BANGOR, Maine — A 20-year-old Orono man was charged Tuesday with murder in connection with the death of Nichole Cable, a 15-year-old girl from Glenburn. Police discovered a body they believe is Cable’s on Monday night in a wooded area of Old Town.
Kyle J. Dube was charged with intentional and knowing murder, police announced during a press conference at the former Superior Court building. Dube’s arrest came nine days after Cable was last seen alive on Mother’s Day evening. Hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement personnel had spent many of those days searching for the missing girl, combing the woods and fields for miles around Cable’s home.
Maine State Police Lt. Christopher Coleman said during Tuesday’s press conference, “I am not at liberty to go into details about what led to the arrest” of Dube, who has a minor criminal history.
Coleman would not say if Cable and Dube knew each other, but Tyler-Ann Harris, a friend of Cable’s from Old Town High School who was at the press conference, stated emotionally before a room filled with media that the two had been “hanging out” for the last 1½ to two months.
Information from “several different sources” led investigators to Gilman Falls in Old Town, located along Route 43, where a game warden and his dog located a female body about 9:30 p.m. Monday, said Coleman, who leads the major crime unit for northern Maine.
Dube was already in custody, having turned himself in at the Penobscot County Jail on Thursday to begin serving a 90-day sentence for a high-speed motorcycle chase and crash in June 2012, according to court records and jail officials.
His first court appearance on the murder charge is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday, which is when more details about the crime will be released in a court affidavit, Coleman said. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson is prosecuting the case.
Stephen Smith, a Bangor lawyer, confirmed Tuesday morning that he has been appointed to represent Dube.
The Maine State Police, Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office and Orono police were at the Dubes’ residence at 5 Maplewood Ave. on Wednesday, May 15, according to neighbors James and Deborah Bowie. The Maine State Police Mobile Crime Unit was there Sunday and Monday, they said.
Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said Sunday night that he didn’t have any information on why the crime lab was there, but the neighbors said the mother of that household told them that Cable had been there about a week earlier to visit and that she reported that to police.
Neighbors said Dube reportedly had been using his father’s black Ford Ranger for work purposes. The truck has been impounded, state police confirmed Tuesday.
Dube’s Facebook page shows he twice posted a flier about Nichole Cable being missing last week. On Monday, the day after Nichole went missing, he reportedly posted the following about a girlfriend who is not Cable:
“OK so I don’t with the droma. Let’s get this straight. I KYLE DUBE is and always will be with [my girlfriend]. We have had are up and downs but we have worked them out so stop talking to me if you are trying to flirt and guys you better stop hitting on [her] I get crazy when I’m pissed off and I’m about there.”
Early Tuesday morning, authorities were in the woods near the Stillwater River in Old Town at the site where a body believed to be Cable was found.
State police and other law enforcement personnel were gathered near the intersection of Routes 43 and 16 and were seen putting up yellow crime scene tape about 9:30 a.m. A state police spokesman confirmed the activity at the scene was related to the discovery of the body Monday night. A black minivan was seen entering the barricaded area and leaving minutes later.
Assistant Attorney General William Stokes said Tuesday afternoon that an autopsy on the female’s body was started but was not complete.
“I don’t expect to have any additional information until tomorrow,” said Stokes, who leads the criminal division in the Maine attorney general’s office.
Cable’s parents, who are divorced, were each told of the development by members of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police.
Jason Wiley, who is married to Cable’s mother, Kristine, answered the door at their house Tuesday morning and declined to comment until after speaking with the investigator. He and his wife later provided the Bangor Daily News with an interview.
Nichole Cable was last seen at her home on Spruce Lane on the evening of May 12, and her parents thought she was taken by someone using a false Facebook profile, according to the family’s Facebook page, Bring Nichole Cable Home.
“The fake Facebook [site] was real,” Cable’s friend Harris said Tuesday.
She said she believes that Dube created the fake Facebook page, but Harris added, “I don’t know why he would need to. She willingly would hang out with him before. I don’t know what else to think.”
Cable lived with Harris for a couple of weeks, at one point, and she spent the night at her house on the Friday before she went missing, Harris said.
“It’s been really hard. I’ve been really scared for her,” the Old Town High School sophomore said, adding that she is relieved that her friend is not suffering. “It’s been really hard to just wait and not know.”
Grief counseling was set up at Old Town High School for students, a school secretary said Tuesday morning.
Between 40 and 70 law enforcement officers had been working on the case, Troy Morton, deputy chief for the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, said Monday.
“Every officer can identify with the pain of a missing 15-year-old,” Sheriff Glenn Ross said at the beginning of the Tuesday press conference, as he thanked every law enforcement officer — local, state and federal — who assisted, and the members of the public who turned out in force on Sunday to search for the missing girl.
“It was unbelievable,” Ross said of the 500-plus turnout. “I know the family appreciates it and we appreciate it.”
The sheriff ended by saying the Penobscot County case had been deemed a homicide and therefore would be handled by the state police. Maine Warden Service Lt. Kevin Adam said four game wardens searched the area off Route 43 where the body was found.
Dube, who was enrolled at Eastern Maine Community College in the spring semester of 2012, was arrested last June after he led police on a chase that reached speeds of 150 mph from Orono to Howland on Interstate 95 before it ended with his motorcycle hitting a police cruiser at the town offramp.
The chase resulted in charges of eluding police officers, driving to endanger and criminal speeding.
Dube slowed enough, evading two partial roadblocks, to apparently avoid injury in the crash. He refused hospitalization by Penobscot Valley Hospital paramedics at the scene, state police said at that time.
Dube told state police Trooper Chris Hashey after the crash that he evaded the trooper because “he was scared and just basically didn’t want a ticket,” Hashey said.
Dube had received his motorcycle learner’s permit three days before that arrest, Hashey said.
Dube has a criminal record beyond the motorcycle incident.
He was a juvenile, 17 years old, when he was charged for carrying a loaded firearm or crossbow in a motor vehicle that resulted in a January 2011 conviction and $200 fine, according to court listings printed in the Bangor Daily News.
Dube also was convicted of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer and burglary of a motor vehicle in January 2012 and was sentenced to a $300 fine for both, the BDN archives state.
He also has another theft by unauthorized taking or transfer conviction from February 2012 that resulted in a $500 fine, according to a background check done by the BDN through the Maine State Bureau of Identification.
Dube was employed by Getchell Agency, a Bangor-based home health care agency, according to an attorney for the business.
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