BANGOR (AP) – Roscoe Sargent killed his pregnant wife by stabbing her nearly 50 times in their Bangor mobile home after going on a party spree, a prosecutor said at the opening of his murder trial.

Sargent, 30, waived his right to a jury trial and his case is being heard by Penobscot County Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter. The trial began Tuesday and is expected to last through the week. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson told the judge that Sargent stabbed his 20-year-old wife seven times in the head and 40 times in the torso on Jan. 4, 2003. Heather Fliegelman Sargent was eight months pregnant at the time.

Her body was found two days later in a bedroom in the mobile home she had shared with her husband.

A laundry bag covered her upper body, and four dead cats were found on the bed, Benson said.

Sargent pleaded not guilty to intentionally or knowingly committing murder, and not guilty by reason of insanity to depraved indifference murder. If convicted, he faces possible life in prison.

He was not charged in the death of the unborn child because Maine’s homicide law does not apply to fetuses.

Sargent’s attorneys declined to make an opening statement, choosing instead to outline their case to the judge after the state rests and the defense presents its case later in the week.

Benson told the court that he expected the defense team to present evidence that Roscoe Sargent has a brain abnormality that influenced his actions.

But he argued that Maine law allows a not guilty verdict only if the accused committed murder during a convulsion, seizure, reflex or some other action over which he has no control.

Benson pointed to Roscoe Sargent’s behavior after his wife’s death to show that the man intentionally and knowingly killed. He said Sargent emptied the couple’s savings account then went on a party spree, staying at two hotels in Bangor, ordering champagne from the bar and having Chinese food delivered from a local restaurant.

“While the defendant may have some sort of brain condition, it is not enough to negate that he was involved in voluntary behavior,” Benson said.

AP-ES-03-03-04 1019EST