Trevor Averill of Buckfield embraces Michelle Levesque, the mother of their daughter Harper Grace Averill, the 2-month-old who died in a shaking incident in 2020. Averill was convicted in January of manslaughter in Harper’s death, and was sentenced Friday in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn to 23 years in prison with all but 18 years suspended. Sun Journal/Joe Charpentier

AUBURN — Emotions ran high leading up to the Friday sentencing of a Buckfield man convicted for the 2020 manslaughter of his infant daughter.

“She had such a big smile and beautiful big eyes, our hearts just melted for the first time we saw her,” said Harper Grace Averill’s maternal grandparents, Sheila and James Doughty.

The Doughtys were the only people to provide a victim impact statement on the side of the prosecution before Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Jennifer Archer sentenced Trevor Averill to 23 years in prison following his January guilty verdict.

He will serve 18 years of that sentence followed by six years of probation.

The 31-year-old Buckfield man faced up to 30 years in prison. He was found not guilty on a second charge of depraved indifference murder, which carries a potential sentence of life in prison.

The trial, which began Jan. 21, saw several medical expert witnesses presented by prosecutors, Assistant Attorneys General Suzanne Russell and Lisa Bogue, and Averill’s defense attorneys James Howaniec and Verne Paradie.

State witnesses testified that the infant died of “non-accidental trauma” stemming from a skull fracture and spinal hemorrhage caused by severe back and forth shaking.

“Harper Grace Averill was born April 30, 2020. In her short life, she was loved by all who mattered,” Bogue said. “She died a violent death at the hands of a person she relied upon for her care and for her safety. No doubt about it, we are here today because Trevor Averill is guilty of killing his daughter.”

Averill’s guilty verdict was a disturbing one, Howaniec said after the trial concluded, claiming prosecutors failed to provide evidence that his client caused the death of his infant.

The defense argued during the trial that the infant’s injuries could have resulted from a dropping incident about a month prior to the late evening of July 21, 2020, when her parents called 911 after she stopped breathing.

Trevor Averill’s grandmother, mother and lifelong friend provided statements maintaining his status as an upstanding citizen, loving family member and loving father.

Michelle Levesque, Harper’s mother, also provided a statement in support of Averill. Levesque spoke to the tribulations of coping with the death of her daughter and the support she and Averill still maintain for one another.

“Grief has become our new constant companion,” Levesque said. “People who have never experienced the loss of their child can’t begin to comprehend how different life feels — how unfair and harsh it can be. The void Harper left in our hearts cannot be filled.”

Levesque spoke about Averill as a father, describing him as “attentive, providing, and protective from the moment Harper was born.” She pleaded with the judge for leniency, offering that Averill is no harm to society and has been compliant and trustworthy in the five years of bail conditions, which kept him away from his youngest loved ones.

“We just want the time to properly grieve our child, which we feel we haven’t been able to do,” Levesque said.

Trevor Averill, 31, of Buckfield is taken into custody Friday in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn after being sentenced for the shaking death of his 2-month-old daughter Harper Grace Averill in 2020. Sun Journal/Joe Charpentier

After the sentencing, Howaniec characterized Averill’s 18-year sentence as a “grotesque miscarriage of justice.”

“We think this is a shocking sentence, we think this is a sentence beyond any norms of appropriateness,” he said. “It’s very tenuous evidence and it’s very disturbing verdict and it’s a disturbing sentence.”

Howaniec and Paradie said they will appeal both Averill’s conviction and sentencing, bringing the case forward to Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court and beyond if necessary.

For the Doughtys, no amount of justice could give back to them the time they lost with their first and only granddaughter.

“We live in a world where a clock measures time, but for Sheila and I, our time with Harper was only in our hearts and memories,” James Doughty said. “Her time on this earth would have been measured by a stopwatch, so in our eyes, that is no amount of time.”