FARMINGTON — A former Wilton man accused of killing his grandmother at a mobile home they shared on Weld Road in Wilton is still awaiting trial at Franklin County Detention Center.
Dana Craney, 23, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 30 to a charge of murder resulting in the death of Joanne Goudreau, 67. He was indicted by a grand jury on Jan. 23 on a charge of intentional or knowing murder. Craney has been held without bail at the jail since his arrest on Dec. 21, 2014.
A conviction on the murder charge carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Craney is accused of bludgeoning Goudreau to death with a hammer while she slept on Dec. 20, 2014, dragging her body into the backyard behind a mobile home and covering it with plywood and bags of trash, police said.
The state medical examiner concluded that Goudreau’s death was caused by skull fractures and lacerations of the brain from blunt force trauma, according to a police affidavit filed with the court.
In January, Justice William Stokes ordered Craney to be committed to Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta for observation and evaluation. Any report issued was to be impounded, Stokes previously said.
“Dana was at Riverview getting some treatment for a few months but is back in the Franklin County jail,” Craney’s attorney Walter “Woody” Hanstein said Friday.
In January, Hanstein said that Craney was having some significant psychological issues at the jail. Jail personnel contacted Hanstein and asked if he could get Craney into Riverview for evaluation, Hanstein said. This evaluation order, as well as the first order, are to investigate Craney’s possible psychological issues, he had said.
Attorney Thomas J. Carey is assisting Hanstein on the case.
“Right now, we are still on track for a trial, probably late in the spring,” Hanstein said.
“The judge tentatively (and) provisionally set a trial date in June,” said John Alsop, assistant attorney general, who is prosecuting the case with lead counsel Assistant Attorney General Deborah Cashman.
Justice Robert Mullen is handling the case.
The mobile home where Craney is accused of killing his grandmother was disposed of and the land was sold earlier this year.
dperry@sunmediagroup.net
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