Maine man sentenced to 55 years in beating death

AUBURN, Maine (AP) — A Lewiston man apologized for withholding for months where he dumped the body of a woman but he didn’t apologize for her death, before a judge on Friday imposed a sentence of 55 years, although prosecutors had asked for only 40.

Justice MaryGay Kennedy scolded Buddy Robinson for failing to take responsibility for the “brutal and vicious” killing of Christiana Fesmire and said his apology “doesn’t ring true for me.”

Defense lawyer Edward “Ted” Dilworth said he plans to appeal both the conviction and the sentence. The defense had recommended a 25-year sentence.

Prosecutors said Robinson beat and drowned the 22-year-old Fesmire in her bathroom in a fit of anger, then dumped her body in a swampy and wooded area. Robinson, who was sentenced in Androscoggin County Superior Court, eventually told police where to find Fesmire’s remains in Lisbon.

The Sun Journal said Fesmire’s friends and family wore red lapel ribbons in her memory. Slides depicting her life danced across a screen set up in the courtroom as the family spoke.

“She was forced to die by the ultimate act of diabolical hatred,” Katrin Fesmire, the victim’s sister, told the judge. “Alone, scared, suffering and suffocated. Those were her thoughts as she took her last breath.”

Court documents portrayed Fesmire as part of an online prostitution ring led by Robinson’s sister, who told police that her brother admitted to the killing. Fesmire and Robinson lived in different apartments in the same building before she disappeared in July 2011. Her body wasn’t found until after Robinson was convicted last November.