WARREN, Maine — Richard Stahursky, the Maine State Prison inmate accused of beating and stabbing another prisoner to death last week, allegedly said he killed Micah Boland because the victim made false allegations against him and caused him to lose a job within the facility.
Stahursky, also known as Richard Clement, 35, was charged Tuesday with murdering Boland. He is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Thursday.
Details of Boland’s killing were included in an affidavit filed Tuesday in Knox County Superior Court by the Maine State Police.
Stahursky confessed to the killing and claimed he wouldn’t plead not guilty by reason of insanity because he knew what he was doing, according to the affidavit filed by Maine State Police Detective Jason Andrews, who interviewed the suspect Friday night, four hours after the killing.
According to the affidavit, Stahursky said he sought out Boland, 37, after conducting his own investigation within the prison to find out who made false allegations that he improperly passed items from one prison pod to another living area. Stahursky told the state police detective that the false allegations cost him his job as a hallway worker.
Stahursky blames the lack of an investigation by prison staff into the false rumors as leading to his decision to take matters into his own hands, according to the affidavit.
The murder suspect allegedly said he could not let the matter go and was losing sleep over the situation so he went to Boland’s cell to confront him. Boland admitted to spreading the rumors about Stahursky, according to a quote from Starhusky in the affidavit.
Stahursky said he planned to stomp on Boland but also brought along two homemade knives, called shanks, because he had not decided whether he was also going to stab Boland, according to the affidavit.
Stahursky admitted to punching Boland in the face, which knocked the victim unconscious, according to the affidavit, and he then attempted to tie up Boland’s hands but was not entirely successful.
When Boland woke up, he allegedly called Starhursky a profane name, which Stahursky said made him snap, the affidavit states. In that condition, he stabbed Boland at least three times but could not remember for sure because he blacked out, according to the affidavit.
The suspect said he was not sure whether he used both knives in the stabbing, the affidavit states.
Stahursky later said he wasn’t “mental” even though the prison staff thought he was, according to the affidavit.
“We’re not going the insanity, please,” Stahursky said, according to the affidavit, adding that he took full responsibility for the killing.
The affidavit also revealed that the suspect told the detective that he did not regret killing Boland because the victim was a child sex offender, known in the prison as a “skinner.”
Stahursky then left the cell and surrendered to a corrections officer, putting down the shanks, according to the affidavit.
The suspect told police that he had a list of notes and names in his cell in regard to his investigation. The list of names was found hidden in the false bottom of a skin cream container. There were five names on it, including Boland’s, which was crossed off.
Boland died from multiple stab wounds to his face, neck and torso. In addition to the stab wounds, an autopsy done Saturday by the Maine Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that Boland died of extensive hemorrhage and blunt impact to the head with bone fractures and brain injury.
Boland was sentenced in 2008 in Waldo County Superior Court to 22 years for sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl in Liberty in March 2007. The girl’s family had left her with Boland for a short time, according to testimony at the jury-waived trial.
Stahursky has a record of violence within the prison. In December 2012, he was sentenced to an additional eight years in prison for assaulting a guard. Stahursky had asked Justice Jeffrey Hjelm to impose the maximum 10 years.
Before that incident, he had been convicted of two separate stabbings of inmates with shanks and one count of arson for setting a fire in 2004.
Stahursky was also indicted in April 2013 of possessing a shank. That case remains pending.
He was originally sentenced in 2002 to nearly 20 years in prison for an armed robbery of a Mainway convenience store in Fort Fairfield. At the time of that robbery, he was also wanted by police in Connecticut for a larceny charge.
He was not scheduled to be released until 2032.
In the past five years, three prisoners in Warren have been beaten to death. In one case, a prisoner was acquitted in connection to the death, and in the second, the defendant pleaded to the lesser offense of aggravated assault. In that case, the victim was serving time for sexuallty assaulting a child. The third case is set to go to trial later this year.
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