FARMINGTON — Police and relatives of Grace Burton renewed their pleas for information during an emotional briefing Tuesday in front of the apartment complex where the elderly woman was fatally attacked with a knife during a home invasion last week.

A resident of the Margaret Chase Smith Apartments on Fairbanks Road, Burton, 81, called 911 to report she had been attacked at about 1 a.m. She died of stab wounds about six hours later at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine State Police have said.

Burton’s daughter, Julie Shaw, made a passionate appeal Tuesday for information. She urged people to consider her family’s anguish and to offer support.

With about 18 family members and friends standing behind her, Shaw said they were “begging” for anyone with information to come forward.

“My family needs to know who did this to my mother — to our mother,” Shaw said. “If it were your family, you would want an answer, too.”

Shaw said her mother was suffering with bone cancer and believed she would die from that.

Burton had already prepared her own obituary and listed cancer as the cause of her death, Shaw told a group of newspaper and television reporters.

“Unfortunately, some person changed our mother’s obituary and took her life into his own hands and brutally killed her and snatched her away from all of us who loved her,” Shaw said.

As Shaw spoke, members of her family consoled each other, several shedding tears as they held and hugged one another.

The lead investigator on the homicide case, Maine State Police Lt. Brian McDonough, said evidence, including blood from the suspect found at the scene, was being analyzed and compared to state and national DNA databases.

Police have said they believe Burton’s assailant sustained cuts to his hands and fingers during the attack. They have previously asked people in the area to be on the lookout for a person with cuts or bandages on his hands.

Based on a description Burton provided before her death, police said they believe the attacker was of a slight build with a thin mustache.

McDonough said more than 200 people had been interviewed in the course of the police investigation. Seventy people have provided police with DNA samples, but so far the work of the state’s crime lab remained inconclusive.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done; there’s a lot of samples up there,” McDonough said. He said he couldn’t estimate how long it would take to complete the task. “There’s a lot of other physical evidence they are looking at as well.”

He said the case remained a priority for the lab and investigators were working as quickly as possible. “I think we will have a reasonable turnaround, but to put a date on it, I can’t,” McDonough said.

He did not clarify how police decided from whom to take DNA samples, but he indicated it could be key to solving the case.

“This case is going to be a process of elimination,” he said. “I think DNA is going to be one of the primary pieces of evidence there, so it’s very important that we get DNA from as many people who could be associated to this investigation as we can.”

McDonough said taking samples from those individuals who were interviewed by police didn’t mean they were involved more than anybody else. He said most of those interviewed cooperated fully with police.

Another recent home invasion in nearby Livermore Falls also concerned investigators. A woman was attacked in her home Monday morning, beaten with a pistol by two men wearing ski masks, police said.

McDonough did not say the cases were related, but police would look for “any nexus between the two cases.” 

“It’s not new news that Maine now has a significant (prescription) drug problem,” McDonough said. “And people are creating incredible crimes that never went on a decade ago before this drug problem came. Whether this is drug-related or not, I think that’s the reason for the increase in violent crime in Maine.”

Police conducted a roadblock early Tuesday morning in front of Burton’s apartment, which yielded several new leads, McDonough said. He said the roadblock was an attempt to contact people, such as cross-country truck drivers, who may have been passing through the area at the time of the attack.

“They don’t realize they may have seen something or have a bit of information that may be helpful until they return,” McDonough said.

He said investigators were determined to get answers and justice. “We are just going to stay in it and stay with it until we get this case solved.”

Shaw, Burton’s daughter, repeated the plea for more information.

“Somebody out there knows who did this,” she said. “We are asking anyone with information about this to do the right thing. Please come forward. Contact the police. Obviously, the person who committed this horrible act has no conscience if they could do this to an 81-year-old woman.”

People who may have information are being urged to call Maine State Police at 800-228-0857 or the Farmington police at 778-6311.

sthistle@sunjournal.com