Maine State Police detectives have arrested a former Brunswick man in connection with the death of his 4-month-old son nearly 38 years ago, a death that was originally investigated as sudden infant death syndrome.
Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland says 62-year-old Burton “Ben” Hagar was arrested Friday without incident at his home in Farmington, where he now lives. McCausland says Hagar is the first person to be charged following an investigation by the new state police Unsolved Homicide Unit.
The case was quietly reopened in 1991 after investigators received new information.
“Detectives have worked through the years and, with the unsolved homicide team formed last year, those detectives that have worked on this case combined their efforts with this new team,” he says. “Working with the attorney general’s office, they went to the grand jury this week and a murder indictment was returned.”
Authorities aren’t saying how the infant died. Hagar is scheduled to make his first court appearance next Wednesday afternoon in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland.
