Defense attorneys for a teenager accused of killing his father in March in his Troy home are preparing for a hearing on whether the 16-year-old should be tried as an adult.
Colby Hodgdon, 16, is accused of stabbing his father, Steven Hodgdon, 49, to death the night of March 6 in his Rutland Road home in Troy. The teen was arrested in Lewiston in early April and charged with the murder. His only appearance in open court was on April 3 in Waldo District Court in Belfast. Hodgdon did not enter a plea at the time and the case was sealed by a judge’s order.
John Martin, a Skowhegan defense attorney representing Hodgdon, said Wednesday that he and co-counsel Aaron Fethke are reviewing the results of a recently completed competence evaluation to determine whether they want to argue that Hodgdon is unfit to stand trial.
“We would have the opportunity at this point to argue that Colby is not competent, but we haven’t determined that yet,” Martin said. He would not discuss the results of the evaluation, but he said there is a lot of material to go through.
“Colby is 16 at this point. There was always issues of competency in juveniles,” he said.
The Office of the Maine Attorney General, which is prosecuting the case, filed a motion several months ago to have Hodgdon tried as an adult, Martin said, and the defense objected to the motion.
A date for a hearing on the motion hasn’t been set, Martin said, but he expected the hearing to be held sometime early next year.
The attorney general’s office on Thursday declined to answer emailed questions, including some about whether it had filed a motion to bind the case over, why the state wanted to prosecute Hodgdon as an adult and whether Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea still was prosecuting the case.
“We have no comment,” spokesman Timothy Feeley said in an email reply.
According to Martin, Hodgdon has been held in custody since his arrest and court appearance in April. At that hearing, the defense and prosecution agreed Hodgdon would remain in custody until a review of his status was requested by the defense or a community corrections officer. The case remains sealed from the public.
Steven Hodgdon was found dead early in the morning of March 7 in his home at 188 Rutland Road.
In interviews in April with the Morning Sentinel, family members said Colby Hodgdon had lived with his mother in California and Lewiston but moved in with Steven Hodgdon a few weeks before Steven Hodgdon’s death.
Colby Hodgdon was transferred back to the Lewiston school district after his father’s death and was arrested on April 1 in Lewiston.
His brother Stevie Hodgdon and others said they didn’t know what could have led to Steven Hodgdon’s violent death. The elder Hodgdon has been remembered as a hard worker who struggled with alcohol and had a number of criminal convictions.
Peter McGuire — 861-9239
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