On a summer day in 2003, a 53-year-old male named David Langway from Winterport, Maine, was killed. His death on July 31st would later be revealed as a gruesome act of violence committed by a man he considered a friend. Langway, an acquaintance of Jimmy Lipham since 1984, had accompanied him to Lipham's home in Glenburn. Upon their arrival, Langway went to a field behind the house to pick blueberries while Lipham retrieved his.
45 caliber handgun, later telling authorities their intention was to poach a deer.
The two men then walked into the woods behind Lipham's house. It was there that Lipham shot Langway in the back of the head, causing his death. In the days that followed, Lipham dismembered Langway's body and buried the remains in the woods. He then attempted to cover up the crime by throwing Langway's wallet, shirt, and lunchbox in a dumpster in Bangor. To further conceal Langway's disappearance, Lipham used his friend's food stamp card and had his mail forwarded to a private mailbox he opened under an alias.
The investigation into Langway's disappearance led police to Lipham's home in September 2003, while Lipham was visiting family in Alabama. After speaking with Lipham's wife, a search of the woods behind the residence uncovered a skull fragment and a buried torso, which were later identified as David Langway's remains through DNA testing. At the request of the police, Lipham's wife made a secretly recorded phone call to him in Alabama, during which she confronted him about his involvement in Langway's death.
Soon after, Jimmy Lipham, then 43 years old, was arrested in Alabama and charged with murder. Upon his extradition to Maine, he confessed to shooting Langway but maintained that it was an accident, claiming he tripped and the gun discharged. However, a Penobscot County Superior Court jury found Jimmy Lipham, then 45, guilty of murder. He was subsequently sentenced to forty years in prison.
