SOUTH CHINA — A young man probably stabbed his future father-in-law at an alcohol-fueled Fourth of July gathering the week before he was set to marry the man’s daughter, police said.

Chief Deputy Ryan Reardon of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office said the office responded to a property on Fire Road 12 just before 10 p.m. Thursday, where authorities found 58-year-old Theodore Fullerton with an apparent stab wound under his right arm. The property is off Neck Road along China Lake.

The suspect, 24-year-old Timothy Curtis, of Baileyville, had fled the scene by the time deputies arrived and he hasn’t been charged with a crime, Reardon said Friday afternoon.

Reardon said the family had been celebrating the holiday at the home when “things got out of hand.” He said nobody there saw Curtis with a weapon, but Fullerton’s wound was consistent with a stabbing.

Fullerton refused medical treatment initially, but the size of the wound led authorities to take him to the hospital, Reardon said. Joy Leach, a spokeswoman for MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, said Friday that Fullerton had been treated and released.

He said Fullerton didn’t want to press charges and police aren’t sure how the events unfolded, because deputies “couldn’t get a consistent story from the four or five people they interviewed,” Reardon said, attributing that to witnesses’ heavy alcohol use.

Reardon said deputies were scheduled to visit the home Friday to interview witnesses. A phone number listed for Fullerton’s home was disconnected on Friday.

Court records archived by the Bangor Daily News show Curtis was fined for disorderly conduct in Calais District Court in 2007. Three years earlier, he was fined for possession of tobacco products by a minor.

Michael Shepherd — 621-5632
mshepherd@mainetoday.com


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