FARMINGTON — Juan Contreras admitted to killing 81-year-old Grace Burton in her Farmington apartment last year, according to a recorded police interview played on the second day of his murder trial in Franklin County Superior Court.

“I did it. I don’t know how or why,” he told Maine State Police detectives Abbe Chabot and Randall Keaton. He said he was angry that night, June 21, 2011, when he cut the screen on Burton’s bedroom window at Margaret Chase Smith Apartments at 195 Fairbanks Road. 

Burton, who lived alone, awoke in her living room recliner as she was being stabbed, according to police. She was able to describe her attacker to police.

Burton died later that day at a Lewiston hospital. The cause of death was loss of blood and oxygen from 35 stab wounds, according to an autopsy report.

“You killed Grace,” Chabot said to Contreras.

“Yeah,” Contreras, 28, responded.

“I can’t remember why. I can’t sleep. I don’t know what happened, something happened. I still don’t think it’s real,” he told police when they interviewed him after his arrest in Massachusetts on Nov. 17.

Police interviews and hundreds of DNA samples led police to Contreras, who first told police he was not in Maine in June 2011, did not know Burton and did not kill her. He agreed to give police a swab for DNA testing, and his DNA matched that from blood at the scene of the murder, according to investigators.

Contreras was living with his wife, Amanda Pressey Contreras, about two-tenths of a mile from Burton’s apartment in June 2011, and moved to Massachusetts about a month later.

Amanda Contreras, who later divorced him, told police he was intoxicated when he came home the night of the murder. On a scale of one to 10, she said his level of intoxication was a nine, according to defense attorney David Sanders.

Chabot said Contreras provided many explanations about why he entered Burton’s home, including a psychotic break, uncontrolled anger, mounting stress and the need for a place to rest.

“There was no clear consistent reason,” she said.

According to the police interview, he said he didn’t go in to rape her and he didn’t know if it was for money or to take anything from her. Chabot said he passed by her medications, a locked box and her purse, all in plain view.

Sanders questioned Chabot about her most consistent question during the interview: why he did it.

He said Contreras told her 22 times he didn’t know why he was there.

The defense said in its opening statement to Justice Michaela Murphy, who is hearing the case, that it’s a case of involuntary intoxication. It asserts Contreras smoked marijuana that he didn’t know was laced with bath salts before he went to Burton’s apartment at 1 a.m. and stabbed her.

Chabot said Contreras also told police he went there to sleep and Burton met him in the bedroom, and he didn’t strike her until she hit him.

Chabot said Burton didn’t get up from her recliner in the living room.

Prior to Chabot’s testimony, Sanders called Contreras’ mother and her husband, Gilma and Lawrence Boyd, to the witness stand. They said they were surprised when they learned he’d been charged with murder, because it was out of character.

“Juan was good, respectful, polite. He had a temper but it went away fast. He was not violent,” Gilma Boyd said.

She said loved her daughter-in-law, Amanda Pressey Contreras, but knew that Juan was unhappy living in Farmington, couldn’t find work and was very stressed.

When he left his marriage and returned to Massachusetts, he was acting normal, she said.

Her husband and his sister, Michelle Riley, also told the court they couldn’t imagine Juan killing Burton.

Boyd described him as a nice kid, friendly, polite, a little immature for his age but not violent.

“He’s a follower, timid, not a person to look for trouble. He’d back away from a fight,” Boyd said.

Boyd said he was surprised when Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese told him about a couple of Facebook entries in October 2011 where Contreras talked of being angry and wanting to kill someone.

Although Contreras said he was in four automobile accidents that left him with headaches and a hazy memory, a fragmented brain and a sleep disorder, his family said he only complained to them of his poor teeth and occasional headaches.

abryant@sunjournal.com

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