By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – John Graffam and James Vining may have been killed because one of them spilled beer in another man’s car, according to information released Friday.

In a police affidavit, 20-year-old Thomas Dyer describes looking on as 25-year-old Gary Gauthier Jr. beat Graffam and Vining with a baseball bat near the railroad tracks along Foss Road.

Police said Dyer admitted that he was later handed the bat and beat Graffam more than once with it. He also admitted to kicking both victims in the head and body after Gauthier had finished beating them.

Gauthier and Dyer, both of Auburn, made brief appearances Friday in 8th District Court. Each is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of Graffam, 30, and Vining, 43, who also lived in Auburn. Gauthier and Dyer were ordered held without bail.

After Vining and Graffam were unconscious or dead, Dyer and Gauthier went to a department store to buy shovels to bury the men, according to the affidavit.

The baseball bat, stained with blood, was recovered in Pownal two months later along with beer cans and bloody clothes that had been partially buried. Also found in the wooded area was a wallet containing Vining’s identification, according to the affidavit. Police said those items and others provided DNA evidence linking the two victims with the two suspects in the slayings.

The bodies of Vining and Graffam were found Oct. 29 buried in shallow graves. Police believe they were killed Sept. 23. It was on that date that Graffam made a final check mark on a calendar at his Hampshire Street apartment, police said. It was also the day Vining’s girlfriend last saw him.

The eight-page affidavit released Friday details the probe by Lewiston police Detective Brian O’Malley as well as other investigators from Lewiston and Maine State Police.

Although police questioned Dyer and Gauthier previously about the killings, it wasn’t until they were arrested Wednesday that one of the defendants described the attack, police said.

During earlier interviews, Gauthier and Dyer admitted they drank beer with Graffam Sept. 16 and went to the Auburn Mall with him. Neither admitted any involvement with Vining or with the killings.

On the final page of the court document, Dyer is said to have admitted his role in the beating deaths and provided his account about how it occurred. He told police that he and Gauthier, as well as Graffam and Vining, were driving around drinking beer when they drove out to Foss Road. They went there, Dyer is quoted as saying in the affidavit, to look for marijuana plants in the woods. It was there that the meeting turned violent, police said.

“Upon their arrival on the railroad tracks, Dyer stated that Gauthier struck Graffam and Vining in the head and body repeatedly with a baseball bat,” it says in the affidavit written by State Police Detective John R. Hainey. “Gauthier then gave the bat to Dyer, who struck Graffam and Vining more than once with the bat. Dyer then kicked Graffam and Vining in the head and torso.”

On the same page of the document, the only indication of motive appears:

“Dyer stated that Gauthier initially struck Graffam and Vining because of an earlier confrontation between Gauthier and Vining and the fact that Graffam spilled beer in Gauthier’s car,” Hainey wrote.

Dyer told police that he and Gauthier went to Wal-Mart to buy shovels. They buried the men in separate graves and, the following day, drove to Pownal to bury the bat and clothes.

Gauthier said little to police after he was arrested, according to the affidavit. In earlier interviews, he said he knew Graffam slightly because they had served time together in the county jail. Gauthier described Dyer as a good friend whom he saw every day, but told police he did not know Vining.

For investigators, a break in the case came when a Lewiston man reported seeing Graffam with Dyer and another man only known as Gary, after the three were released from jail in September. Police were able to find out Gauthier’s full identity through jail records.

At the hearing in 8th District Court on Friday, Gauthier’s friends and family members sat together on one side of the courtroom. Friends and family members of Vining and Graffam sat on the other. Outside the courtroom, Gauthier’s sisters spoke about the case.

“My brother is not a murderer,” said Jennifer Gauthier. “He’s innocent.”

“He doesn’t have a cold heart,” said Michell Gauthier. “He’s just a kid.”

Police, however, said they have plenty of evidence apart from Dyer’s confession. In addition to DNA evidence found on the items recovered in Pownal, investigators said evidence from beer cans found at the spot where Graffam was buried also points to Dyer and Gauthier as the killers.

It was the second time Gauthier, who has listed addresses in Lewiston, Auburn and Massachusetts in previous court cases, has been accused of using a baseball bat in an attack. In 2001, he was charged with aggravated assault for allegedly beating a man with a bat in Auburn. That charge was dropped, and Gauthier was convicted on two counts of simple assault and was given a suspended sentence.

Gauthier has also been arrested several times on burglary charges. Most recently, he was caught after breaking into Andover College in Lewiston in April 2004. Gauthier was captured minutes later and the stolen equipment recovered.

He was represented at Friday’s hearing by Lewiston lawyer Robert Ruffner. Dyer was represented by Ed Rabasco. The case will resume with a bail hearing to determine if there is probable cause to believe the two committed the slayings. No date was set.

Vining’s longtime girlfriend Alice Keene said she attended the hearing because she still wants to know the circumstances of her boyfriend’s death. Seeing Gauthier and Dyer in the courtroom for the first time, she said she did not recognize either of them.

“I don’t know them at all,” Keene said. “But seeing them made me think about it all over again. I just don’t want to think that Jim and John suffered. I just hope their deaths were quick.”