NORTH HAVEN (AP) – A North Haven woman identified in a court document as having a love affair with a man charged with murdering his older brother says the story about a romance between the two is completely false.

Eva Lilley, a 43-year-old registered nurse who lives on the Penobscot Bay island, said Enoch Petrucelly, 23, and his late brother Michael, 24, both of Palmyra, were like children to her and had grown up with her daughter.

Enoch Petrucelly is accused of using a knife concealed in a cane to stab his brother to death early Sunday morning while he was sleeping. According to an affidavit, he told police he was in love with Lilley and killed his brother because she was also romantically involved with him.

Lilley told the Bangor Daily News that there are several people who can testify that there is no basis for his claim of a love affair.

“There was never anything but a motherly relationship,” she said.

Lilley said she now believes the problem began about two years ago after she accidentally inhaled harmful fumes at a hospital and went into anaphylactic shock. After a lengthy hospital stay, Enoch Petrucelly helped care for her at her home during her convalescence. Petrucelly, known as Chuck, had injured his shoulder in a car accident and wasn’t able to work.

“Chuck’s mother and I decided that it would be a good idea to give him something to do, so my daughter and I paid him to stay with me, to help me so that I could come home and not have to be in a nursing home,” Lilley said.

“About four months into his caring for me, one night he told me, while he was holding up my head from vomiting so that I wouldn’t aspirate, that he was falling in love with me,” she said. “That next morning I put his things in the car and took him back home to his mother.”

Lilley’s ex-husband, Bruce Wiles, moved back in with her not long after that.

“We got back together for a year, and Chuck and Mike would come and visit us, but there was never any indication in all that time that this kid still had these feelings,” she said.

Lilley moved to North Haven four months ago to be near her daughter, Tiffany Wiles, 20.

Last Saturday the brothers took the ferry to the island and spent the night at the home of Tiffany Wiles and her fiance, where the killing took place.

Before the brothers arrived, Michael Petrucelly had called Lilley to tell her that his brother had threatened his life if he ever touched Lilley, she said, adding that it was her first inkling that Enoch Petrucelly still had feelings for her.

When the brothers arrived, Lilley said she told Enoch Petrucelly that she was mad that he had threatened his brother and that his idea of a romantic relationship with her was all in his mind.

Bruce Wiles said Enoch Petrucelly recently visited him at his home in Newburgh to tell him he was in love with Lilley.

“Chuck said he wanted to ask her out and take care of her, because he really loved her,” Wiles said. “I was blown away, and didn’t know what to say,” Wiles said.

Wiles said he hadn’t called his ex-wife right away because he knew she would be very angry with Petrucelly.

“I figured he’d call Eva and she’d set him straight, and that would be it,” he said.

Petrucelly is being held in the Knox County Jail pending the appointment of a permanent lawyer. At that point, the judge will decide on the state’s request that he undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

—

Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

AP-ES-08-14-08 1521EDT

Copy the Story Link