Waterville man to be arraigned today SKOWHEGAN (AP) - A construction worker chaiged with murder in the strangulation of a young Skowhegan woman awaited arraignment Tuesday as a state prosecutor held open the possibility the suspect may be linked to the unsolved death of a Winslow woman who vanished under similar circumstances Deputy Attorney General Fernand LaRochelle acknowledged that police are examining passible connections between the deaths of Geraldine Anne Finn whose body was found in a field in Skowhegan on Sunday and Janet Brochu who disappeared in December and whose body was recovered from a river in March “There are some similarities in the broadest sense of the term” said LaRochelle although he stopped short of describing Gerald Goodale the man charged in the Finn case as a suspect- in the Brochu investigation “We’re keeping an open mind on both matters” the-prosecutor said “We’U go wherever the information leads us” Goodale who was being held without bail at the Somerset County Jail in Skowhegan is scheduled to be arraigned in the Finn case on Wednesday in District Court in Skowhegan LaRochelle said v Donald Cormier of Waterville who employed Goodale part-time as a carpenter to help remodel apart ment buiioings said the suspect had been an excellent worker “Until it’s proven different I can only say good about him because he’s been good around us” said Cormier who has known Goodale’s family for' more than 20 years ‘He was very helpful If I needed anything done I’d ask him and he’d be right there to help” said Cormier “He was never fate to the job and he was always honest with us' Goodale 29 was arrested at his parents’ house in Waterville on Monday Police also impounded his blue Chevrolet Blazer LaRochelle said Friends who were with Finn at a Waterville bar Tuesday night said they last saw her sitting in a blue Blazer with a man they had met ear in strangulation case lier in the evening Finn 23 told her friends she would get a ride home with the man In recent months Goodale had been helping to renovate a house in Clinton although the Waterville man who owns the house was reluctant to discuss his employee Tuesday “He’s been perfect as far as I’m concerned” Donald Cormier said in a telephone interview adding that he wanted to think things over before making any further comments Goodale was arrested shortly after an autopsy confirmed the identity of Finn’s body and established the cause of her death as strangulation Witnesses told police the man Finn was with had driven by the bar and motioned to them through a window to come outside When they did they discovered he was not wearing any clothes and they declined his invitation to go swimming He later returned to the bar dressed and joined the women before leaving with Finn police said Brochu 20 who disappeared two days before Christmas was last seen at another Waterville bar with a man she had met earlier in the evening police said Her nude body was recovered from the Sebasticook River in Pittsfield in March No obvious signs of trauma such as a gunshot or knife wound were discovered on her body and police have not disclosed the cause of death
