Brandon Libby, then 36, left, enters a Cumberland County Superior Courtroom for a hearing in February. Libby was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend in 2021. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

A Standish man accused of killing his girlfriend is headed to trial next week, and prosecutors plan to challenge his version of events with a reconstruction of the shooting.

Brandon Libby, 37, has been charged with murder in connection with the death of Amanda Brown, whom police found dead in their home in 2021.

Libby pleaded not guilty that fall. He rejected a plea offer from the Office of the Maine Attorney General in June, which would have capped his sentence at 42 years.

Police responded to a call on June 16, 2021, and forced their way into the couple’s Standish home, where they found Brown, 29, who had been shot in the stomach and killed.

Police found Libby barricaded in a home about 14 miles away in North Waterboro before convincing him to come out and talk. It wasn’t until after he was indicted by a grand jury in November 2021 that he was taken to the Cumberland County Jail, where he has spent three years waiting for trial.

Libby is scheduled for trial Dec. 4.

In excerpts of a police interview that prosecutors played in court during a pretrial hearing Tuesday, Libby could be heard saying that Brown pointed the gun at him first. He suggested that the gun went off after he tried pushing it out of her hand.

Larry Rose, a Maine State Police sergeant who said he reconstructed the shooting, said in court that he reviewed Brown’s autopsy report, police reports and videos of the home where Brown was found.

Gunshot markings on Brown’s clothing suggest that the gun was fired at extremely close range, with the muzzle against her shirt, Rose said.

An employee from the Maine State Police crime lab tried replicating those markings by firing guns at varying distances, Rose said, but it only worked when the gun was in close contact.

Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Liam Funte helped Rose determine the trajectory of the bullet, from its entry point in Brown’s stomach to where it stopped in her back, Rose said.

Rose even demonstrated for Superior Court Justice Thomas McKeon how he believes the gun was fired, using a small plastic blue gun on Maine State Police detective Justin Huntley, who stood in Brown’s place.

The sergeant said his theory was peer-reviewed. He also said the plastic gun was similar to the one used to shoot Brown.

Rose also demonstrated for McKeon what Libby said happened. But the officer said it would have been “difficult” for the gun to go off in the same way, according to Libby’s version.

“It doesn’t get to the angle that it needs to be,” Rose said, theatrically pretending to knock the gun from Huntley’s hand.

Libby attorney Matthew Crockett said in an email Tuesday that Libby’s legal team had no response to Rose’s testimony but “look(s) forward to presenting our defense next week.”

Libby’s lawyers previously opposed the state’s plans to show Rose’s reconstruction, but they withdrew that objection Tuesday.

Earlier this year, Libby tried to prevent the use of several statements he made to police while they were bringing him to a hospital, after he had been bitten by one of their K-9s in North Waterboro.

Although Libby’s statements were made before police read him his Miranda rights, Superior Justice MaryGay Kennedy agreed that the statements were fair game for the state because police told him repeatedly he didn’t have to talk with them.