AUGUSTA — Lawyers for a Benton man accused of stabbing a Fairfield man to death are asking the court to throw out key evidence because of what they say was an improper search by police.

The evidence in question, including a blood knife and clothing, was found in the search of a Dumpster at Riverside Terrace, a mobile home park where accused murderer Raheem Goodwin, 23, was staying with his girlfriend when police say he killed 62-year-old Edwin Meeks last year.

Raheem Goodwin

Attorney Jeremy Pratt argued in court Wednesday that evidence should be suppressed because police didn’t have a search warrant for the trash container.

Evidence found in the trash container, police said, included two knives, one of them stained with blood, as well as stained clothing and sneakers. Goodwin’s girlfriend told police she saw him bag up the clothing and leave, probably to throw the bag into the trash container, one of seven at the park for the use of tenants.

Goodwin is charged with the Nov. 28, 2023, murder of Weeks at the victim’s Fairfield home. An autopsy conducted by the state Office of Chief Medical Examiner found that Weeks died of “sharp force injuries,” according to an affidavit filed in court by a Maine State Police detective. The autopsy found multiple stab wounds on Weeks’ chest, side, back and neck.

It’s not clear if police believe the bloody knife found in the trash container was the murder weapon. Police said they recovered another bloody knife after Goodwin threw the knife and other items out of his car following a high-speed pursuit of him by police that ended in his arrest the day after the murder.

Pratt and Caitlyn Smith, both defense attorneys for Goodwin, argued that police did not have a search warrant for the trash container and, because the container is meant only for the use of residents of the park, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy related to the container. He said the search thus violated Goodwin’s constitutional rights.

“A warrantless search is inherently unreasonable, the state has the burden to show the search was reasonable,” Pratt said Wednesday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. “In this instance the state has failed to show it is reasonable under the state constitution.”

Prosecutor Kate Bozeman, an assistant attorney general, countered that Goodwin had no reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to the trash containers. They were used by the roughly 300 other residents of the mobile home park, she argued, and the containers were unlocked, open, not surrounded by a fence and more than 300 feet away from the mobile home where he was staying.

“We’re not talking about a household (trash can) where you might expect privacy, we’re talking about (a trash container) that is used by hundreds of different people, and that is relevant to a person’s expectation of privacy,” Bozeman said.

She noted police did have a search warrant for the mobile home in the park where Goodwin was staying with his girlfriend, Samantha Joy.

Joy told investigators Goodwin told her he killed Weeks “for his family” and because he thought he was a sex offender.

Weeks’ name does not appear in a search of Maine’s public online sex offender registry.

Joy and others told police Goodwin had assaulted Weeks before the killing. She said Goodwin and Weeks “have had sex,” for which she thought Weeks had paid Goodwin. Joy also told police Goodwin’s drug use made him paranoid and hear voices.

Goodwin pleaded not guilty to Weeks’ murder in February.

Cindy Clarke, property manager at Riverside Terrace who testified Wednesday, said tenants sign a lease which specifies they are to put their trash in any of seven trash containers. There is at least one sign stating the containers are for the use of tenants only and that violators — members of the general public who throw trash in them — will be prosecuted. She said the lids of most of the containers are usually open, and they are not locked.

State police Detective Cpl. James Moore testified that Joy, who is the mother of Goodwin’s child, told him Goodwin came home the night of Nov. 28, 2023, took off his clothes and was going to put them in their washing machine. Instead, she stopped him and told him to put them in a white trash bag. She said he put his clothes inside the bag then he went outside with the bag. He came back without it, she said, and he was gone long enough to have put the bag into the trash containers.

The day Weeks’ body was found, Goodwin was identified as a suspect. He was arrested following a police chase that ended in a crash and subsequent standoff on U.S. Route 2 in Canaan, according to the police affidavit.

During the standoff, police say, Goodwin threw a knife with blood on it off the side of the road. He also set a fire inside his vehicle.

A tentative trial date for the murder charge has been set for February 2025, according to court records.