PARIS — Police have charged a local woman with trespassing on a neighbor’s land after they say she ignored warnings not to return, stemming from a hunting incident a decade ago where her brother shot and killed the man’s daughter. 

Kimberly Bean, 47, has been issued a summons for trespassing, a Class E misdemeanor crime punishable by six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, after police said she left her family’s property and entered neighbor Troy Ripley’s land.

On June 12, Bean, who was told not to return after her involvement in a dispute over no-trespassing signs posted on Ripley’s land last November, walked from her parents’ home at 292 Christian Ridge Road onto a private roadway belonging to Ripley, according to a police report.

Bean told police that she was concerned cameras attached to neighbor Joshua Labonte’s house were pointed at her family’s home and that’d she’d entered Ripley’s land to document them.

Labonte confronted Bean and told Ripley of the incident, who reported it to police. She was summonsed on July 19. 

Oxford County Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor confirmed his office had received the summons, which is pending review.  

Kimberly Bean is the sister of Timothy Bean, who in 2006 shot and killed 18-year-old Megan Ripley, Troy Ripley’s daughter, as she was outside playing with her brother. Bean said he thought he saw a deer when he pulled the trigger. He was later sentenced to 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter. 

Since her death, tensions have simmered between the Bean and Ripley families, who live within sight of each other along otherwise idyllic Christian Ridge Road.

Last November, the Maine Warden Service arrested Andrew Bean on a charge of operating under the influence as he tried to join his brother, Stephen Bean, at a camper for a hunting trip. 

After an investigation, game wardens, who had been monitoring Ripley’s land after receiving complaints about trespassing, later charged Stephen and Andrew Bean with possessing firearms as felons.

David Foster of Paris was also charged with being a felon with a firearm.

The day after Andrew was arrested, relatives were accused of removing no trespassing signs posted along Ripley’s property. Ripley took photographs and notified police, who ordered they be reattached.

Kimberly Bean was among those warned not to return, Ripley said. The Paris Police Department did not immediately return a call asking for confirmation. 

In 2014, Ripley told Paris’ Code Enforcement Officer Fred Collins Jr. the Bean brothers had removed posted signs, entered his land and defecated on the property. That prompted Collins to enforce health and sanitation codes, who demanded the brothers cease using an outdoor latrine created along the edge of Ripley’s land. 

The Bean brothers and Foster have since pleaded guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court earlier this year and are scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 17. All face similar charges in Oxford County Superior Court. 

The incident has prompted officials to consider ways to make it tougher for felons to apply for firearms hunting licenses and review state statutes, which unlike their federal counterpart, do not make it a crime to furnish a felon with a firearm. 

Kimberly Bean, who does not have a felony record, is scheduled to appear in Oxford County Unified Court in September. 

ccrosby@sunjournal.com

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