Mass. man sentenced to 6 years in prison in Auburn stabbing

AUBURN — Corey Hayden, who was facing trial on a charge of elevated aggravated assault in connection with a stabbing in January, has pleaded guilty.

Hayden, 30, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, had been scheduled for trial in Androscoggin County Criminal Court on Monday.

He entered a guilty plea Friday morning and was sentenced to serve six years. He had been facing up to 30 years in prison on the felony crime.

According to prosecutors, Hayden ambushed his victim, Frederick Williams, stabbing him three times, including in his left shoulder blade and close to his rib cage, just before midnight Jan. 15.

Hayden was arrested the next day, and has been held at the Androscoggin County Jail on $100,000 cash bail since his arrest.

According to a police affidavit, Hayden had been dating the mother of Williams’ children. During that time Williams had been dating a different woman, who called 911 to report the stabbing.

At the time, Hayden was living on Brann Avenue in Lewiston. The victim lived on James Street in Auburn.

According to court records, on the night of the stabbing, a mutual friend called and then dropped by the James Street house where Williams and his girlfriend were living. The visitor, who was homeless, asked the couple whether she could stay with them that night; they said she could.

When she arrived, she asked Williams to retrieve something from the trunk of her car, which was parked in front of the house. When Williams went to the rear of her car, “Hayden moved his hood back further off his head and told Williams he was going to kill him,” Auburn Police Detective Nicholas Gagnon wrote in his arrest affidavit. “At that point, Williams turned sideways to block any punches as he knew Hayden was going to fight him.”

Williams told Gagnon that “Hayden began striking (him), but Williams didn’t see a knife. Once he was hit, he felt a burn and knew he was being stabbed. Williams ran to the parking lot, yelling that he was stabbed.”

Hayden and the homeless woman who had directed Williams to the trunk of her car climbed into it before it sped away, according to court records.

Williams told police that Hayden had “severely beaten” his girlfriend who was the mother of Williams’ children. Williams had helped her through the aftermath and Hayden hadn’t liked that, Williams told police.

Hayden’s girlfriend had cleared his apartment of his belongings, including $8,000 in cash plus roughly one ounce of cocaine, according to police. She also “dug up” Hayden’s “huge amount” of drugs and came to Williams with them.

According to Gagnon’s affidavit, he went to the address where Hayden had been living in Lewiston and saw a dark blue sedan matching the description of the car in which Hayden and the homeless woman had sped from the scene of Williams’ stabbing parked in the driveway. The car had Massachusetts license plates.

Footprints in the snow showed a trail to the second floor apartment at the back of the building, according to Gagnon. A knock on the door was answered by Hayden, who had been on probation for robbery and could be searched for drugs and alcohol under the terms of that probation.

During a search of the apartment, police talked to a teenager who was in Hayden’s bed, and she told them she had been driving the car that was at the scene of the stabbing.

She had been aware of the knife and that it had belonged to her father, she told police. She also said Hayden was mad at Williams because of something having to do with “trashing” Hayden’s apartment.