WATERVILLE — A man found unresponsive early Saturday at Appleton Apartments on Hathaway Street died Wednesday night at Maine Medical Center in Portland, where he was flown Saturday by LifeFlight helicopter.

“We do not have, and do not anticipate, receiving information about his cause of death,” Deputy Chief Charles Rumsey, of the Waterville police, said Friday. He said that because of the circumstances, the man’s name isn’t being released publicly.

Rumsey also said police don’t anticipate charges in relation to the man’s death “unless we receive additional information.”

Rumsey said Saturday that police were told at the scene the man may have suffered an overdose, but later information contradicted that.

The man, who is in his 40s and lives in the Waterville area, was taken by ambulance to MaineGeneral Medical Center’s Thayer Center for Health on North Street and then to the Portland hospital after he was reported unresponsive at 12:32 a.m. Saturday.

He apparently had been visiting another man who rents the apartment.

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The emergency call was the first in a tangled chain of events that led to the arrest of two women who had been in the apartment that night when emergency crews arrived and, police believe, returned later Saturday morning to steal drugs and money. The women took two knives from a butcher’s block and demanded drugs and money from a man who lives there, police said.

Laurie Philbrick, 41, of 24 Eastern Ave., was arrested Wednesday at her home and charged with class A felony robbery and class C felony criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon. She was taken to the Kennebec County jail in Augusta, where bail was set at $6,000.

Alison Thomas, 36, of 7 Hazelwood Ave., Apartment 3, was arrested Thursday morning at 7 King St. after police received a call at 12:55 a.m. about someone being in the caller’s basement. She was charged her with robbery and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.

Thomas and Philbrick are scheduled to appear April 25 in Kennebec County Superior Court.

The man who owns the apartment said Thomas and Philbrick held him at knifepoint Saturday morning while they searched the apartment for money and drugs, according to Rumsey. They did not find any, but took bags of clothes belonging to the man who was taken to the hospital, he said.

Rumsey said police suspect that there had been money and drugs in the Hathaway Street apartment as a result of illegal drug dealing and the women went there to try to steal them. Police are not releasing the identity of the renter who lives there.

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No further information on the case was available Friday.

This story has been updated to clarify the circumstances regarding the man’s death.

Amy Calder — 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @AmyCalder17

 


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