PORTLAND, Maine — According to Cumberland County District Attorney's office, a Windham man who claimed he was shooting at a home intruder will spend the next 40 years of his life in jail for the killing of his wife.
Kennebec County Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy sentenced Noah Gaston on Friday to 40 years in prison for murdering his wife, Alicia, in their Windham home in January 2016.
After a week of testimony at his retrial last November, jurors took three days to return the guilty verdict.
Gaston had long claimed he thought his 34-year-old wife was an intruder when he killed her on the morning of Jan. 14, 2016.
In closing arguments at the time, state prosecutors said there was sufficient evidence to support a murder conviction because Gaston did not check for his wife the morning of her death. They said it was typical for Alicia to be up early when her killing happened and that Noah would have known that.
Noah Gaston's defense argued he had heard a voice and "walkie-talkie" sounds indicating there was an intruder in his home, which gave him every reason to grab his shotgun and fire in self-defense. Family had testified that the couple had been fighting in the days before Alicia's death.
Gaston has been in custody at the Cumberland County Jail since his arrest in January 2016.
In February, a judge ordered a mistrial after Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mark Flomenbaum abruptly changed his forensic opinion concerning the gunshot wound's angle. That testimony was critical to both sides in terms of proving how close Gaston was to his wife at the time of the killing.
The defense lawyers argued that their trial preparations would have been different with the new information. Prosecutors said new testimony was not needed to prove their case.
Justice Michaela Murphy ruled the medical examiner's change in testimony was sufficient to grant the mistrial.