SOUTH PARIS — Witnesses said a fatal stabbing earlier this week involving two Connecticut men who appeared to have been fair workers at the Fryeburg Fairgrounds on Main Street, began as a fight involving a third man, according to police.
Carlos Negron Oxford County Sheriff’s Office photo
At Negron’s initial court appearance Friday in Portland, a judge ordered him held without bail.
Negron was at the Oxford County Jail in Paris on Friday night, a corrections officer said.
According to an affidavit written by Maine State Police Detective Michael Chavez, Gomes had been upset early Wednesday morning that he hadn’t gotten a ride back to Connecticut with fair workers.
Gomes, who apparently had been drinking, had become belligerent, witnesses told investigators.
According to Chavez’s affidavit, a witness said she heard Gomes had punched a man in the face. The witness said she then saw Gomes on top of the man. After someone pulled Gomes off the man, he continued to behave in a belligerent and confrontational manner when Negron came from behind a trailer and appeared to punch Gomes, the witness said.
A witness heard Negron tell Gomes: “Don’t f— with my family,” according to the affidavit.
That same witness then heard Gomes’ girlfriend yell that he had been stabbed. Gomes, “continued to walk around in a belligerent, argumentative manner,” then sat down on the steps of a camper, the witness told investigators, Chavez wrote.
Police were called to the scene about 1:30 a.m.
The witness walked Negron away from the scene to a different trailer. The witness told investigators she believed Negron had appeared from the direction of the bunkhouse trailer because of the path he seemed to take to arrive at the crime scene, which was near the restroom facilities, according to the affidavit.
The witness told police Negron was known to carry knives. She said she’d heard Gomes had been unhappy that his girlfriend had been flirting with Negron, Chavez wrote.
Negron told investigators he and Gomes had been drinking Tuesday night and had gone to the store to get more alcohol and food. They continued drinking by the trailers parked in the Fairgrounds with Gomes’ girlfriend, according to the affidavit.
Gomes had told Negron a week earlier that he should have sex with Gomes’ girlfriend. Negron said he wasn’t attracted to her.
Negron said that early Wednesday morning, Gomes had left the area where they had been sitting, then came back with “an attitude.” Negron said the two started pushing each other, then Gomes threw a punch that missed Negron, who in turn took a swing at Gomes, but not making contact.
Negron told investigators “he does not remember stabbing Andy and that it was a blur.”
Negron said he heard a woman yell something like: “He stabbed him. Call 911!” and “that he should not have been carrying a knife,” Chavez wrote.
Negron described the knife as black, “with a blade that comes out when you push a button.” He said he kept it inside a black pouch clipped to his pants. Negron told investigators he left the scene of the fight and threw the knife into a field.
Police later located the knife that was in the possession of two men who had not been involved in the altercation, Chavez wrote in the affidavit.
The office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of Gomes’ death was due to multiple sharp force wounds and ruled his death a homicide.
Chavez said he attended the autopsy and saw stab wounds on Gomes’ left chest and right shoulder. He also saw signs of a fight that included contusions of both ears, abrasions and contusions around the left eye and abrasions on the lower lip.
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