RUMFORD – Two days after being released from a Rockport hospital, Wilfred T. Merrill Jr. of Rumford was arraigned on a charge of arson Monday in 11th District Court in Paris.
Judge Paul Cote set bail at $8,000 cash or $20,000 worth of real estate.
Merrill, 42, was released from Penobscot Bay Medical Center on Saturday and turned himself in that afternoon at the Rumford police station where he was arrested on a charge of arson. He is accused of setting fire to his apartment March 5.
“The problem here is two-fold,” Cote told the court. “This is a Class A felony. This is a very serious crime this is alleged.” And, he added, the defendant has a history of significant assault.
Rumford police Lt. George Cayer said Merrill had been convicted of six assault charges since 1984. In 1985, he received a three-year sentence, with two years suspended, for stabbing two people at Weston’s bar in Mexico. In 2002, he was convicted of attacking a man in a wheelchair. Merrill was also convicted of assault in 1984, and again in 1992, along with a conviction of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.
Merrill is charged with igniting electronic equipment and a living room chair in his apartment at 323 Cumberland St. in Rumford, Cayer said. Neighboring tenants and firefighters extinguished the blaze, but not before it damaged the floor, window and part of the ceiling.
Inside the apartment, Merrill, who was intoxicated at the time, kept police away from him with a long hunting knife resting within arm’s length. He told police he had set his home on fire to get their attention and asked repeatedly for someone to shoot him, according to a report. When he was momentarily distracted as he looked for his cat, police pinned him down and handcuffed him.
Merrill was unhurt but “despondent and suicidal,” Cayer said.
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