PARIS – A grand jury has indicted a 23-year-old man in the bludgeoning and strangulation death of a Raymond landscaper in February.

Agostino Samson, of River Road in Windham and formerly of Bethel, faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the murder charge.

He was arrested 12 days after the body of 25-year-old Scott Libby was found in Libby’s car, which had been parked on the railroad tracks in Bethel and struck by a train in the early morning hours of Feb. 20.

Dr. Marguerite DeWitt, deputy chief medical examiner for the state, determined that Libby’s injuries were inconsistent with those the train would have caused.

Libby may have been beaten with a cast-iron frying pan and strangled with a belt, according to an affidavit filed by Maine State Police Det. Herbert Leighton.

Libby and Samson had known each other for about seven years prior to Libby’s death, and Samson had worked for Libby’s landscaping business in the summer of 2008.

Samson had been working as a cook at the Matterhorn Ski Bar in Newry and staying at the Bethel Hostel on Route 2. Libby met with Samson at the Hostel on Feb. 19 to collect $400 he had loaned Samson during the summer and return a watch and bracelet he had taken from Samson as collateral, Leighton stated.

Samson told police that the exchange happened without incident, and that Libby left the hostel promising to speak to Samson about rehiring him for landscaping work this summer. He later changed his story to say he punched Libby in the face twice after Libby made sexual advances toward him.

Libby was found in his 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt, which was hit from behind by a slow-moving freight train shortly before 3 a.m. on Feb. 20. The car had been driven onto the tracks and was about 200 feet west of the Barker Road crossing, which is less than a mile from the hostel where Samson lived.

Police found the interior and exterior of the car covered with blood. They also discovered the broken handle of a cast-iron frying pan inside the car. The pan was consistent with two that were missing from the Hostel, and blood on the handle matched Libby’s DNA profile, the affidavit said.

Police also discovered apparent bloodstains on the outside doorknobs of the two main entrances to the hostel. Several of Libby’s business cards, as well as bloodstain patterns, were found about a quarter-mile south of the hostel on Westwood Road, investigators said.

Samson was an honor student at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris, and graduated from there in 2004. He has a conviction for the sale and use of drug paraphernalia in 2007.

Libby graduated from Windham High School in 2001 and Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., in 2005. He was the owner of Libby’s Landscaping and Greenhouse, and also worked for H&R Block in Windham.

Samson is being held at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn following his transfer from the Oxford County Jail after a confrontation with other inmates in late March. Samson was briefly hospitalized after that fight with other inmates in a maximum-security block at the Oxford County Jail, and had been involved in two prior fights.