Portland man agrees to plea deal in roommate’s stabbing death
Domingus Nobrega in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland on Feb. 14, 2025. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
A Portland man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with the death of his roommate in November 2024.
Under a plea deal with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, Domingus Nobrega agreed to a sentence of 16 years in state prison for the death of Matthew Merrick. Nobrega’s sentencing hearing will be held later this year, which the state requested so that Merrick’s family can attend.
Nobrega called police late in the afternoon on Nov. 30, 2024, and reported that he found 43-year-old Merrick on the floor of their apartment. Merrick grew up in the Portland area, according to friends and family, and was a cook for Andy’s Old Port Pub on Commercial Street for about a year.
The medical examiner’s office determined that Merrick had died from stab wounds to his chest, Assistant Attorney General Kate Bozeman said in Cumberland County Superior Court on Monday.
Bozeman said a woman who was staying in the apartment told police she saw Nobrega stab Merrick, and that Nobrega took her into another room and made her do ketamine with him. She told police that Nobrega eventually let her go and instructed her to report the murder to police, telling them it was “a Colombian drug dealer that did it.”
The woman didn’t know Nobrega by name, Bozeman said, but later identified him from a photo lineup while speaking with police. Nobrega had also written his phone number on her arm, which Bozeman said helped confirm his identity.
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Nobrega’s Apple watch showed his heart rate spiked around the time that police believe the killing occurred, Bozeman said, and his online search history before his arrest showed that he had researched ways to escape the country and obtain Russian citizenship.
Bozeman also referenced messages, which police obtained, that Nobrega exchanged with a friend after Merrick’s death using Signal, an encrypted messaging application. Bozeman said that, in the messages, Nobrega admitted to the stabbing and asked his friend to help him clean up, which she said the friend declined.
Before the state could take the case to trial, that friend, who prosecutors could have called to testify, died. Bozeman said that partly led to Monday’s plea deal.
As Bozeman shared the state’s evidence with Superior Court Justice John O’Neil on Monday, Nobrega could be heard talking to his lawyers. O’Neil said at one point he could tell that Nobrega disagreed with the prosecutor from his body language.
He was originally scheduled for a jury trial starting Aug. 10 on one count of murder, which would have carried a sentence of 25 years to life in prison if he had been found guilty. Manslaughter has a maximum sentence of 30 years. O’Neil had been scheduled on Monday to take up more than a dozen motions Nobrega had filed, including a request to fire his two-court appointed lawyers.
Nobrega told O’Neil on Monday that he had accepted the state’s offer with the belief that he could enter an “Alford plea,” which would have allowed Nobrega to agree that the state has enough evidence to convince a jury of his guilt, but still maintain his innocence.
Bozeman said the state would not accept an Alford plea.
Nobrega’s attorneys, William Maselli and Stuart Tisdale, told O’Neil that the defense had received all the state’s evidence and that a jury could find Nobrega guilty of manslaughter based on that evidence.
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Tagged: crime, Cumberland County Superior Court, Maine attorney general
Emily Allen covers courts for the Portland Press Herald. It's her favorite beat so far — before moving to Maine in 2022, she reported on a wide range of topics for public radio in West Virginia and was. More by Emily Allen
