The convicted killer of a Readfield man has died in New Jersey.
David Silva, 46, died Thursday at the hospital following an “encounter with correctional police officers” at Northern State Prison in Newark, according to the New Jersey attorney general’s Office of Public Integrity.
The New Jersey attorney general’s office said Monday that the officers aren’t being identified at this time.
Silva was convicted of killing 56-year-old Robert Orr, whose body was found in the burned out Readfield home he shared with his wife, Janet.
Silva and his then-girlfriend, Lindsay Spence, had been renting a room from the Orrs at the time. Spence later told investigators that she awoke the night of the killing to see Robert Orr headless and slouched in a chair before Silva set fire to the home.
The pair fled to Massachusetts, Spence in her car and Silva in Orr’s truck. They took jewelry, guns and money, which Silva used to buy heroin.
Silva was arrested days later at his parents’ home in Carver, Massachusetts.
In January 2013, Silva entered an Alford plea to murder in Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta, where he was sentenced to 43 years in prison. In an Alford plea, the defendant does not admit guilt but accepts that prosecutors have enough evidence for conviction.
Silva was transferred into the Garden State’s prison system on Sept. 21, 2015, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections.
It wasn’t immediately clear why Silva was incarcerated in New Jersey. A Maine Department of Corrections spokesperson said in an email to the Bangor Daily News that information is confidential under state law.
Before being sentenced for murder, robbery, assault, arson and other charges in Orr’s death, Silva had several prior arrests, including for a 1997 arson in Carver, Massachusetts.
