AUGUSTA — Raymond Bellavance confessed several times to setting the fire that destroyed the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, a woman who described herself as a former girlfriend testified in court Tuesday.
Betty Adams
Betty Adams is a general assignment reporter who’s lived in Augusta for the past 35 years and been working for the Kennebec Journal for more than two decades. She covers the courts plus the towns of Belgrade, Fayette and Readfield.
As adjunct instructor Elizabeth Adams, she teaches writing courses, including journalism, at the University of Maine at Augusta.
In her spare time, when she’s not playing with the grandchildren, bicycling on the rail trail, snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, she likes to travel both in the United States and abroad via cruise ship and occasionally on the back of a motorcycle.
She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and earned a master’s of journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
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Woman says she drove man accused of arson
AUGUSTA — A woman who allegedly drove a man accused of arson and his gas can to the fire scene and has received immunity from prosecution testified Monday on the third day of Raymond Bellavance Jr.’s trial in Kennebec County Superior Court.
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Woman testifies she drove suspect
AUGUSTA — A woman who allegedly drove an accused arsonist and his gas can to the fire scene and has received immunity from prosecution testified Monday on the third day of Raymond Bellavance Jr.’s trial in Kennebec County Superior Court.
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Crane towers over central Maine
AUGUSTA — It’s a monolith that rises 5 feet taller than the torch of the Statue of Liberty.
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Hospital crane hard to miss
AUGUSTA — It’s a monolith that rises 5 feet taller than the torch of the Statue of Liberty. The newest crane on the site of the new regional hospital being built by MaineGeneral Medical Center is 310 feet tall and will be used to place 4,000 tons of steel to form the structure of the 192-bed hospital.
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Missing money back; Winthrop employee quits
WINTHROP — A longtime deputy clerk in town has resigned in the wake of an investigation into $12,000 in missing town money. It was unclear Friday whether the clerk will face any criminal charges.
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Witnesses in Bellavance trial speak of coffee shop threat, abuse, prostitution
AUGUSTA — Raymond Bellavance Jr.’s estranged wife testified Thursday she was one of the first people to tell police that Bellavance had threatened to burn down the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop.
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Estranged wife says Bellavance threatened to burn down shop
AUGUSTA — Raymond Bellavance Jr.’s estranged wife testified Thursday she was one of the first people to tell police that Bellavance had threatened to burn down the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop.
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Higgins pleads guilty to embezzling
AUGUSTA — A former administrative assistant for the Maine Trial Lawyers Association admitted Wednesday to embezzling $166,000 from the group, and a prosecutor said much of it was spent on online social networking games.
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Topless coffee shop arson trial under way
AUGUSTA — A faded red, partially blackened 5-gallon gasoline container was one of the dozens of items — mostly photographs — admitted as evidence Wednesday in the trial of Bellavance, 50, of Winthrop, who is charged with two counts of arson in the June 23, 2009, blaze that leveled the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop on Route 3 in Vassalboro.