Reporting Aside: Daughters haunted by mother’s killing in Waterville (2024)

Sisters Kayla and Caitlyn Bragg feel as if they are in a nightmare that doesn’t end.

Not only did they lose their mother, Angela Bragg, without warning, but they also live with the knowledge that she was murdered.

“This is our reality, every day,” Kayla said.

I met the sisters Wednesday at North Street Playground in Waterville, where they told me their story, the pain of loss evident in the way they spoke of their mother’s kindnesses and sacrifices, in the tears they shed so freely.

Angela Bragg was 52 when she was allegedly stabbed to death by a coworker while working Dec. 27 at Damon’s Beverage in Waterville. Her co-worker, Spridal Hubiak, 21, is charged with intentional or knowing murder in connection with the case and has pleaded not guilty. Police said he fled the scene after the killing and another co-worker found her body at 4:30 the next morning.

Angela’s daughters grieve for their mother, four months after her death, as Hubiak remains in jail, awaiting dispositional hearings.

Caitlyn, 32, and Kayla, 28, have many questions in their struggle to make sense of what happened. Why did he do it? Why were only two people on shift that night? Why, if he was writing in his journals that he had dark thoughts of killing someone, did he choose their mother?

“The prosecution told me, ‘He chose her; it was just a matter of when he would do it,'” Caitlyn said.

Angela had taken a job at Damon’s about a year ago after working many years as a medication specialist at Capital City Manor in Augusta. She also did home health care, according to her daughters. She had taken a break from that type of work and was trying something different, with a goal of going back to school to study medical billing and coding and she wanted to buy a house, they said.

Angela was a hard worker and a devoted mother and grandmother to her eight grandchildren, ages 10 months to 13 years, always attending their sports events, buying them gifts and helping to care for Kayla’s baby, the youngest of the clan. Angela lived with Kayla in Waterville; Caitlyn and her four children lived right across the field. They were a tight family, with Angela being the glue that kept everything running smoothly. She knew how to fix anything, was eager to help and always gave the best advice.

“She was the most selfless, giving person there was, and she deserved way better than what she got in this life,” Kayla said.

Before Angela’s death, Kayla and Caitlyn felt blessed to have their mother alive at 52, as her own mother had died of cancer at age 53 and Angela’s sister, of the same disease at 47, they said. Angela reminded her daughters a few years ago when they were having a spat that they needed to make amends.

“She said, ‘Love each other because one day you two are going to be all you have when I’m gone,'” Kayla recalled.

This new reality has shattered the safety they always felt with their mother at hand. They feel as if they are in a sea of uncertainty as they wait for answers in sealed court documents.

They turn the events of Christmas week over and over in their minds, wondering if they could have done anything differently, or seen the signs of impending trouble. Kayla said she feels guilt.

Their mother had destroyed her car in November by striking a pole in the Walmart parking lot during the season’s first snowstorm, so Kayla typically drove her to work and picked her up after her shift was done.

She recalled her mother reminding her on Dec. 27 — the day she was killed — not to forget to pick her up at 9 p.m.

Kayla arrived in the Damon’s parking lot at 8:40 p.m. Strangely, there were no vehicles in the lot, she said. She waited and waited but her mother didn’t exit the building. The door was locked. She called Caitlyn, who suggested she wait longer, which she did. They thought perhaps their father had picked Angela up. Their parents weren’t living together but remained good friends.

They tried to call and text Angela, with no response. In the morning, Caitlyn was at work in Belgrade when she got the news that something had happened at Damon’s the night before. She called law enforcement but got no answer as to whether her mother was involved.

“I called hospitals; I called every jail,” Caitlyn recalled. “My boss told me to go home but I couldn’t, and it was 10:30. My sister called me and I couldn’t understand her. She was crying so hard.”

The sisters were inconsolable. Their world as they had known it had shattered.

Looking back now, they remembered their mother saying last year that she had taken Hubiak under her wing as a sort of son, that he was a good kid and she brought muffins to him at work. He bought her manila envelopes of scratch tickets and gift cards in August, as well as on her birthday in September. The sisters asked their mother if she thought that was weird, with Angela brushing it off because, even if she did think something was off about Hubiak, she never would have shunned him, they said.

Their mother’s absence has left a big hole. Their children feel it most poignantly, not understanding why Nana isn’t coming back.

“We all were just a unit, and we all supported each other, and her grandchildren were her life,” Caitlyn said. “I miss her coming through the door with gifts, saying, ‘I got the kids this.'”

In their grief, the sisters say that they can still hear their mother’s voice, her laughter. A spiritual woman, she believed in karma and being good to others, a philosophy she passed on to them.

“I just wish I could go back to seeing her every day, waking up and her flying through the house and her music on,” Kayla said. “I just wish I could have looked at her a little bit longer before she walked out the door. She was just too giving, she was just too good for this earth. I feel like the only thing that gives us peace is that she’s with her sister and her mom.”

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 35 years. Her columns appear here Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com

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