A killer who murdered his wife and jailed for life was released for “being too old to be dangerous” kills another woman again.
A killer identified as Albert Flick, who spent decades in prison for fatally stabbing his wife was released after being deemed too old to pose a threat — only to be convicted this week of a nearly identical crime.
It took jurors in Maine less than an hour to find Albert Flick, 77, guilty in the 2018 murder of a homeless mother, Kimberly Dobbie, who was stabbed at least 11 times while her twin sons watched.
In 1979, he was jailed for 25 years after slashing his then-wife Sandra Flick 14 times in front of her daughter. Flick was freed in 2004 — only to be sent back to jail in 2010 for assaulting another woman.
When Albert Flick came before a judge in Portland, Maine, in 2010, he was in his late 60s, and had spent roughly a third of his life in prison. After doing time for killing his wife, he had assaulted another woman and gone back to jail, only to get out and attack a third woman.
The judge in 2010 ignored the recommendation for a longer sentence, saying Flick wouldn’t be a threat because of his age and it didn’t make sense to keep him locked up. Flick’s violent tendencies didn’t seem likely to go away with age, both the prosecutor and his probation officer warned.
“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,” Maine Superior Court, Justice Robert E. Crowley, had said.
Flick was released four years later in 2014 and moved to Lewiston.
Prosecutors said he met Dobbie, 48, and became infatuated with her, stalking her and dining at the homeless shelter where she was staying.
Assistant Attorney General Bud Ellis told jurors Flick knew Dobbie was planning on skipping town and thought to himself: “If I can’t have her, I will kill her.” Now 77, he was convicted of murder on Wednesday.
Two days before the murder Flick purchased a pair of knives at a Walmart, prosecutors said.
He then attacked Dobbie in broad daylight in front of a laundromat, piercing her heart and lungs.
Her 11-year-old twin sons witnessed the slaying. It was also caught on surveillance footage.
Flick will be sentenced in August and faces life behind bars.
