PORTLAND – DNA evidence from the gun that police say was used to kill Margarita Fisenko Scott last year in Portland does not match that of the New York man who is charged with murdering her.

A newly unsealed court document says the DNA on the gun matches that of a husband and wife who were renting the apartment where police say Scott was killed. Police discovered that the couple hid the weapon after Scott was shot, according to the document.

Anthony Pratt Jr., 19, of Queens, N.Y., is charged with killing Scott on Nov. 10 in an apartment at 266 W. Concord St. in Portland with a single gunshot to the neck.

Pratt pleaded not guilty to murder on Friday in Cumberland County Unified Criminal Court. After the hearing, Justice Joyce Wheeler unsealed the affidavit that police filed last month to obtain a warrant for Pratt’s arrest.

Until Friday, details had not been disclosed regarding what led police to focus on Pratt, how the stolen .40-caliber handgun was recovered, and what happened in the hours before Scott disappeared.

Although the court document answers many of those questions, it does not reveal what happened to Scott from the day she disappeared until Jan. 17, when her husband, Cary Scott, found her body in the back of his Chevrolet Trailblazer, which was unattended and covered in snow in the parking lot of the Motel 6 on Riverside Street.

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Her body was in the same clothes she had been seen wearing Nov. 10.

Margarita Scott, 29, was married for less than a year. She was having an affair with Pratt at the time she was killed, going back and forth between Pratt, who was staying with friends at 266 W. Concord St., and her husband in Westbrook, says the affidavit written by Portland police Detective Richard Vogel.

On the day she was killed, Scott was at her husband’s apartment at 78 Central St. in Westbrook in the morning while he was at work. Witnesses told police that they saw a man matching Pratt’s description drag her down the stairs, punch and kick her.

When police arrived, Scott was alone and told them that Pratt had assaulted her, according to Vogel’s affidavit.

Cary Scott later told police that his wife had planned to gather her belongings from the apartment in Portland that day and return to him, but he never again saw her alive, the affidavit says.

The couple who rented the apartment, Christopher and Tunile Jennings, told police that Pratt and Scott stayed with them often, and that on the day Scott disappeared, Pratt was upset that she had gone home to her husband and not returned.

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The couple also told police that Margarita Scott drove them to the Old Port on the night of Nov. 10 for a night out, while Pratt stayed at home to babysit the Jenningses’ children. Margarita Scott dropped them off in her husband’s Trailblazer and they never saw her again, the affidavit says.

By the time Scott’s body was found, the Jenningses had moved out of the apartment, which by then was under renovation.

In the apartment’s living room, police say they found traces of Scott’s blood, and a bullet in a hole in a wall that had been plugged with a piece of green gum and a sheet of white paper.

The Jenningses told police that when they returned home from the Old Port on Nov. 10, Pratt was alone with their children. They said Pratt left early the next day to return to New York by bus.

Christopher Jennings initially told police that he believed Pratt had taken the gun to New York with him, but police later found the gun in the attic of the Jenningses’ new apartment, the affidavit says.

“Christopher (Jennings) was confronted with the discovery of the gun in his attic and he admitted it was the gun that he and Pratt had purchased,” Vogel said in his affidavit.

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The Jenningses told police that they had found the gun hidden above a ceiling tile in the bedroom of the apartment on West Concord Street while they were moving out and hid it in their new apartment, the affidavit says.

Tests on the gun showed the DNA of at least three people, including Christopher and Tunile Jennings, but not Pratt. Other witnesses told police that they had seen Pratt handle the gun while wearing latex gloves, according to the affidavit.

Pratt is next scheduled to appear in court in July for a hearing to determine whether he will continue to be held without bail. His attorneys, Peter Cyr and Dylan Boyd, had asked for the hearing to be delayed to give them time to gather witnesses.

“We need Anthony’s grandfather there. There has been some suggestion that Anthony’s departure for New York after the killing was unexpected. He had planned to return to New York to help his grandfather repair from Hurricane Sandy,” Boyd said.

Boyd said he and Cyr are seeking a subpoena requiring the Jenningses to testify at the hearing.

Scott Dolan can be contacted at 791-6304 or at:

sdolan@pressherald.com


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