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Maine shooting spree: police identify victims as motive remains unclear Maine shooting spree: suspect showed no emotion when arrested, uncle says
(about 7 hours later)
Authorities are trying to determine the motive of the ex-convict they say shot five people, two of them fatally, during a rampage across northern Maine. The suspect in a criminal rampage across several northern Maine communities that left two people dead showed no emotion and revealed no clues about his motive when he was arrested, the suspect’s uncle said on Saturday. Anthony Lord, 35, was arrested on Friday after police say he beat a man, stole guns and a pickup truck, kidnapped a young woman and shot five people, killing two.
Anthony Lord was arrested at his uncle’s home in Houlton on Friday and faces murder and kidnapping charges, state police lieutenant Sean Hashey said. A woman who was being held with him was safe, he said. Lord was taken into custody at the home of his uncle, Carl Lord Jr, in Houlton. Carl Lord told the Associated Press that Anthony Lord’s mother and other family members gathered at his home on Friday when they heard that his nephew was the suspect.
Investigators said Lord knew some of the victims, but authorities gave no information about possible relationships. Officers, detectives and evidence technicians will work through the weekend to piece the case together, Hashey said. Carl Lord said he walked out of his house and saw Anthony Lord hugging his mother. Then the suspect pulled the magazine from the handgun he was holding, dropped the weapon in a vegetable garden and removed the bullets, then handed over a pocket knife, Carl Lord said.
“We know a lot, but there’s a lot of questions to be answered still,” he said. “He didn’t have any emotion. He looked at me when he unloaded the gun like it was something that he was bound and determined to do,” Lord said. “When he dropped that gun, I just knew deep down that nobody else was in trouble. He didn’t want to harm anyone else.”
The shootings left 58-year-old Kevin Tozier and 22-year-old Kyle Hewitt dead. Two other men and one woman were treated for gunshot wounds and were expected to survive, police said. Another family member called police and Anthony Lord said nothing until he was being taken away, when he turned to his mother and told her he loved her, Carl Lord said. He said his nephew, whom he wasn’t close to, “seemed like the type of kid that just snapped”.
The outburst of violence started on Thursday night with a fire at a barn in Benedicta and then escalated early Friday when a man was robbed of his guns and pickup truck in Silver Ridge. “He went on a rampage for some reason. Only Anthony will be able to tell you what caused it,” Carl Lord said.
Before his arrest, Lord shot people in Benedicta and Lee, police said. Police said Friday they are searching for a motive for the shootings, which left Kevin Tozier, 58, and Kyle Hewitt, 22, dead. They said Lord knew some of his victims, but won’t say how. A Maine state police spokesman said Saturday he couldn’t provide any new details on the case.
Lord was being questioned late on Friday. His initial court appearance is expected early next week. Lord has a criminal record that includes convictions for domestic assault, criminal threatening and assault, police said. He was placed on the state’s sex offender registry after being convicted of unlawful sexual contact with someone under the age of 14.
Lord, 35, has a criminal record that includes convictions for domestic assault, criminal threatening and assault, police said. He was placed on the state’s sex-offender registry after being convicted of unlawful sexual contact with someone under the age of 14. State police are also investigating the death of his six-month-old son, who was discovered unresponsive by his mother in Millinocket in May.
State police also are investigating the death of his six-month-old son, who was discovered unresponsive by his mother in Millinocket in May. On Saturday, several police cars were still parked outside the gray home in Benedicta where police say Lord killed Hewitt and wounded Kim Irish. From there, police say Lord kidnapped Hewitt’s girlfriend, 22-year-old Brittany Irish, who was with Lord at the time of his arrest.
Police said the first shootings happened at the home of Lord’s brother, where windows and the doors were shot out but no one was injured. Richard Irish, Kim’s husband and Brittany’s father, told the Associated Press on Saturday that his family wasn’t ready to talk about the ordeal.
From there, Lord returned to the site of the barn fire and the home where 22-year-old Brittany Irish lived to get her, Hashey said. There, he shot Hewitt, who was Irish’s boyfriend, and her 55-year-old mother, Kim Irish, police said. Carl Lord disputed the idea that Brittany Irish had been kidnapped, saying that the two were affectionate toward each other at his home and that he thought they were dating.
Carlton Eddy was shot through the window of his truck in the home’s driveway, police said. Tozier and 54-year-old Clayton McCarthy were shot at a woodlot in Lee where a logging truck was stolen after Lord ditched the pickup, they said. A woman who answered the door on Saturday at the Mattawamkaeg home of Clayton McCarthy, one of the three people wounded, said he was unavailable to comment and she also declined to comment.
Police said Lord and Irish knew each other. Tozier’s ex-wife, who answered the door at his home in Lee, declined comment. Anthony Lord, who faces murder and kidnapping charges, is being held at Aroostook County jail and is to make his first court appearance on Monday or Tuesday.
Several Benedicta residents said they couldn’t remember the last time the town of 400 people in Maine’s northernmost county had seen such violence.
“Nothing like this happens here,” said Patrick Knowles, a 21-year-old who grew up in Benedicta and now lives in Portland.
Knowles said Hewitt moved to the area and entered his class at the local high school his junior year. Hewitt was a nice guy who was just trying to fit in, Knowles said.
“He just wasn’t from the area and he didn’t know anyone, so it wasn’t easy for him,” said Knowles, who was sitting at a bar just down the road from where Hewitt was shot.