Man convicted of Orono woman’s 1983 murder dies a week after his accomplice

By Rosemary Lausier, Bangor Daily News Staff

A 77-year-old man who was serving a 70-year sentence for the 1983 murder of an Orono woman died Tuesday, Aug. 17, just a week after the death of his co-defendant.

Joseph Albert, an inmate at the Maine State Prison in Warren, died late in the afternoon, according to the Maine Department of Corrections.

His death came just a week after the death of 74-year-old Harold Glidden, an inmate at Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston.

The pair was convicted of murdering Orono resident Justine Renee Gridley in LaGrange, and both were serving 70-year sentences.

Glidden and Albert picked up Gridley, who was hitchhiking along Route 2 in Veazie, on March 17, 1983, Glidden testified in March 1984, according to BDN archives. Gridley was wearing a McDonald’s restaurant uniform.

Albert drove to a woods road in LaGrange, where he raped her, killed her with two blows from a brass hammer and dragged the body to a clearing off the road, Glidden testified.

Albert’s earliest possible release date, with credits for good behavior factored in, would have been Nov. 11, 2026.

Neither death was related to COVID-19, according to the Department of Corrections.