A 77-year-old murderer — back on the streets because he was deemed too old to kill again — was convicted this week of fatally stabbing a Maine woman while her twin children watched.
It took less than an hour for jurors in Auburn to find Albert Flick guilty of murdering Kimberly Dobbie, 48, outside a Lewiston laundromat on July 15, 2018.
Her twin 11-year-old sons were nearby and security cameras captured the moments they ran to their mother as she was being killed.
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"I'm glad the verdict is done and over and I'm glad he'll never be able to walk the streets again," Dobbie's friend James Lipps told reporters outside the court Wednesday.
Assistant Attorney General Bud Ellis said he'll ask a judge to make sure Flick doesn't see the light of day again.
The prosecutor told NBC affiliate WCSH in Portland that he was particularly saddened knowing that Dobbie's children will never be able to shake the impact of their mom's murder. The boys are now living with a grandmother in Massachusetts.
"What happened to these children is just horrific," Ellis said. "I know there is family involvement, services and we're hoping for the best."
This wasn't the first time Flick has violently attacked a woman.
Back in 1979, he killed his wife, Sandra, in shockingly similar circumstances, stabbing her to death while the woman's young daughter was nearby. He was convicted of murder and served 25 years behind bars.
After his release in 2004, Flick was convicted of assaulting two other women in 2010. A judge sentenced Flick to almost four years behind bars — resisting recommendations of prosecutors and probation officials to give him eight or nine years, believing the man would be too old to commit any more violent acts.
"At some point, Mr. Flick is going to age out of his capacity to engage in this conduct, and incarcerating him beyond the time that he ages out doesn't seem to me to make good sense from a criminological or fiscal perspective," Maine Superior Court Justice Robert E. Crowley said at the time.
Crowley is retired from the bench and now works as a mediator through a Portland law firm. He did not immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment Friday.
After Flick's release in 2014, he moved to Lewiston. Prosecutors said he was infatuated with Dobbie and followed her around town and even ate at the homeless shelter where she was staying. The killer and his victim, witnesses testified, were not in a relationship.
Dobbie was stabbed 14 times and the wounds penetrated her heart and a lung, a state medical examiner testified.
Flick's sentencing is set for Aug. 9 and he could get anywhere from 25 years to life behind bars.
