AUBURN — A Lewiston man told police he was mad at the man he fatally stabbed at a McDonald’s parking lot last week because the victim had made sexual advances toward his girlfriend.
Trai M. Larue Maine State Police photo
According to an affidavit written by Maine State Police Detective Abbe Chabot, Trai M. Larue, 22, of 146 Pierce St. said he hadn’t gone to the restaurant July 29 “intending to stab” Roger “Jordan” Cornell, 21, a transient from New Bedford, Massachusetts.
During an interview with investigators, Larue said he and his brother, Austin, had wanted only to discuss with Cornell the sexual advances Cornell had allegedly made the night before.
“Trai said, instead (of discussing the matter,), his brother and Roger got into a physical altercation and Trai said he blacked out and stabbed Roger once,” according to Chabot’s affidavit filed in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn.
Authorities said Cornell died from a single stab wound to the chest.
When interviewed by detectives, Austin Larue said he and Trai confronted Cornell and began fighting with him because Cornell had allegedly struck his girlfriend, Harli Cassidy, who worked at McDonald’s in Lewiston and had recently ended her shift there. Austin Larue said Cornell had reportedly threatened to “finish what he started” with her.
Moreover, Austin Larue told police that Cornell had insulted Austin Larue’s girlfriend as well as Trai Larue’s girlfriend by allegedly sexually assaulting them the night before.
Trai Larue was arrested and charged last week with intentional or knowing murder, a crime that carries a sentence of 25 years to life prison.
At a hearing at 8th District Court in Lewiston on July 31, he was provided a lawyer and ordered by a judge to be held without bail based on Chabot’s affidavit. A bail and probable cause hearing will be scheduled likely later this month, the judge said.
In that affidavit, Chabot wrote that Trai Larue had driven to the parking lot of a nightclub next to the McDonald’s restaurant at 138 Center St. shortly before 8:30 p.m., after having picked up Cassidy at the end of her shift at a McDonald’s restaurant in Lewiston. She got into his car, where Larue’s 18-year-old girlfriend, 18, and Ashley Ouellette, 18, also were seated.
Cassidy later told police that she had a fight with Cornell before starting her shift. After Cassidy’s shift, while sitting in Larue’s car, Ouellette used Cassidy’s cellphone “to harass Roger via text under the guise that Harli was the author of those text messages,” Chabot wrote in the affidavit.
Ouellette, pretending to be Cassidy, and Cornell “exchanged heated communications that culminated in a mutual desire to ‘meet up’ in Auburn,” Chabot wrote.
Earlier that day, Trai Larue’s girlfriend told him that Cornell “touched her inappropriately while they were all sleeping the night before,” Chabot wrote. Cassidy told police Larue “was angry about that incident.”
When Cornell showed up on the sidewalk near McDonald’s in Auburn around 8:30 p.m. July 29, Larue and Ouellette got out of his car parked in a lot next to the restaurant and confronted Cornell, Cassidy told police.
Around that time, Austin Larue and another man arrived by car in the parking lot at McDonald’s and Larue got out of the car.
Cassidy told police that as the Larue brothers and Cornell walked toward the back of the McDonald’s parking lot, they “jumped” him. Austin Larue hit Cornell and Trai Larue “said something to the effect of ‘How does it feel to be stuck?’ and stabbed Cornell,” Chabot wrote in the affidavit.
The Larue brothers left the scene without assisting Cornell, Cassidy told police.
Austin Larue told police that Cornell had thrown a punch at Trai Larue that hit his face, but caused “minimal damage,’ Chabot wrote. Larue responded by saying, “You hit like a bitch,” Austin Larue quoted his brother.
After punching Cornell in the face, Austin Larue said he held Cornell down for a couple of minutes and didn’t see his brother stab Cornell, but noted that when Cornell stood up, “that blood had trickled down” from his chest, Austin Larue told police.
He said Trai Larue “typically carried a ‘little skull-like knife’ that was around two to three inches” that he’d bought at a pawn shop, according to Chabot’s affidavit.
Austin Larue told police he tried to dispose of the knife by the South Bridge at the request of Trai Larue after they left the scene of the stabbing.
Austin Larue led a police detective to 53 River St. in Lewiston and directed him to the area where he said he’d thrown the knife. The detective said he “photographed the knife and during his visual examination, found small traces of dried reddish-brown fluid on the knife tip,” Chabot wrote.
Police said the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Cornell died of a single stab wound to his chest, which doctors at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston described as the lower left area.
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