WASHINGTON — Exactly what happened that June evening in 2005 probably never will be revealed fully. It could be that Brent Pitcher needlessly beat Steven Condon, or maybe Pitcher was just defending himself and his girlfriend from someone who had way too much to drink.

What is certain is that Steven Condon went into a state of unconsciousness that night from which he would never recover. His badly damaged brain had just enough function left to keep his heart pumping.

Additional Images

Pitcher

“He never regained consciousness from the beating,” his mother, Arlene Condon, said last week. “Nine-and-a-half years he fought.”

That fight ended for Steven Condon on Jan. 26, when he died with his family at his side at MaineGeneral Medical Center. He was 47. He leaves behind three grown children — two sons and a daughter — and a granddaughter.

“He’s not hurting no more,” Arlene Condon said. “He fought one heck of fight.”

Steven Condon died of pneumonia, one of several bouts he suffered since the attack; but the state medical examiner has listed his death as a homicide, which means it was caused by the actions of another person. Brent Pitcher, 37, who allegedly delivered the beating that eventually led to Condon’s death, was acquitted in 2007 of two counts of aggravated assault.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese, chief of the criminal division, said her office will not seek to charge Pitcher in connection with Condon’s death, but not because of double jeopardy, which prohibits a defendant from facing the same or similar charges after an acquittal.

“Technically speaking, the elements of manslaughter are different from aggravated assault,” Marchese said. “I’m not declining prosecution because of double jeopardy. I’m declining prosecution because no fact is different other than he died, and that alone is not going to change the outcome.”

Pitcher, who has a lengthy criminal record dating back to 1999, in 2009 was convicted of criminal restraint and two counts of aggravated assault for an attack on 20-year-old Gina Glidden, who is Steven Condon’s niece. Glidden, who was taken to the hospital by a LifeFlight helicopter, suffered numerous facial fractures.

Just a few months before that attack, Pitcher was convicted in Knox County of criminal threatening, terrorizing, reckless conduct, obstructing a report of a crime and drug possession. He was sentenced to 364 days in jail, with all but 90 days suspended, and a year of probation, according to court records.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Fernald said at the time that Glidden, who was the victim in several of those charges, was uncooperative in both investigations.

Pitcher was sentenced in November 2009 to eight years in prison, with all but five years and one day suspended, and three years of probation. He was released in October 2013, but his probation was revoked in October 2014 for multiple violations of conditions of release, including contact with Glidden.

Marchese said it’s unlikely Pitcher’s assault on Glidden would be admissible if the state decided to pursue a manslaughter charge in Steven Condon’s death.

“It’s very sad that he passed, but it doesn’t change anything from the criminal perspective,” Marchese said.

Arlene Condon, 65, said she is disappointed by the decision, but she hopes to gain satisfaction through other means. She is pursuing a wrongful-death civil suit against Pitcher. She also is trying to convince the Department of Health and Human Services to try to recoup the “millions” it spent in hospital and nursing care for Steven Condon over the past nine-plus years.

Arlene Condon said she will be watching Pitcher’s relatives, and those of the 11 other people at the party the night her son was injured, and will report to the police any illegal activity.

CONFUSING NIGHT

The three-pronged approach is rooted in Condon’s admitted desire to gain revenge for her son’s death. The trial was marked by reports of the Condon family’s threats against Pitcher and others who were present the night Steven Condon was beaten. Three Condon family members and four of their friends were found guilty in 2007 of trespassing charges after reportedly breaking into the home where Steven Condon was attacked and assaulting two people as they slept.

However, Arlene Condon said her desire for revenge will be meted out within the confines on the law.

“If the state of Maine cannot prosecute them, I will get each and every one them one at a time, legally,” Condon said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to (legally) avenge my son’s death in any way that I can.”

She reserves her greatest animosity for the man she deems most responsible: Brent Pitcher.

“I’d like to see him in the same condition Steven was,” Arlene Condon said. “Dead is too good. Let him suffer as much as that kid did. Let his parents go through what Maurice and I went through. I’ll do everything, legally, in my power, to get even.”

A four-day jury trial, during which several witnesses reportedly changed what they had told investigators, did little to clarify what had happened that led to Steven Condon’s eventual death. Everyone, even Arlene Condon, agrees that Steven Condon was at a gathering with about a dozen other people at a Washington house party on June 27, 2005. Pitcher, who was 25 at the time, and Glidden, his then-16-year-old girlfriend, were at the same party. Steven Condon was drinking and, according to witnesses, was very intoxicated. Witnesses said during the trial that Condon was known to get mean when drunk, but Arlene Condon still dismisses those claims.

“They all called Steven a drunk and trouble maker,” she said. “Steven did drink, but he never hurt anybody.”

Most of the people at the party that night knew each other, but the state called at least two witnesses, a pair of teenage girls, who had gone to the party with a friend and knew nobody there. One of those girls, who was 16 at the time, described a scene that included people drinking and smoking heavily, according to online archives available through Village Soup. The girl admitted she had lied initially to investigators about what she saw in an effort to keep the truth from her father.

The girl, who told investigators she had seen nothing, said during the trial that she and a friend were outside when they heard yelling inside the mobile home. She looked in and saw Steven Condon with his hands around Glidden’s throat, she said. Moments later, the girl said, she heard a loud thump, as if someone had fallen on the floor, and then several more thumps. The girl said Pitcher was on top of Condon.

Pitcher was pried off Condon by two other men before Pitcher, Glidden and another man left the home, the witness said. Glidden and Pitcher got into an argument during which Glidden reportedly hit Pitcher and yelled at him for hitting her uncle.

Sometime later, the witness said, there was more yelling from the living room, which she thought was Condon yelling at Pitcher. She said she heard more fighting and more thumps on the floor.

BADLY HURT

Pitcher, in a tape-recorded interview, said Condon was the aggressor the night of the party. Pitcher claimed Condon put his hand around Glidden’s neck when she tried to stop him from fighting. Pitcher said Condon swung at him when he tried to stop Condon from strangling Glidden. Pitcher said he punched Condon a few times, including some blows when Condon was on the ground. Condon was unconscious by the time he stopped hitting him and remained that way when Pitcher and Glidden left about 45 minutes later.

Witnesses also agreed that Condon was unconscious the next morning when his family came looking for him. They found him alone, lying on the floor, covered in his own feces and urine. They didn’t know at first how badly he was hurt.

“I saw him lying on the floor and just thought he was unconscious,” his sister, Jamie Condon, said shortly after the attack.

Condon’s family loaded him into a van and drove him to Arlene Condon’s home, where they called an ambulance. He was taken initially to Penobscot Bay Medical Center but subsequently flown to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where he spent roughly a year.

Arlene Condon is unsure how many hours Steven Condon lay unattended, his brain swelling from the injury. The Condons said people at the party knew Steven Condon couldn’t fight, or risk a blow to the head, because of an injury he had suffered in September 2004 while an inmate at the Somerset County Jail in Skowhegan. Condon jumped from a moving van while wearing handcuffs, leg shackles and a restraining belt during an ill-conceived escape attempt.

“Eleven other people stood there and watched that fight and never helped Steven in any way shape or manner,” Arlene Condon said.

‘EMPTY HOLE’

Steven Condon was the second of six children born to Arlene and Maurice Condon, who died in 2007 just a few months after Pitcher was acquitted. Steven Condon was a fixture around his mother, even working with her as a mechanic.

“It seems liked everywhere I worked, he was always there to help me,” Arlene Condon said. “He was my right arm. He was a mama’s boy.”

Steven Condon got pneumonia seven times during the last nine years of his life. Each time his mother wondered if it was the end.

“I’d go in and hold his hand and say, ‘Steve, you need to fight,'” Arlene Condon said. “‘I need you home.'”

Steven Condon spent the last years of life at MaineGeneral Rehabilitation & Long Term Care’s Gray Birch site in Augusta, but only after Arlene Condon twice tried to care for her son at home, going so far as to build an addition onto her house and enlisting the help of a couple of family members. Both times Steven Condon got sick and wound up back in the hospital.

“There was no way three people could take care of Steven 24/7,” Condon said. “He went back to Gray Birch and stayed right there.”

The family is unsure how much Steven Condon could process. His eyes were open, but his look was vacant. Still, there were signs of understanding, such as the tears that filled his eyes when Arlene Condon told her son that his father had died. Tears came, too, when he was told his brother-in-law and best friend, and his dog, had died.

“I think he heard me,” Arlene Condon said. “Tears would come into his eyes every time I would tell him something bad.”

Steven Condon was transferred to MaineGeneral on Jan. 24, but his blood pressure continued to drop. The doctor gave the family a couple of options — long shots, really — that might spare Steven a little while longer. Unsure about what to do, Arlene Condon talked to Amanda Condon, Steven Condon’s granddaughter.

“I said, ‘Amanda, what do you want to do?'” Arlene Condon replied. “She said, ‘Nana, he’s hurt long enough.'”

It would be a heart-rending decision for any mother, but Arlene Condon had grown accustomed to holding out hope for her son. Doctors said shortly after the attack that Steven Condon never would regain consciousness. Physicians left it to the family to decide whether to keep him attached to the machines that allowed him to eat and breathe. Arlene Condon never could bring herself to remove the tools her son needed to live. She never could rid herself of the hope that one day he would improve.

“I’ve been hoping and praying since the day it happened,” Arlene Condon said. “While he was alive, there was a warm body I could go hold and hug and say, ‘I love you, Steven. You have to keep fighting.’ Now he’s gone. There’s just an empty hole.”

Craig Crosby — 621-5642

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @CraigCrosby4

Related Stories