News

Actions

Once deemed too old to be dangerous, a murderer is convicted again

Posted at 3:41 PM, Jul 19, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-19 18:09:23-04

When Judge Robert Crowley sentenced Albert Flick to prison for assault in 2010, he said Flick would be too old to pose a threat by the time he was released, despite a history of violence against women.

Four years after his release, Flick was charged in another woman’s death.

Flick, 77, was convicted Wednesday of the murder of Kimberly Dobbie, 48, in July 2018. Police said he fatally stabbed her outside a laundromat in Lewiston, Maine, while her 11-year-old twin sons watched from a few feet away.

He had pleaded not guilty. Flick’s attorney, Allan Lobozzo, has not responded to calls seeking comment.

In 1979, Flick was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stabbing his wife, Sandra, to death while her daughter watched, according to CNN affiliate WMTW.

He was released more than two decades later, but he was put behind bars again in 2007 for stabbing a woman with a fork and again in 2010 for assaulting a woman. Despite his record, the judge in the 2010 case cited his age when sentencing Flick to about four years in prison, nearly half what prosecutors had recommended.

“At some point, Mr. Flick is going to age out of his capacity to engage in this conduct, and incarcerating him beyond the time that he ages out doesn’t seem to me to make good sense,” Crowley said at the sentencing hearing, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate WGME.

This time, things might be different. Jurors reached a guilty verdict in less than an hour, and he is facing 25 years to life in prison.

“We and the family and friends of Kim Dobbie are very gratified with the jury verdict,” Maine Assistant Attorney General Robert Ellis said in a statement. “Mr. Flick stabbed her to death in a similar fashion to how he murdered his wife Sandra in 1979. At least there is some level of justice in his conviction.”

Flick is being held at the Androscoggin County Jail, and his sentencing hearing is set for August 9.