Gary Brinson’s defense centered on extreme intoxication, but jurors found the state had proved murder.
BANGOR, Maine — A Maine jury convicted Gary Brinson of murder after prosecutors said his changing statements, the sheer number of wounds on Lee Ruona’s body and the blood-filled crime scene showed a deadly attack inside Brinson’s Bangor apartment.
The case drew attention because it paired a brutal set of physical facts with a defense rooted in memory loss and intoxication. Brinson admitted pieces of a confrontation with Ruona, his close friend, but said he could not remember the killing itself after hours of drinking. Prosecutors argued he knew exactly what had happened. The jury agreed, returning a guilty verdict on Feb. 26, 2026, after a short deliberation. The ruling closed the trial phase and set up sentencing in Penobscot County Superior Court.
Investigators said the trouble began after Brinson and Ruona spent hours together drinking in the Union Street building where both men lived. Brinson later told police the pair were combat veterans and longtime friends who often drank while dealing with PTSD. Trial reporting said the men consumed about a gallon and a half of bourbon and more than 20 beers. On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, Brinson called 911 and reported that a man was dead in his apartment. Officers who arrived described a jarring scene: Brinson on the couch with the television on, Ruona’s body nearby and blood across the apartment. Prosecutors highlighted Brinson’s calm behavior as a sign that he was not confused about what had happened. The defense said that reading ignored how alcohol can flatten reactions and scramble memory.
Brinson’s own words became central evidence. Local reporting on the case said he first told officers that Ruona had left the apartment alive and that he later found him dead. As questioning continued, that story changed. Brinson later said Ruona had returned, the two argued over Brinson’s pocketknives and he remembered slapping him, but not what happened after that. The state used those shifts to argue Brinson was trying to explain away clear evidence of an attack. Prosecutors also leaned on the medical findings. Ruona had more than 140 small puncture wounds as well as deeper injuries, and the medical examiner ruled the cause of death to be multiple sharp and blunt-force injuries. For jurors, those wounds likely mattered as much as any statement because they suggested repeated violence rather than a single impulsive blow.
The background of the two men gave the case emotional weight. Ruona was 64 when he died. Brinson was identified as 69 at the time of his arrest in December 2024 and as 71 during the 2026 trial. Both men were described in court reporting as military veterans who had known each other for years. That history helped explain why Ruona was in Brinson’s apartment and why the confrontation, if it began over something as small as knives, could quickly turn personal. Still, many parts of the night remained unclear, including the exact sequence of blows and whether any witness heard the attack unfold. No public reporting indicated another suspect. The state’s case instead rested on the closed setting, Brinson’s proximity to the body, the blood evidence and his own partial admissions.
Procedurally, the case moved from a Bangor police investigation to a murder prosecution handled in Superior Court. Police announced Brinson’s arrest two days after the body was found at 288 Union St. He was later indicted on a charge of intentional or knowing murder. Before trial, the defense challenged whether some statements Brinson made to police should be admitted, arguing he was heavily intoxicated. The case still went to trial in February 2026. Once jurors heard testimony about the apartment, the injuries and Brinson’s different accounts, they returned a guilty verdict in under an hour on Feb. 26. The court has not publicly set out the full sentencing outcome in the reports reviewed here, so the next formal milestone remains sentencing.
The picture that emerged from the trial was stark and narrow: two men drinking behind closed doors, one dead by morning and the other sitting a few feet away. Prosecutors said that image cut through any confusion created by Brinson’s memory claims. Defense lawyers tried to put the focus on intoxication and trauma, arguing that a drunken man who cannot remember the end of a fight is not the same as a man who acted with clear intent to kill. But the jury did not accept that distinction. In the end, the case turned less on broad theory than on what officers said they saw, what the medical examiner counted and how often Brinson’s version of events changed as police pressed him.
Brinson has now been found guilty in Ruona’s death. The next stage is sentencing, when the court will determine the punishment after the jury’s Feb. 26, 2026 verdict.
Author note: Last updated March 23, 2026.