Jason Goucher Hewett pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter for the July 2024 shotgun slaying of 45-year-old Kyle MacDougall in Cushing.
The agreement reached between the Maine attorney general’s office and the defense calls for the 41-year-old Hewett to be sentenced to 14 years in prison with all but four years suspended to be followed by four years of probation. Hewett will get credit for the time he has been held since his arrest in July 2024, meaning he will serve about 20 more months before being released.
The plea was made during a hearing before Justice Patrick Larson in the Superior Court in Knox County. The plea was what is known as an Alford plea in which Hewett acknowledges a jury could have convicted him of the crime if the case had gone to trial, but that he disputes the charge. Jury selection had been scheduled to begin March 2 for the trial that was expected to last two weeks.
Formal sentencing is scheduled for March 10 in Rockland.
“We analyzed the pros and cons of the witness testimony. There were issues that would have been raised, so we compromised,” Assistant Maine Attorney General Bud Ellis said after the hearing.
The maximum sentence for manslaughter is 30 years. Neither the defense nor state said it expected to have any additional information provided at sentencing.
The defense had hammered earlier during pre-trial hearings of the lack of credibility of two of the key witnesses expected to testify.
The affidavit filed in court by state police said the investigation into MacDougall’s death began on July 12, 2024, when a witness called in with information that MacDougall, a Waldoboro resident, had been killed on July 7 at the Cushing house rented by 41-year-old Mark Gagne.
The witness said, however, he wanted “consideration” for his own prior crimes. The witness said that he was at a residence when another individual admitted to killing MacDougall by shooting his face off with a shotgun in the kitchen of Gagne’s home. The witness said the individual then claimed that he took the body out in back of the home and rolled it up in a tarp.
The information provided by the initial witness led to surveillance of the Cushing residence where the killing occurred.
Police interviewed another witness who said she believed Hewett had committed the shooting. This witness said she had heard that they were trying to burn the body and other evidence. Police said that when they heard about the burning, they contacted officers watching the home. Those officers saw Gagne burning something in a large burn barrel and converged on the scene.
In the barrel, they found skeletal remains and insulation. Inside the home, they found the wall between the kitchen and living room had been removed.
Gagne, 41, was taken to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in Rockland but he declined to make any statements after consulting with an attorney. State Police then charged Gagne with hindering apprehension and abuse of a corpse.
A further inspection of the house found brown stains and parts of a shotgun, according to the police report.
The police affidavit said investigators spoke to MacDougall’s former girlfriend who dropped MacDougall off at Gagne’s home on July 7. She waited for him outside in her vehicle. About 30 minutes later, Hewett came to the car and said MacDougall had taken a bag and run into the woods. The woman then drove around trying to locate MacDougall but when she was unable to find him, she returned to the house.
The woman said there were four people at the house — Hewett; Gagne; John G. Flower, 40, of Rockland; and a woman whom she did not know at the time, according to the affidavit.
Police interviewed Flower who said MacDougall had come into the house and picked up a shotgun and shot himself in the neck.
Police then interviewed the woman that MacDougall’s former woman friend had seen in the home. That woman said she saw Hewett with the shotgun. She went into the bathroom and Gagne went with her to make sure she would not use her phone. She was in the bathroom when the shooting occurred. She said Hewett later came into the bathroom, too, and said he had shot MacDougall but that it was a mistake, and he did not mean to do it.
Another witness said Hewett believed that MacDougall had loosened lug nuts on his truck, which caused it to crash and be destroyed. Hewett had said to the witness prior to July 7 that something was going to be done with MacDougall.
Police interviewed Flower a second time and he said that he, Hewett, Gagne and a woman were at Gagne’s home on July 7 when MacDougall arrived to buy some drugs. Flower said Hewett grabbed the shotgun and said “check yourself fool” to MacDougall before shooting him in the neck. Hewett then put towels on MacDougall’s neck to try to stop the bleeding.
Hewett was arrested July 16, 2024, for the manslaughter charge after a 13-minute high-speed chase that ended on Route 3 in Augusta on the back lawn of Nadeau Chiropractic and Wellness Center. The video shows the pickup truck stopped outside the chiropractic business and a few minutes later a passenger in the vehicle gets out and is detained by police. Hewett, however, refused to leave the vehicle. During the subsequent four-hour standoff, Hewett consumed a fifth of whiskey, four large cans of hard cider, marijuana and cocaine.
Justice Larson ruled Hewett was unambiguously in custody the moment the standoff began.
Ellis said at the plea hearing March 2 that the gun was found at a residence where Hewett had stayed. The gun had DNA, including blood, belonging to MacDougall.
Flower was arrested July 25, 2024, by Maine State Police on a charge of Class B felony hindering apprehension or prosecution.
Gagne pleaded guilty in September 2024 to felony hindering apprehension, and a misdemeanor count of abuse of a corpse after being caught burning a body. In exchange, he was released on personal recognizance bail Sept. 17, 2024, and was to serve no more jail time for those two charges. Under terms of the sentence agreement, Gagne must testify at Hewett’s trial.
Gagne will not be sentenced for the Cushing charges until after Hewett’s case is completed.
Gagne was also arrested and sentenced Dec. 2, 2024, to 72 hours in jail for criminal trespass at the residence where the killing occurred. The property owner had found Gagne living in the house well after he had moved out.
Gagne was also charged in March 2025 by Rockland Police with trafficking in fentanyl, felony possession of cocaine and violating a condition of release. An affidavit filed by Rockland Police states that the charges are the result of an Oct. 10, 2024, search of a home on Luce Avenue in Rockland.
Since that bust, Gagne was arrested on Feb. 20 for aggravated trafficking in fentanyl, crack cocaine and prescription pills after police stopped a vehicle and found him with drugs. He has been held in jail since that arrest.
Flower pleaded guilty Sept. 26, 2024, to a single misdemeanor count of falsifying physical evidence in connection to the Cushing death. In exchange for the plea, a more serious charge of Class B felony hindering apprehension or prosecution is being dismissed.
Flower was sentenced in March 2025 to 90 days in jail for a knife attack during a drug deal gone bad (the charges were aggravated assault, criminal mischief and violating a condition of release). He was given credit for time served and was released in mid-April.
The two attorneys representing Hewett, Wright and Justin Andrus, won an acquittal last month for Hewett, following a jury trial for aggravated assault that the state said had occurred at the Knox County Jail where Hewett had been held.
Hewett has a lengthy criminal record, including in Knox County. Offenses included operating a motor vehicle as a habitual offender, trafficking in prison contraband and assault.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.
