AUGUSTA – The circumstances surrounding the death of a Glenburn teenager who was abducted last month became a little clearer Thursday after the state medical examiner released the girl’s cause of death.

Dr. Margaret Greenwald said 15-year-old Nichole Cable was asphyxiated. Greenwald did not describe exactly how Cable’s killer cut off her breathing, and a news release issued by the state was vague.

Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, quoted Greenwald as saying Cable died from “asphyxia due to compression of the neck.” Greenwald, who issued the statement after consulting with the Maine State Police crime lab, could not be reached for comment.

Compression of the neck does not necessarily mean Cable was strangled by someone else’s hands.

She could have died from someone putting pressure on her neck using an object or a body part such as an arm, hand or leg.

“Those are her words, and the medical examiner chose her words very carefully,” said William Stokes, chief of criminal investigations for the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

Stokes said his office was informed that Greenwald was not going to speculate on exactly how Cable was asphyxiated. But the manner in which Cable was killed will surely become a topic at the criminal trial, Stokes said.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson has been assigned to prosecute the case. A grand jury indicted 20-year-old Kyle Dube of Orono on kidnapping and murder charges in Cable’s death.

Stokes said Dube, who is being held at the Penobscot County Jail without bail, probably won’t go to trial until sometime next year.

A state police affidavit filed in court by Detective Thomas D. Pickering alleges that Dube put on a facemask and intended to kidnap Cable, bind her with duct tape and hide her, then find her later and be hailed as a hero.

Cable was last seen May 12. Dube is accused of using a fake Facebook profile to lure Cable out of her Glenburn home by posing as another man and offering her marijuana.

Cable left the house to meet the man she communicated with on Facebook but it turned out to be Dube, according to investigators.

According to the affidavit, Dube told state police that he duct-taped Cable’s mouth and put her in the back of his pickup truck. When he went to get her out of the truck, she was dead.

Cable knew Dube before the abduction.

The police affidavit says Cable, in a text message, told her boyfriend that Dube groped her on May 11. She tried to push Dube away but when he wouldn’t stop, she bit him.

Cable’s remains were found eight days after she disappeared in a wooded area of Old Town.

If convicted of murder, Dube faces 25 years to life in prison.

Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com