SACO, Maine - A man charged with stabbing a woman to death at a Shaw's supermarket in Saco did not enter a plea this afternoon at his first court appearance. According to an affidavit filed with the York County Superior Court, Connor MacCalister targeted Wendy Boudreau in the parking lot of the supermarket, followed her into the ice cream aisle and slit her throat.
Judge John O'Neil Jr. ordered Connor MacCalister held without bail, as the case heads to a grand jury. MacCalister's hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m., was late getting underway. It wasn't until roughly 1:40 that sheriff's deputies led the defendant into the courtroom.
MacCalister stood in front of the bench to the left of Judge O'Neil, expressionless. Family members of Wendy Boudreau, the 59-year-old mother and grandmother he's accused of killing, huddled close to one another on benches on the right side of the courtroom.
Some wept, as Judge O'Neil ran through some initial questions: Did the defendant understand he's being charged with intentional or knowing murder? "Yes," answered Robert LeBrasseur, MacCalister's court-appointed defense attorney.
MacCalister did not enter a plea and was ordered held without bail. Later, outside the court house, reporters asked LeBrasseur about his client's state of mind. "I have no comment," he said.
LeBrasseur, though, was willing to discuss the state's request that Connor MacCalister undergo a mental evaluation to determine his competency to stand trial. Judge O'Neil granted the order requiring the psychiatric evaluation, over LeBrasseur's objection, but took the issue of determining MacCalister's fitness for trial off the table for now.
"What the order does is allow state forensics to evaluate Mr. MacCalister for mental health defenses, commonly known as the insanity defense," LeBrasseur said.
The results of that mental evaluation will be impounded, unless LeBrasseur ultimately decides to pursue a insanity defense on behalf of his client. Questions surrounding Connor MacCalister's mental health have been raised in the days since Wednesday afternoon's deadly attack.
MacCalister, who was born Tanisha Hopkins, is female-to-male transgender who has identified as male for more than 10 years, according to a Portland Press Herald interview with the suspect's brother.
According to the Biddeford Police, MacCalister once had an address at a group home in the city. Most recently, he lived at an Avesta housing complex in Saco for older adults with disabilities.
"We've had contact with Connor MacCalister over the past several years," says Saco Police Chief Brad Paul. But not the sort of contact, says Paul, that led law enforcement to believe that MaCalister was capable of such a gruesome crime.
"I can't go into the depth or detail of those contacts at this point in time," Paul said. "I believe that, as this process unfolds, more context will come out with respect to our contacts, or other agencies contacts, or contacts of the suspect with the relation to the overall system. I think all of that comes out. I think at this point it is still a part of the investigation."
A reading of the affidavit, charging MacCalister with Wendy Boudreau's murder, offers a hint at the role that mental illness may have played in the crime. Two people who confronted MacCalister moments after she allegedly slit Boudreau's throat asked him why he'd done it. "I'm off my meds and I didn't mean to do it," MacCalister allegedly told one witness. "She looked at me funny."