PORTLAND – Michael Hutchinson watched Crystal Perry’s killer stab the Bridgton woman to death.

The 19-year-old ran into Perry’s living room and knocked the man down. But the man got up and fled. And – so did Hutchinson.

That, defense attorney Robert Andrews told a Cumberland County Superior Court jury Monday, explains how the defendant’s blood ended up on the body of 30-year-old Perry, who was killed 13 years ago.

Attorneys for both sides in the trial of Hutchinson, now 32, foreshadowed their cases Monday. Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese pointed the finger squarely at Hutchinson. Andrews pointed away from his client and toward an unidentified alternate suspect.

Hutchinson had been at Perry’s home on the night of May 11, 1994, Andrews said. The couple had sex in her bedroom then walked out into her living room. That was when Hutchinson saw a man walk through the door.

“‘Where is it?'” Andrews quoted the unidentified suspect.

“‘Where’s what?'” he said Perry answered.

Hutchinson approached the man, but retreated when he saw a knife drop from the man’s sleeve, Andrews said. The man cut Hutchinson on the hand.

Hutchinson went into the kitchen to get a knife out of a drawer, but was hit on the back of the head and passed out, Andrews said.

When Hutchinson regained consciousness, he saw the man kneeling over Perry’s bloody body, plunging a knife into her over and over, Andrews said.

After knocking the man to the floor, Hutchinson fled in his truck. He cried at home all day, listening to the sirens of emergency vehicles going to and from Perry’s home a mile-and-a-half down the road, his attorney said.

He apparently never told police what happened.

From the start, police believed the person who had sex with Perry was the same person who killed her, Andrews said. In fact, an hour separated the two acts, he claimed.

Long investigation

For more than a decade, state investigators never made the link between Hutchinson and Perry. The only evidence supporting a connection between the two is they had both lived in Bridgton at the time, not far from one another, Marchese said.

Then a year ago in March, by chance, a Maine Crime Laboratory worker matched Hutchinson’s DNA to blood and semen found on Perry and at the crime scene. Hutchinson had been convicted of an unrelated crime. Just to be sure, state police secured a warrant for another sample from Hutchinson. It also matched. Hutchinson was charged with murder.

Perry had been stabbed about 50 times in the body and head, Marchese said. One of those wounds cut an artery in her chest. There were “large amounts of blood.”

Police also found blood drops on Perry’s legs as well as a trail of them leading to the kitchen sink. The blood wasn’t Perry’s. It matched Hutchinson’s DNA. His blood also was found on a side door leading outside.

Hutchinson’s semen was found in Perry’s body, Marchese said. The blood and semen samples were a perfect match.

“He’s the only person in the entire world who could have left his DNA at Crystal Perry’s house,” Marchese said.

When interviewed by police, Hutchinson denied knowing Perry or having ever been at her home.

When asked about a scar on his hand, he said it came from a broken bottle.

Other than Hutchinson, the only witness to the crime was Perry’s then-12-year-old daughter, Sarah.

Daughter’s testimony

Sarah Perry, now 25 and living in North Carolina, testified Monday that she never saw her mother’s killer. She had gone to bed around 9 p.m., her mother retired shortly after, expecting no guests that night.

There had been no plan for Perry’s fiancé, Dennis Lorraine, 19, to come over that night, Sarah Perry said.

She half-awoke that night to an argument between her mother and what sounded like a man who had a voice she didn’t recognize. She wasn’t alarmed, she said. Her mother and Lorraine would occasionally have arguments. Sarah Perry said she fell back asleep.

She awoke again to her mother screaming: “‘No!'” repeatedly, she said. Sarah Perry yelled out once, then shut her door quietly and hid. She could hear a kitchen drawer open at great speed followed by the sound of knives sliding against each other, she said.

Next, she heard a repetitive thudding sound “with a liquid component to it,” she said.

An angry male voice was grunting repeatedly. In the background was the beeping sound a phone makes when it’s left off the hook, she said.

When it was finally silent in the living room, Sarah Perry said she opened her door and walked slowly down the hall. A clock read: 1 a.m. She saw a black pool in the dim light, knowing it was blood. Then she saw her mother’s body. She shrieked once: “‘Mommy!'” she testified.

She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, then stretched her leg and touched the ball of her foot to that of her mother “to make sure it is reality,” she said. She couldn’t bear to get closer.

She hung up the phone and went to her mother’s bedroom to try that phone. There was no dial tone, she said.

She ran out of the house into the night in bare feet, dressed only in her underwear and robe. She ran down the street to various neighbor’s homes, knocking on the door and shouting. Nobody answered, she said. A car drove by. She nearly flagged it down, but was afraid it might be the killer. Finally, the owners of an Italian restaurant answered her knocks and let her in, she said.

She was taken by ambulance to Bridgton Hospital. A state police officer told her that her mother was dead.

Sarah Perry said she had never heard of Hutchinson.

When cross examined by Andrews, she said she remembered smelling sex in her mother’s bedroom that night, it was a smell she associated with dirty bed sheets from an earlier time at a different home, before they moved to their ranch on Route 93 in Bridgton, she said.

Prosecutors are expected to continue presenting their case today.