Charles Dolan, the victim, testifies

Dolan took the stand first and testified that he was armed robbery again on March 27, 1981 when men wearing ski masks and carrying guns attacked him. Dolan said the intruders bound his feet, handcuffed him with police-issue handcuffs, kicked him and jumped on him, beating him severely, fracturing ribs and facial bones. He said when he asked the men to stop hitting him, one of them got a knife and slashed off his left ear. “I felt blood running down my face and eyes and I knew he had cut me.” He said that he didn’t know his ear had been cut until, “he threw the ear in front of me—I screamed in horror.”     Dolan said the robbers took $31,000 from him in the second robbery. This made a total of $51,000 the armed robbers had stolen from Charles Dolan within a span of four months. Paul Pollard, Lionel Cormier, Percy Sargent and Richard Sargent had taken $20,000 from him in the November 1980 robbery.      Dolan said he could not identify his assailants, but said he believed the man who cut him had also robbed him the first time. Dolan’s wife was not home at the time of the assault. He was able to call a friend who transported him to the Eastern Maine Medical Center where he later had reconstructive surgery.      There was a small article in the BDN on March 31, 1981 that reported Det. Ralph Pinkham as saying ... there was no evidence the home was ransacked, but police will continue to assume robbery was the motive behind the crime unless there is evidence of another motive.”      This robbery occurred 37 days after Mike’s murder; and it would be years before I would learn that three of the armed robbers were men involved in Mike’s murder—Lionel Cormier, Paul Pollard, and Percy Sargent. Dolan said he had been convicted of selling marijuana in 1984, sentenced to three years imprisonment, and served 14 months.

Homicide Det. Barry Shuman testifies

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