Update: Police say Hebron man shot daughter in murder-suicide

HEBRON — Maine State Police were investigating an apparent murder-suicide after the bodies of a man and woman were found Thursday afternoon at a home on Marshall Pond Road in Hebron.

The victims died of gunshot wounds, police said.

At about 2 p.m., Oxford County deputies arrived on the scene after a man was reported dead on the porch of the massive two-story house, State Police Sgt. Mark Holmquist said. The body had been reported by a neighbor who had gone to the home to check on the occupants.

A shotgun was found next to the man’s body, investigators said.

Police who responded said they also found a woman dead in a bathroom inside the house. 

Police were not identifying the couple Thursday night, pending notification of the family. Holmquist said that others who live in the house were accounted for. They were unharmed, he said, and were cooperating with the investigation.

Investigators said they believe the killings took place a short time before the first body was discovered Thursday afternoon. 

The two victims used to live together at the home, police said, but the man had become estranged and was no longer residing there.

Nobody else was inside the house when the bodies were discovered, police said.

Police gathered evidence from the home and from the woods alongside the road in front of the house. Investigators also examined potential evidence inside a white SUV parked along the edge of the road outside the home. Police cordoned the area around the SUV with crime scene tape.

Autopsies will likely be performed Friday, Holmquist said. 

Marshall Pond is a sparsely populated road with little traffic. It runs off Merrill Hill Road and dead ends at Marshall Pond. 

Neighbor Matt Bornheimer believes the dead woman was around 27 years old and said she had moved to the area three and half months ago from Rhode Island. He only met the woman briefly when her dog wandered into his yard. Bornheimer described the woman as friendly — nothing seemed out of the ordinary, he said. He said he had not met the man and had not seen the white SUV parked at the home before. 

About half a dozen detectives were at the scene, working from the Maine State Police crime van.

The house where the bodies were found is roughly half a mile from Merrill Hill Road.