UPDATE April 20, 2023: Joseph Eaton, who confessed this week to killing his parents and two family friends on April 18, had a lengthy history of violence toward those closest to him…. READ MORE
BOWDOIN, Maine – Four people are dead and three others injured in shootings that began in a home in Bowdoin Tuesday morning, then spread to Interstate 295, according to Maine State Police.
Police had one person in custody by mid-afternoon and said there was no threat to the public. By late afternoon, police had released no further information about the shootings, the victims or the person who had been detained.
In an afternoon news conference in Yarmouth, Maine State Police Lt. Randall Keaten confirmed the Bowdoin and highway shooting scenes were connected, and that the complexity of dealing with more than one crime scene meant that it would take time to assess what had happened.
“We would like to talk to anyone who has experience with what happened here on the interstate today or in Bowdoin,” Keaten said, as he stood at the top of the Exit 15 ramp, which was lined with state and local police cruisers.
Keaten said that police are not looking for another shooter, but do believe there are people who have information that can help them with their investigation that they’d like to talk to.
Four people were found dead in the home on U.S. Route 201 in Bowdoin after Maine State Police were called there shortly after 10 a.m. Bowdoin is a town of about 3,000 halfway between Portland and Augusta, Maine’s capital.
At around 10:30 a.m., 25 miles south of the quadruple shooting, three people were injured when they were shot while driving on Interstate 295 between Exits 17 and 15 in Yarmouth. All three were taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where one was in critical condition Tuesday afternoon, according to police.
The southbound lanes of Interstate 295 in Yarmouth, which is 15 miles north of Portland, were shut down for several hours after the shootings Tuesday late morning and early afternoon as police searched the area. Police in tactical gear also swarmed Yarmouth, an upscale town of 9,000 that’s bisected by I-295 as well as U.S. Route 1. A shelter-in-place order for the town was briefly issued, but lifted by early afternoon.
Witnesses told several media outlets that the highway shootings appeared to be random, and that they seemed to come from a car also driving south on I-295.
