BELFAST – A cleaning lady who took the stand on Monday — the seventh day of the Sharon Carrillo murder trial — testified that she witnessed domestic violence and reported it.
“I worked in the building and I tried to help Marissa Kennedy,” Jill Reid, who lives in Brewer, said outside of the Waldo Judicial Center after testifying.
“I went to the Bangor Police Department and I called DHHS many times,” she added, referring to the Maine Department of Human Services.
Reid worked inside 591 Main St. in Bangor, an apartment building where Sharon and Julio Carrillo lived with their three children before moving to Stockton Springs. Six months after the move, on Feb. 25, 2018, Kennedy was found beaten to death. Julio Carrillo is already serving a 55-year prison sentence for her death.
On the stand, Reid said she could hear the elementary school girl hollering and said, “I believed the little girl was in danger.”
“I heard domestic violence all the time when I was there and I always heard the little girl crying as well,” Reid said.
A former Bangor police officer was the first to take the stand on Monday. He told the jury he responded to a runaway child report involving Kennedy.
The landlord of the building provided a video deposition. In it, he described hearing fighting and Julio Carrillo threatening Sharon Carrillo.
Two former co-workers of Julio Carrillo took the stand to say he told them his stepdaughter died months before she actually did. Two other people from a different store where Julio Carrillo worked gave similar testimony on Friday.
One man said, Julio Carrillo “told me she would beat her head off the wall… [and] she had passed away by doing that.”
The rest of Monday’s testimony consisted of medical staff who dealt with the family, and repeated trips to the emergency room and Acadia Hospital for reported outbursts by Kennedy.
“I think that’s normal for anybody. If you were being beaten, you’d lash back out at your abuser also,” said Joe Kennedy, the girl’s grandfather and father to Sharon Carrillo.
An upstairs neighbor of the Carrillos testified Friday that he also heard the abuse and reported it to police and DHHS.
“Everybody knew,” Reid said, referring to tenants and neighbors of the Carrillos.
“Multiple people called but nothing ever got done about it,” she added. “Very disappointing.”
The jury was sent home early on Monday so the judge, defense and prosecution could review and approve evidence, including a series of 40 or so text messages.
Closing arguments are expected to happen Tuesday afternoon if Sharon Carrillo doesn’t take the stand in her own defense, her attorney said late Monday.
