Police said the guns, reported stolen a day before, were found beneath insulation in the ceiling of the home.
By Mark LaFlamme
Staff writer

LEWISTON – A local man and woman were arrested in Waterville this week and charged in connection with a burglary involving a cache of guns.

Michael Fitzpatrick, 32, and Nichole P. Hallock, 20, both of Lewiston, were charged with seven counts of receiving stolen property. They were also charged with being felons in possession of weapons.

The arrests were made Monday after Waterville police raided a home in that city in search of guns reported stolen from a Gardiner residence a day before.

Police said the guns – shotguns, rifles and a handgun – were found stashed beneath insulation in the ceiling of the home.

The woman who lives in the Chaplin Street apartment, 30-year-old Kristine J. Lanphier, was also charged with receiving stolen property.

Among the weapons seized, police said, were a .44-caliber Magnum handgun and a Japanese .32-caliber rifle from the World War II era.

Waterville police Chief John E. Morris said Fitzpatrick was in the process of trying to sell the guns when he was arrested.

“I’m delighted to get these guns off the street because it’s clear to me that they were destined for illegal activity,” Morris said.

Just a week prior to the raid, Fitzpatrick had finished serving a five-year prison sentence for burglary convictions stemming from cases investigated by Lewiston police.

Investigators here learned about the Waterville bust later in the week. Police in Lewiston said they are familiar with Fitzpatrick from a string of burglaries and thefts committed in this city and surrounding areas.

According to court records, Fitzpatrick has served stretches of prison time on more than two dozen burglary-related convictions dating back to 1988 when he turned 18 years old.

Lewiston police investigators have said Fitzpatrick has been teaching other prison inmates how to commit burglaries during his stays behind bars.

Police here have arrested and convicted Fitzpatrick in a string of residential, business and church break-ins occurring over several years.

In 1999, blood found on the window of a church that had been burglarized matched that of samples taken from Fitzpatrick from earlier cases.

The window had sat in the state’s crime lab for four years before it was tested, according to detectives. That DNA match helped lead to the burglary indictment of Fitzpatrick.

“He was one of the first we ran with using the state DNA lab,” said Lewiston police Detective David Chick.

Fitzpatrick was being held Wednesday at the Kennebec County Jail in Augusta on $95,000 cash bail. The remaining suspects had been released by Wednesday night.

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com