AUGUSTA -- Audrey Lou Benn was a nice woman and a good neighbor, the first one to welcome Raymond Leslie Clark and his then-girlfriend to the apartment one floor above her at 20 State St.

Benn, who was one of two people living in the basement apartment, offered to help them if she could, and she lent them a cot to use as a couch until they got their furniture from storage.

Clark occasionally used her phone or bummed a cigarette, and he would offer Benn a cigarette when her own supply ran low.

Sometime after 7:15 a.m. on Feb. 22, 2008, Clark killed the 72-year-old woman, strangling her with the tie to her own bathrobe.

In a courthouse interview Monday, Clark said he regrets his action every day.

"I wish I could change it in some way and trade places with her," Clark said Monday as he sat outside the small courtroom in Kennebec County Superior Court, 15 minutes before pleading guilty to Benn's murder.

"She never bothered anybody," Clark said. "That's why I'm standing up today and taking responsibility for what I did. I think people should know the truth." As he spoke, his wrists in handcuffs, Clark moved his feet so a woman exiting the court room would not trip on his shackles. A Kennebec County sheriff's deputy stood guard nearby.

Clark's eyes teared up and he talked faster and faster about his ex-girlfriend and about Benn's death.

"I want to show people this crime wasn't something I would do," he said. "It's a chance to show people I'm better than that. That wasn't me. Since I've been in jail, I've been thinking about it a lot."

Clark, 36, who is 5-foot-11 and weighs 200 pounds, according to the murder indictment, blames the state's mental health system for failing him, saying he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and prescribed such medications as Seroquel, Vistaril and Clonopin.

Because he spent time at the Augusta Mental Health Institute, parameters of his treatment were governed by the AMHI consent decree.

He said not enough treatment was available, though.

He said he went four or five months at a time without a caseworker and tried for a year to get into couples' counseling with his ex-girlfriend, Audrey Howes. He and Howes had been together for almost 51/2 years. "We broke up Feb. 5, 2008," he said.

On Feb. 8, the Augusta Police Department put out notices advising neighbors that Clark was a convicted sex offender. Clark had been convicted in Portland in 1999 of sexual abuse of a minor after a 14-year-old girl told police he forced her to have sex in a rail car at the base of Munjoy Hill.

He was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time of the sex offense, Clark was on probation for robbery.

Two weeks before Benn's murder, Clark said, mental-health workers tried to get him to enter an inpatient crisis treatment facility.

"I was not able to go because I was paranoid my girlfriend would break into my apartment," he said.

He said Benn's behavior toward him changed after she found out he was a registered sex offender.

"Things were different that day when I went down to her house to get a glass of water," Clark said. "She let me get the pitcher out of the refrigerator. Her look was different. She was standing by the sink with a knife in her hand. She said she was going to have me put back in jail. I don't know what happened."

That's when he wrested the knife from her hand, beat her and strangled her.

He said he first entered the state system at age 5, after his mother gave up custody of him to the state.

He was kicked out of public school in fourth grade, he said, then bounced between mental hospitals and youth centers and later among mental hospitals, psychiatric wards, detoxification units, prison and jail.

He said he's still troubled by his mental illness. He gets some help in jail, but not as much as he needs, he said.

"I'm hearing voices," he said Monday. "I can't get the Clonopin I was on for two years."

The medication he is on makes his mouth dry. At one point, he asked the deputy for a drink of water.

Now he's looking at a maximum sentence of 40 years. "I'll be 68 or 69 by the time I'd get out," he said.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com