Prosecutors said the two military veterans drank heavily before Lee Ruona was found dead in Gary Brinson’s apartment.

BANGOR, Maine — A Penobscot County jury found Gary Brinson guilty of murder after prosecutors said he stabbed and beat his friend, Lee Ruona, inside a Union Street apartment following a long night of drinking, then sat on a couch watching television as officers arrived.

The verdict mattered because it ended a case that had turned on Brinson’s own shifting statements, the bloody condition of the apartment and evidence that the two longtime friends had spent hours drinking together before Ruona died. Prosecutors said the killing happened in Brinson’s apartment in December 2024. Defense lawyers argued Brinson was deeply intoxicated and did not remember the attack. The jury rejected that defense in less than an hour, moving the case into the sentencing stage.

Testimony at trial traced the case back to the night before Ruona’s body was discovered. Brinson and Ruona, who lived in different units in the same building on Union Street, were described as close friends and drinking companions. Brinson later told police they were both combat veterans who sometimes drank to forget their post-traumatic stress. Investigators said the two men consumed an extreme amount of alcohol, including roughly a gallon and a half of liquor and more than 20 beers. At about 9:57 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2024, officers were called after Brinson reported that a man was dead in his apartment. Responding officers testified that Brinson was sitting on a couch, flipping through television channels, while Ruona’s body lay nearby in a room marked by heavy bloodshed.

Prosecutors said the physical evidence was overwhelming. Ruona, 64, had more than 140 small puncture wounds along with deeper injuries, and the state medical examiner concluded he died from multiple sharp and blunt-force injuries. Investigators described blood throughout the apartment. According to prior reporting and trial testimony, Brinson first told police Ruona had left the apartment alive and that he later discovered the body. He later changed course. WMTW reported that Brinson eventually told investigators Ruona had returned, the two argued over Brinson’s pocketknives, and Brinson remembered slapping him but not what happened next. Police and prosecutors said that account matched only part of the evidence. A key unresolved question at trial was not whether Ruona had been violently attacked, but whether Brinson’s intoxication prevented the state from proving the required intent for murder.

The case also carried context beyond the apartment itself. Brinson and Ruona were not strangers linked by a brief dispute; they were older men who knew each other well and lived under the same roof. Early local coverage identified Brinson as 69 at the time of his arrest and Ruona as 64. By the time of trial in February 2026, Brinson was reported as 71. Prosecutors used that history to show access, familiarity and a likely private setting for the confrontation. Defense lawyers pointed to the same background to argue there was no sign of a planned killing. Instead, they cast the case as the chaotic end of a drinking binge fueled by trauma, memory loss and anger. But prosecutors told jurors the number of wounds and the condition of the scene showed sustained violence, not a brief drunken scuffle.

The legal path moved steadily after the body was found. Bangor police announced Brinson’s arrest on Dec. 6, 2024, and he was charged with murder. A grand jury later indicted him on an intentional or knowing murder charge. In the run-up to trial, the court considered whether some of Brinson’s statements to police would be admissible, with defense lawyers arguing he had been heavily intoxicated when he spoke. Jury selection and trial followed in Penobscot County Superior Court in February 2026. On Feb. 26, 2026, jurors returned a guilty verdict after less than one hour of deliberations. The next major step is sentencing, where the court is expected to decide how long Brinson will serve for Ruona’s death under Maine law.

Trial coverage painted a grim, ordinary scene turned violent. Officers arriving at the Union Street building were met not by a frantic defendant but, prosecutors said, by a man acting as though nothing was wrong. That image became one of the state’s strongest narrative points. It helped anchor testimony about what police saw: a dead man on or near a bed, blood spread across the apartment and Brinson seated close by with the television on. Brinson’s own words also stayed with the case. According to reporting on the trial, he told the 911 dispatcher, “I got a dead guy laying on my bed.” The defense urged jurors to focus less on his manner and more on his condition, saying his heavy drinking left him confused, inconsistent and unable to form a clear memory of the attack. Jurors ultimately sided with prosecutors.

The case has moved past the question of guilt, and the next milestone is sentencing in Penobscot County Superior Court on a date to be set by the judge.

Author note: Last updated March 23, 2026.