second job, and meet her father at the cleaning service and they would have Nichols committed.

But Jack Tetreault would have testified that his daughter never called. A day later, after learning his daughter had been killed, he went to his shop where his daughter had been sleeping and saw the bed was broken.

Another witness would have said Nichols told her he “trashed” the bed because his wife had been cheating on him. A day before the shooting, she saw Nichols throw a book at his wife and call her names.

On May 7, Brian Nichols’ sister went to see Tetreault and told her that Nichols wasn’t eating and needed help. Tetreault solicited the woman’s help to get Nichols evaluated, but never followed up.

Ed Nichols, brother of Brian, would have described the defendant as someone who had a “very bad temper.” Brian Nichols had asked his brother if he loved him more than his brother Ronnie, according to Marchese.

A younger son of Nichols and Tetreault told police detectives that his father thought his mother was cheating on him with Ronnie and a co-worker and it was “‘driving Brian nuts.'” He asked his son if he would mind if he were to kill her, Marchese said.

She said that statement is proof that the shooting was premeditated.

Marchese said Nichols’ older son had said his father had “‘high highs and low lows'” and he had seen his father punching walls and he had destroyed the TV, a cellphone and a trash can. He saw his mother spending time on a website for an abused women’s advocacy program for weeks before she was killed.

Tetreault had made several 911 calls over the years reporting domestic violence, Marchese said.

On the evening of May 7, before she was shot, she called her older son to ask where Nichols was. He showed up at her workplace, Marchese said.

A crime scene investigator would have testified that he saw Tetreault lying face up on her bed, a comforter pulled up to her face, her hands on her stomach.

A doctor would have testified that she conducted an autopsy on Tetreault and concluded she died as a result of a gunshot wound to the right side of her mouth. There was “soot and stippling” around her lips, indicating that the shot was delivered either in the mouth or up against the mouth at “very close range,” Marchese said. The bullet exited her right shoulder.

He made statements since the shooting that it had been accidental, Marchese said. “The evidence obviously defies that,” she said.

Nichols had smoked marijuana most days and had a volatile temper that dated back to his teens, she said. Although he “does have mental health issues, none would rise to the level of not criminally responsible,” she said.

When asked whether Nichols was competent to have stood trial and to change his plea Friday, his attorney, Donald Hornblower, said he was.

Nichols pleaded in January to not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

He is being held without bail at the Androscoggin County Jail.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com

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