NORTH HAVEN (AP) – A 23-year-old Palmyra man used a cane sword to fatally stab his older brother while he was asleep because he thought he was involved with a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship, according to court documents.
Enoch Petrucelly entered no plea Tuesday while making made his first court appearance in Knox County Superior Court. He is charged with murder in the death of his brother, Michael Petrucelly, 24.
The two brothers lived together in Palmyra and traveled by ferry to North Haven on Saturday to visit friends and attend a festival, according to a Maine State Police affidavit released Tuesday. The Penobscot Bay island is located about 10 miles from Rockland.
Enoch Petrucelly told Detective Adam Kelley that he was romantically involved with a woman and had told his brother on the ferry that he’d kill him if he touched her “in that way,” the affidavit says.
The woman, Eva Lilley, 43, of Bangor, told police that Michael Petrucelly called her while riding the ferry and said his brother had threatened to kill him because he thought Lilley and he were romantically involved. Lilley later told detectives that Enoch was in love with her.
On Saturday night, the brothers slept on separate beds at a house on Crabtree Point Road where Lilley’s 20-year-old daughter lived. Enoch Petrucelly told Kelley that he awoke early Sunday morning and got a “gentleman’s-style cane sword” that was in the room and can be taken apart to expose a sharp blade.
“Enoch approached his sleeping brother and stabbed him three times with the weapon, each time in the heart or as close as he could come to it,” the affidavit reads. “Michael made groaning sounds and then died.”
When Knox County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Potter arrived at the home shortly before 7 a.m. Sunday, he saw Lilley pushing Enoch Petrucelly out a door while stating something to the effect of “get him out of here, he killed his…brother, get him out of here.”
At Tuesday’s court hearing, prosecutors requested that Petrocelly undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Justice William Anderson did not make a decision on the request because Petrucelly does not have a permanent lawyer, according to Deputy Attorney General William Stokes.
Petrucelly is being held without bail at the Knox County Jail.
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