Ex-Rochester Officer describes initial encounter with suspect the night of shooting

State Trooper Matthew Bailey testifies under questioning from the prosecution on Wednesday. (Rochester Voice photo)

DOVER - A former Rochester Patrolman on duty the night Billy Jo Ahearn was fatally shot said he responded to the home of accused shooter Justin Belanger around 12:20 a.m. to find him shirtless and out of breath in a hallway of his house; and inside his bedroom, droplets of blood on the floor and a brown towel in a chair resting in blood.

State Trooper Matthew Bailey, who was a Rochester Police officer the night of June 5, 2018, when Ahearn was gunned down in front of Friendly's, said he had just finished his shift around midnight, but got back in his uniform and responded to 50 Lafayette St. on orders to "locate" - not arrest - Belanger, 21.

He said after knocking on the front door, Belanger's father appeared and shortly thereafter so did a shirtless Justin Belanger.

He testified that when he walked into Belanger's bedroom he first noticed the blood and then that a bedroom window was open with the drapes outside the window sill.

He said as he looked out the window he also noticed the K9 team of Officer Keith MacKenzie and Gunner, who had been tracking a scent all the way from the Friendly's parking lot.

MacKenzie testified on Wednesday that Gunner jumped up on the window to alert him of a hot scent.

MacKenzie also testified that Gunner tried to go up on the porch where Belanger was, but didn't allow the bloodhound to do so for his own safety.

Also on Wednesday Remy Lopez, the man identified as the one walking with Ahearn and another female the night of the shooting, was shown on video identifying individuals that comprised the group that confronted them near the Friendly's Coast bus stop.

Lopez is currently serving a sentence in federal prison on gun charges from August 2019.

Belanger is facing up to a life sentence on second-degree murder charges in the death of Ahearn, a Rochester transient, formerly of Raymond, who died at 1 a.m. about an hour after she was shot.

When officers responded to the shooting just before midnight June 5, 2018, they found three adults, including Ahearn, who had sustained a gunshot wound. She died around 1 a.m. at a local hospital.
Belanger was indicted on a pair of alternative second-degree murder charges in June 2019.

Boulanger was among a group four individuals who had gone uptown and exchanged words with Lopez and the two females as they passed one another going in opposite directions on South Main Street.

A police affidavit suggests that Belanger may have been aiming at someone else, and not the 24-year-old Ahearn, formerly of Raymond.
According to the affidavit, Rochester Police responded to the corner of Waldron Avenue and Lafayette Street the day before the shooting for a report of shots fired. Once on scene, they witnessed the suspect, Belanger, then 19, of Rochester, arguing with a man Ahearn was with when she was shot, who on Tuesday was identified as Lopez.
"Justin Belanger, who was visibly upset, said words to him to the effect that he would 'catch' the identified adult male when the police were not around," the affidavit states.

Ahearn, originally from Raymond, had been living in Rochester prior to her death.