A Maine man who claims to be God has been charged with his father’s murder.
Leroy Smith III, 24, directed police in Cumberland County on Monday to a dirt road where the remains of his father, 56-year-old Leroy Smith Jr., were found.
The elder Smith died of multiple stab wounds, an autopsy confirmed. The younger Smith is being held in jail on an unrelated charge and is expected to appear in court next week.
The 24-year-old recently moved into his father’s Gardiner, Maine, apartment. The Online Sentinel reports that a friend said the elder Smith had been on edge ever since.
“He said, ‘I sleep with one eye open,’” recalls Michael Parady, a close friend of Leroy Smith Jr.’s for the last 15 years.
Parady, who last saw his friend a couple weeks ago, says he was concerned for Smith’s safety.
“I was very concerned about his son living with him. I knew he was an extremely dangerous person,” he says.
Still, friends said the elder Smith remained optimistic and eager to help.
“He wanted to try and help his son,” Parady says.
Parady grew suspicious after a mutual friend wondered if he had seen the elder Smith. Smith and the friend had plans, but he did not answer the friend’s calls that day. The friends’ concern rose when there was no answer at his apartment, so they went to the Gardiner Police Department.
“The police could not do a thing because there was no crime at this point,” Parady says. “But the damage was already done.”
Police Chief Alan Gordon says Leroy Smith III was banned from his apartment building in Westborough, Massachusetts, last fall after he began to upset other tenants and the landlord.
Gordon says Smith set his guitar and amplifier on fire in the backyard because “he believed they were emitting evil music.”
Smith violated a protection-from-harassment order on Oct. 30, just one day after it was served. The town issued a warrant for his arrest when he failed to show up for a December court date.
He had also aroused suspicion of the FBI for making threats against President Obama, claiming he was the “head of the KKK” and saying he wanted to start World War III.
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