PARIS – The judge in the double murder trial of Duane Christopher Waterman ruled Friday that the defense cannot introduce a witness it believes is an alternate suspect, because the argument is based on “rank speculation.”

Justice Roland Cole made the ruling in Oxford County Superior Court after hearings to determine whether four witnesses could invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and whether there was sufficient evidence to introduce an alternate suspect.

The jury was not present for the deliberations.

Waterman, 33, is charged with the shooting deaths of 50-year-old Timothy Mayberry, 50, of West Paris and Todd Smith, 43, of Paris at Mayberry’s Tuelltown Road home on the evening of July 25, 2008.

Defense attorney John Jenness Jr. sought to introduce Dolores Paine, Smith’s ex-girlfriend, as a witness, saying there was evidence that she may have been involved in the killings. Jenness said Paine borrowed a vehicle on the evening of July 25 and her whereabouts were unknown at the time the men were shot to death.

Paine said she and Smith had remained friends after their breakup in May 2008. She pleaded the Fifth Amendment to Jenness’ questions of whether she borrowed a vehicle, shot the two men and returned the vehicle “spotless and clean.” She also pleaded the Fifth to whether she advised friends to say that she had been at another residence during the night and asked police if she was going to be arrested for the murders.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson said he believed Paine would testify that she had borrowed the vehicle to deal drugs on July 25, and that this was the reason she asked friends to lie about her whereabouts. Paine also pleaded the Fifth to Benson’s questions of whether she had been selling drugs on the evening of July 25.

Cole said there was no indication that Paine would know Smith would be at Mayberry’s or forensic evidence to implicate her in the crimes.

“There is nothing independently to tie Dolores Paine to the place of the killings,” Cole said. “It’s essentially speculation.”

Jenness said the decision removed the need to call four other defense witnesses in the matter, including Paine’s son and Bruce Dunlap, a Greenwood resident from whom Jenness said Paine borrowed a vehicle. The jury was dismissed without hearing any new witnesses on Friday after the hearings.

Jenness called five witnesses to the stand Friday morning.

He noted the decision by Waterman’s wife, Naomi, to file for divorce after starting a friendship in March with Shannon Francis, a West Paris resident and the nephew of Mayberry.

Francis said he had a “close friendship” with Naomi, but dismissed a suggestion that the two had tried to influence other witnesses against Duane as “totally absurd.”

Naomi Waterman testified Wednesday that her husband had visited her in the Oxford County Jail on July 26 and told her to tell investigators that she had sold a .380-caliber handgun the couple had purchased prior to the murders. She also said Duane had told her before the men’s bodies were discovered that Mayberry would be on the news that night.

Michelle Pelletier of Auburn said she was told by John E. Cox III of Woodstock at Mayberry’s funeral that Cox had loaned Mayberry $1,400 and that Mayberry had the money at the time of his death.

Cox testified on Tuesday that he loaned Mayberry $700 to $750 about a month before his murder. Cox said the loan was made after Mayberry asked Cox to file a false accident report on a May 2008 car accident but before the two got into a physical confrontation over the issue.

Tammy Craw, a clerk at the Big Apple in West Paris, said a customer tried unsuccessfully to pre-pay for gas with a check on the morning of July 26, 2008. Craw said she later identified the customer as Waterman from photographs, and said he had been “anxious and in a hurry.”

The trial will continue Monday, when the defense is expected to call its final witnesses, including Waterman and his 13-year-old son.