A home at 1482 Hallowell Road in Litchfield is seen Monday, a day after police said they found the body of Kimberly Mironovas there and arrested three teenagers in connection with the woman’s death. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
AUGUSTA — A Litchfield woman’s 15-year-old son is among a trio of teenagers charged in connection with her stabbing and strangling death over the weekend, according to documents filed Monday at the Capital Judicial Center.
Kimberly Mironovas sits at a station at Aveda Maine Institute, a cosmetology school in Augusta. Mironovas, 47, was found dead in her Litchfield home early Sunday morning. Her son is charged with murdering her. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Coco)
Maine State Police have classified the death of Kimberly Mironovas, 47, as homicide. Juvenile petitions filed in court Monday identified her son, Lukas Mironovas, 15, of Litchfield, and William Smith, 15, of Ashland, Massachusetts, as being charged with intentional or knowing murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Thomas Severance, 13, also of Ashland, Massachusetts, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but not with murder.
The body of Mironovas was found at her home at 1482 Hallowell Road about 2 a.m. Sunday, and documents filed in court do not list any motive for the killing. Neither the defense attorneys nor the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Meg Elam, would discuss the facts of the case or a motive on Monday.
According to the juvenile petition filed against Lukas Mironovas, the trio initially planned on Saturday to murder Kimberly Mironovas by crushing prescription pills and putting them into her wine. “After the crushed medication failed to dilute sufficiently in liquid, Thomas Severance, William Smith and Lukas Mironovas discussed causing Kimberly’s death by other means: stabbing and strangling her,” the petition states.
The petition says Lukas Mironovas “armed himself with a knife and donned a mask and gloves” and Smith put on gloves early Sunday. “Both (boys) went into Kimberly’s bedroom, where she was sleeping. Both Lucas Mironovas and William Smith strangled Kimberly Mironovas. Lukas Mironovas also stabbed Kimberly in the neck.”
While several neighbors said Sunday they knew little of Kimberly Mironovas, Sage Arlene Lockhart of Jackson, Maine, said she befriended Mironovas when the two attended Aveda Institute Maine, a cosmetology school in Augusta.
“She was a very sweet, caring, understanding woman,” Lockhart said via Facebook Messenger on Monday. “She was like the mom of the group and always had a smile on her face. She was outgoing, smart, and did amazing at what she did at school.”
Lockhart also said that Mironovas spoke about having a son with some anger issues who apparently had threatened people.
Anthony Coco, president of Aveda Institute Maine, said Kimberly Mironovas enrolled in the cosmetology school in September. “She was a little more than halfway through the program. She was doing what she wanted to do,” he said.
“I originally met with her in the summer. She was looking to make a career change. She was living in Boston and wanted to move to Maine.”
He said he had heard she had been having some issues with her son, but added, “We don’t know too much personally about the students.”
On Saturday, Mironovas was working on clients at the school at 43 Bridge St., Augusta, Coco said.
“We just had a fashion show two weeks ago,” Coco said. “We call it a ‘Trashion Show.’ It is an annual thing we do to create awareness of Earth Day. She was one of the models and looked gorgeous and had a great dress, and her hair and makeup was really fabulous. She was really happy.”
Nine people who were family members of Kimberly Mironovas attended the court hearing on Monday, but indicated through a victim advocate that they did not want to speak to the media and did not want to be filmed by television cameras as they were leaving the courthouse.
Elam, the assistant attorney general, said it would be some months before the next hearing could be held since the mental health competency evaluations must be completed first. The evaluations are necessary because the state is seeking to have the boys’ cases handled in the adult criminal justice system.
According to the petition filed against Severance, he participated only in the planning, but it does not say he took part in the slaying.
It appeared that the teenagers were in a police cruiser shortly after 7 a.m. Sunday, according to the Kennebec County Sheriff’s log, but it was not clear who notified police about the slaying. State police reported they were taken into custody.
All three boys were brought into court together on Monday, and each was represented by a different attorney who met individually with their clients prior to the hearing. The boys were held overnight at Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland and will remain there.
Judge Valerie Stanfill conducted a brief detention hearing on Monday at the Capital Judicial Center, and all three attorneys agreed their clients could continue to be held at the juvenile center and undergo competency evaluations.
Attorney Walter McKee, who has been retained to represent Smith, said the competency evaluation is appropriate “when you’re dealing with really young people” and helps to assess what they understand.
“My client is completely distraught over what happened and at this point he needs to work through it,” said attorney Kevin Sullivan, who is representing Severance. “He’s 13 years old, and someone died in the home where he was.” Sullivan noted that Severance just turned 13 and is “a seventh grader in middle school.”
Attorney Pamela Ames, representing Lukas Mironovas, said she, too, did not want to talk about the case.
Neither the defense attorneys nor the prosecutor would discuss the facts of the case beyond what was available in the court documents and no one would talk about any motive.
Lukas Mironovas was not enrolled at Regional School Unit 4, the district that includes students in Litchfield, according to the district’s superintendent. It’s not clear whether he attended a school elsewhere.
Kimberly Mironovas, who was formerly of Ashland, Massachusetts, bought the single-family building at 1482 Hallowell Road in September 2017. At one point it was the old Purgatory Post Office, then a pizza place and then a pottery shop, according to attorney Joseph O’Donnell, who stopped by the courtroom Monday as the detention hearing was about to begin and is not representing anyone in the case. O’Donnell said he and his wife owned the building until 2004.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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