Jerry Perdomo, a 31-year-old Hispanic/Latino man, was a firefighter and emergency medical technician with the Seminole County Fire Department in Florida, as well as an Iraq War veteran, husband, and father of two. In February 2012, he traveled from his home in Orange City, Florida, to Maine, where investigators later determined he became involved in a confrontation that ended with his death. Maine State Police classified the killing as drug-related.
On February 16, Perdomo went to a residence on Hadley Mills Road in Jackson, Maine, that was being rented by the father of Daniel Porter. Investigators said Perdomo and Porter knew one another through an illicit prescription-drug operation. Prosecutors later alleged that Perdomo had been making regular trips to Maine to transport and sell oxycodone and that Porter acted as a middleman. According to investigators, Porter owed Perdomo approximately $3,000, and the two men had been involved in increasingly hostile disputes over the debt.
The conflict had apparently been escalating for weeks. Court documents described earlier accusations and threats between the two men. Porter had reported that Perdomo threw rocks through a window of his home in January, while Perdomo told authorities that Porter had threatened to shoot him and dispose of his body using a wood chipper. Porter, in turn, claimed that Perdomo threatened to cut off his hands and kill him. Porter and his girlfriend, Cheyanne Nowak, also purchased a. 357 handgun in January, although authorities ultimately alleged that Perdomo was killed with a semiautomatic rifle.
On the evening of February 16, Porter and Perdomo were together at the Jackson residence. Investigators said the men were playing pool when an argument developed. Porter later claimed that Perdomo threatened him and his family. Prosecutors maintained that during the confrontation Porter shot Perdomo in the side of the head. The Maine Chief Medical Examiner subsequently determined that Perdomo died from a gunshot wound to the head and ruled his death a homicide.
After the shooting, Perdomo disappeared. His rental car was later found abandoned in the parking lot of a Walmart in Bangor. Investigators began focusing on Porter and Nowak because they were believed to have been among the last people to see him alive. The couple had left Maine and traveled to Connecticut, where police interviewed them before they returned to Maine. During the investigation, Porter reportedly told an officer that he had traveled to Connecticut to see relatives because it might be the last time he saw them while he was a free man.
Police searched the Jackson house and discovered evidence indicating that a violent shooting had occurred inside. Investigators reported finding blood droplets and blood spatter, what appeared to be fragments of skull or bone, evidence of a broken window, and newly installed carpeting covering an area that tested presumptively positive for blood. DNA testing indicated that blood recovered from the house was consistent with having come from a male child of Perdomo's father, strongly connecting the scene to Perdomo.
Daniel Porter was arrested on February 28, 2012, at the Jackson residence and charged with murder even though Perdomo's body had not yet been recovered. According to an affidavit, Porter acknowledged to investigators that Perdomo was dead and indicated that he knew where both the body and the firearm used in the killing were located, but he initially refused to reveal their locations. Nowak was investigated and interviewed but was not charged in connection with Perdomo's killing.
The following morning, February 29, a Maine game warden and his dog found Perdomo's concealed body in woods off Dahlia Farm Road in Newburgh, roughly half a mile from the road near the Monroe town line. The property was owned by relatives of Porter. The discovery confirmed what investigators had already suspected from the evidence inside the Jackson residence: Perdomo had been killed there and his body subsequently transported and hidden elsewhere.
Porter initially maintained that he had acted in self-defense. His attorney argued that Perdomo had made verbal threats and had threatened Porter with a firearm, leaving Porter afraid that Perdomo would harm him or members of his family. Porter was denied bail. In May 2012, a Waldo County grand jury indicted him on one count of intentional or knowing murder, and in June he entered a plea of not guilty.
The case was scheduled for trial in April 2013, but it was resolved through a plea agreement before a jury heard the evidence. On April 3, 2013, Porter pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter. Prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charge. Porter told the court that he was accepting responsibility for allowing the confrontation to escalate, while prosecutors acknowledged that evidence supporting a self-defense argument was one factor considered when accepting the reduced charge.
On April 22, 2013, Porter was sentenced in Waldo County Superior Court. The court imposed a 30-year sentence with 16 years to be served in prison and the remaining portion suspended. He was also ordered to pay approximately $11,694 in restitution to Perdomo's family for funeral, burial, and family travel expenses. During sentencing, Porter apologized to Perdomo's widow and expressed remorse for his role in the killing. The manslaughter conviction brought the criminal case stemming from the February 2012 shooting to a close.
