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The property at 57 Conant Road in Turner. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal Luke Krott and William “Nate” Robinson parked outside the warehouse near Twitchell Airport in Turner – the site of a marijuana grow operation – just before midnight on Dec. 2, 2024.
They were there to rob it. Hours later, police believe Krott shot Robinson in the head, then loaded his body into a trash can and dumped it at a nature preserve nearly 40 miles away . Court documents unsealed last month in Androscoggin County Superior Court, where Krott pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder , offer the first detailed account of what detectives called a “drug rip gone bad.
” The two men, both from Virginia, were believed to be involved in drug operations and shootings in other states and had come to Maine – where Krott’s parents live – to hide out. But they had other plans, too. The first robbery target, police allege, was a marijuana operation in Portland, but Krott, 26, and Robinson, 34, learned that the warehouse in Turner had more weed and changed plans.
That site had been investigated and shut down by the state three years earlier for housing a “prohibited collective” of illegal cannabis growers allegedly associated with Chinese organized crime, unscrupulous gray-market buyers laundering their product and dozens of shell companies to hide it all. But no one was ever charged criminally in that investigation, and after changing names and owners on paper, the property still bears the hallmarks of Maine’s illegal Chinese “grow houses” and was again licensed to grow legal medical cannabis in 2024. Officials have not connected Krott, Robinson or the Turner warehouse directly to organized crime.
Court documents also don’t suggest a clear motive for why Krott would want to kill Robinson. Luke Krott Androscoggin County Jail Krott was arrested in January at a marina in San Diego on a fugitive-from-justice charge. He was extradited back to Maine, where he remains incarcerated at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn.
A Maine State Police spokesperson declined to answer questions about the case, instead directing questions to the Maine Attorney General’s Office. A spokesperson for that office said it does not comment on pending litigation. Darrick Banda, Krott’s attorney, said he has conducted interviews that contradict the police affidavit’s narrative.
“There is more to this story as to what transpired at the time of the shooting,” he said Friday. “The affidavit doesn’t accurately describe what transpired that night. That’s about all I can say at this point.
” The warehouse in Turner was not the first Krott and Robinson had set out to rob that day. In the days leading up to the robbery, they had threatened a worker at an illegal Portland growing site to help them rob the warehouse where he worked. On the afternoon of Dec.
2, 2024, he took them there, introduced them to the grow’s owner, Jamie Beaulieu, and said they wanted to buy 20 pounds of weed. They stayed for about eight hours, although the affidavit doesn’t detail what happened during that time. At some point, Krott and Robinson decided they needed a bigger haul.
And Beaulieu knew where to get it. “(He) recommended another marijuana grow operation that he is in business with at 57 Conant Road, Turner,” the affidavit states. Krott and Robinson took Beaulieu and his girlfriend with them to Turner.
It’s unclear if they went willingly, but they drove separately: Robinson, Beaulieu and his girlfriend rode together while Krott followed behind by himself. They arrived in Turner around 11:15 p.m.
and met two workers, who showed them around the growing facility. Afterwards, one of them took Beaulieu’s girlfriend into another room while Krott, Robinson, Beaulieu and Jackson all gathered into an office space and began to talk. Krott sat down with a handgun in his lap.
He pulled out a phone and played an audio recording of Robinson and the Portland warehouse worker discussing how to rob Beaulieu. Krott and Robinson began to argue. At around 1 a.
m., Krott stood up and abruptly pulled the trigger, the document alleges. Robinson’s body slumped to the floor.
Everyone ran out of the room. “Luke tried to give (Beaulieu’s girlfriend) the gun, but she wouldn’t take it,” the affidavit reads. “Luke threatened them, saying that he would kill their families and that there were ‘fifty more of him’ if they told anyone what happened.
” Police believe Krott stayed at the warehouse for another two hours to clean up the scene. Police later found blood stains on the floor and the security system’s hard drive was “notably missing,” the affidavit says. GPS data showed Robinson’s car left the Turner warehouse at around 3 a.
m. and arrived in Edgecomb at around 5:45 a.m.
, when police believe Krott dumped the body. Robinson was found inside a trash barrel at the Schmid Nature Preserve three hours later. Police on the scene noted “a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the barrel.
” According to the affidavit, Krott and Robinson had fled to Maine after being involved in a gang-related shooting in Florida. “Luke had told his parents that he owed a large debt to a drug dealer in Florida. He said that there was a gun held to his head,” the affidavit reads.
“Nate, who had been in a closet, jumped out and shot the guy holding the gun.” “The Krotts felt that if this were indeed true, they owed Nate for saving their son so (they) let him continue to stay with them” with the stipulation they attend church as a family, the affidavit reads. Krott’s parents would later describe their son’s relationship with Robinson as “horrible.
” Friends of Krott’s described Robinson as secretive about his dealings and “broken” from past trauma. Krott hadn’t lived in Maine for years. At that time, he met and began working as a security guard for rapper Lil Wayne.
“That was short-lived but was believed to be where Luke had gotten affiliated with a gang,” the affidavit reads. Investigators wrote they believe “it was a Chinese gang out of Philadelphia,” but did not specify further. That notion is disputed by Banda, Krott’s attorney.
“It does not appear that any of this is motivated by or connected to any foreign or international entities,” Banda said. Krott was nervous about the robbery, he told his parents in the days after the killing. Robinson had the idea to rob one of Maine’s hundreds of growing operations with ties to Chinese organized crime, but Krott didn’t think that was wise.
“It was Nate’s idea to rob a group of possible Asians,” Krott told his father, per the affidavit. “People had threatened to kill him and his family if he said anything.” The site of the fatal shooting has been a hub for marijuana growers – legal and otherwise – for the last five years.
The warehouse was the site of the state’s first investigation into a nexus for licensed medical caregivers and black market growers allegedly connected to Chinese organized crime groups. Office of Cannabis Policy investigators visited the warehouse in February 2021 and described it as a “prohibited collective” of unlicensed workers processing and distributing product without following state regulations. The building’s first floor had been converted into an illegal dispensary where both licensed caregivers and black market buyers bought pounds of weed, and its second floor a growing and processing operation.
The Turner site was one of the first sites to enter Maine’s “gray market” for cannabis that exists between illicit and legal industries. The property at 57 Conant Road in Turner. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal Rural single-family homes across the state have proven fertile ground for transnational criminal organizations to set up clandestine industrial-scale black market cannabis farms.
But as law enforcement has ramped up raids of the grows in recent years, their operators are increasingly looking to obtain legal cover in Maine’s loosely regulated medical cannabis market . For years, the Turner warehouse was used to launder and move those growers’ cannabis, money and potentially workers , according to OCP’s investigative reports. Four New York men had their licenses revoked by the state between December 2021 and May 2022 for operating the site, growing and selling weed illegally and using unlicensed laborers.
But reports indicate the site continued with legal caregivers operating illegally for years. It remains unclear if Robinson’s death was directly tied to illegal operations at the Turner warehouse or if the site was still involved in illegal cultivation. At least one medical caregiver was licensed to the property at the time of the fatal shooting.
But state officials confirmed Friday there are no active operations registered or licensed there currently. Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
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