Background: News footage of the home in Limington, Maine, where Matthew Cote killed his mother and her boyfriend in 2021 (WABI). Inset: Matthew Cote in court for his sentencing on Feb. 27 (WABI).
A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the fatal shooting of his mother and her partner in their Maine residence.
Matthew Cote, 26, was convicted by a jury for the murders of his 47-year-old mother, Cheryl Cote, and her 45-year-old boyfriend, Daniel Perkins. The tragic incident occurred in their Limington, Maine home on June 17, 2021. The discovery was made when first responders arrived following reports of a fire, as detailed by the Bangor Daily News. The victims were found shot before the fire began.
Shortly after the fire and the grim discovery, authorities stopped Matthew Cote while he was driving his mother’s Chevrolet Trailblazer.
Court documents, reported by the Portland Press Herald, revealed that Cote, upon apprehension, admitted, “I knew this was coming.” He reportedly confessed to the police, saying, “Once I snapped, I couldn’t stop and I emptied the whole magazine.”
Further incriminating evidence surfaced from Cote’s statements made while in custody. According to the Portland Press Herald, during a previous court session, two York County Jail officers testified about overhearing Cote’s phone conversations.
One officer recounted that Cote mentioned to an unknown person that he had “blasted the nasty [expletive],” referring to his mother, then “set a fire to hide the nasty bodies because I didn’t want anyone to see them.” He also confessed that he had “just lost it.”
While a specific motive for the killings was not clear, prosecutor Mark Rucci told the jury in his opening statement that Cote acted in a “goal-oriented and purposeful fashion in taking a semiautomatic rifle into the home where he lived, taking the lives of those two people and burning it to the ground, and then leaving to go to the beach.”
Cote’s defense attorney Tom Connolly stated during his opening statement, “It’s not a whodunit,” and, “You’re going to have to decide hard facts.”
Cote had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. A jury found him guilty of two counts of murder and one count of arson. On Feb. 27, a judge sentenced him to two life sentences plus 30 years for the arson conviction.
Before his sentence was handed down, Cote told the court, “I’m just very sorry, and I apologize to everybody.”
