A Maine man released from prison on Friday shot and killed his parents and two of their friends in Bowdoin on Tuesday, then fired a gun at drivers on I-295 in Yarmouth, injuring three, Maine State Police said.

Joseph Eaton, 34, of Bowdoin, confessed to police that he killed his parents David Eaton, 66, and Cynthia Eaton, 62, as well as their friends Robert Eger, 72, and his wife Patricia Eger, 62, police said during a Wednesday press briefing.  

David Eaton was found dead in a barn outside the Augusta Road home, while the other three were inside, said Col. William Ross.  

The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Department received a 911 call at 9:21 a.m. Tuesday from a family friend who stopped by the home to check on the family and found one person dead, Ross said.

Deputies arrived and found three others.

Around 10:30 a.m. Yarmouth, Falmouth and Cumberland police began receiving calls that multiple vehicles had been hit by gunfire on I-295 south.  

At 10:44 a.m., police found a vehicle on the ramp at Exit 15 southbound and shortly thereafter, located Eaton.  

Three people from Bowdoinham were injured by gunfire: Sean Halsey, 51, and his two children Justin Halsey, 29, and Paige Halsey, 25. Paige Halsey is in critical condition and her father and brother suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said. 

Eaton told police he shot at the vehicles because he believed they were police vehicles that were following him, police said.

Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck called the violence “senseless and heinous.”

“When you have a series of events like occurred yesterday, I look at that as an attack on the soul of our state,” he said. “It’s a shock to everybody. You want to naturally say well that can’t be happening here in Maine, it happens everywhere else, but it doesn’t happen here.”

Eaton faces four counts of murder and is being held without bail. He has not yet been charged with any crimes related to the highway shootings.  

He makes his first court appearance on Thursday.  

Eaton’s mother picked him up from the Maine Correctional Facility in Windham on Friday after he completed his sentence for aggravated assault. She took him to Bowdoin to stay with family friends Patricia and Robert Eger, according to a police press release.  

While police released the names of the victims and some details Wednesday, there were other questions they were not yet prepared to answer.  

Police would not say if one or more guns were used, what type of gun was used or where Eaton got the firearm or firearms. They would not say if he was inside or outside a vehicle when he was firing at passing motorists on I-295.

They said they are not allowing Eaton’s mug shot to be released and said they cannot say why they have made that decision.

Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said Bowdoin is a typical small Maine town where everybody knows everybody.

“Bowdoin, in my opinion, is a wonderful community,” he said. “I’m heartsick over this tragedy that has occurred to the people and the residents of this community. We hope we can move on from this but it’s going to take some time to heal.”

At the Bowdoin home on Wednesday, police continued to work the scene with the state police evidence truck backed up to house.  

“Sheriff’s Line Do Not Cross” police tape kept the media at a distance at the end of a long dirt driveway.  

Closer to the house, a dump truck, at least two pick-ups and an SUV were visible. A flagpole with the American flag and the “thin blue line” flag — a sign of support for law enforcement — could be seen waiving in the wind.  

Augusta Road, also known as Route 201, is a typical Maine secondary road, with a mix of mobile homes and family split levels, with trampolines and toys in front yards.  

The town office and transfer station are closed on Wednesdays, but the town posted a notice on its website Tuesday mourning the loss of those who were killed.

“The town of Bowdoin’s thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the family of the victims of the tragedy unfolding in Bowdoin and Yarmouth today,” it reads. “At this time, we will not be making any comments and defer all media requests for comments to the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police.”  

Kristi Gallant, owner of Tiameris Hair Studio, which is down the road from the home, said she hasn’t seen the family for about 20 years.  

“You live in the country, you don’t really chat with people all the time,” she said. “I just hope for the family’s sake they get some clarity.”  

YARMOUTH IN SHOCK

In Yarmouth, a small community of 9,000 perhaps best known for its annual summertime clam festival, everyone was talking about the incident Wednesday morning. 

“It was a big thing yesterday, being a small town like Yarmouth, we’ve never had something happen like this before,” said Emily Clark, a manager at Clayton’s Café & Bakery, at 447 Route 1, less than a mile from Exit 15.

Clark lives in Harpswell but grew up in Yarmouth, graduating from Yarmouth High School in 2011. She had been dropping off a car down the street from the popular local eatery to have some work done around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and saw the police vehicles crowding the ramp to the highway. Her first impression, she said, was it must have been a car accident or something.

“I didn’t think anything of it, because it’s a small town, and we’d never had anything like that before,” she said. “We don’t live in an area where crime is high, thank goodness.”

At around the same time Tierra Spencer, 26, of Lisbon Falls, was coming down Interstate 295 on her way to work as a stylist at Epic Image Salon, just down the street from Clayton’s. 

“All of that had just started,” she said.

Like Clark, Spencer said she didn’t know what to make of all the police activity she saw. At Cuppa Jo’s, another Route 1 coffee shop even closer to the exit, Sage Watterson, 23, was working behind the counter Tuesday morning at around 10:30 when a friend texted her two words: “Active shooter.”

“I was checking Facebook and Twitter, like, every 30 seconds,” she said.

At around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, in the middle of the coffee shops’ morning rushes and not long after Clark got to work at the salon, every business in the area received an automated phone call from the Yarmouth Police Department instructing them to lock their doors.

“I’m like, ‘This is Maine. This doesn’t happen here,’” Spencer said.

Clayton’s shut down right away, Clark recalled.

“We shut all the shades and locked the doors, we shut down online,” she said.

Yarmouth Police Chief Daniel Gallant said the department asked for a “Code Red” message to be sent through the Cumberland County Regional Dispatch Center, to businesses and residents.

“We were asking people to stay in their homes,” he said.

The message did not go out to the entire town. Instead, Gallant said, the message was confined to a geographical area near the highway, in areas such as Spring Street, East Main Street and Lafayette Street.

Even after word came out that the lockdown had been lifted, Clark said Clayton’s shut down for the rest of the day, just to be safe. Cuppa Jo’s closed too, at 12:30 p.m. instead of the usual 2 p.m. Watterson said she got a ride home. Since she lived on the Royal River, she passed by all of the police activity, which she was was a surreal experience.

“I’ve never seen that much police presence in Yarmouth because… it’s Yarmouth,” she said. “I got home and just hugged my mom and just sat on the couch.”

While the situation ended quickly, with the lockdown lifted by midafternoon, there were still signs, both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, of the shock lingering. 

“I can imagine that this is not something that’s normal around Maine, and this is not normal for Yarmouth either,” Gallant said.

Watterson said she went back to work Tuesday night at her second job, scooping ice cream at Pat’s Pizza, where everyone was talking about what had happened.

“It was a really intense atmosphere,” she said.

Spencer said she had been in town Wednesday morning, and that things felt different, like people seemed to still be in shock.

“I can definitely tell that the vibe in town is kind of different,” she said. 

At Cuppa Jo’s Wednesday, Watterson was back at work, saying yesterday just felt like a “dream.” Sitting in a chair reading a book was Alexandra Barnes, 25, who lives in Boston but was in town this week visiting family. 

She said she was sitting in the same chair Tuesday when the incident happened. While she was scared at the time, she said she thought nothing of coming back to the coffee shop Wednesday morning.

“Lightning can’t strike twice,” she said.

At state police headquarters, Ross repeated a request that anyone with information about either incident call state police at 207-624-7076, option 9.

He hoped the additional details provided by police Wednesday helps to ease the minds of Mainers.

“As tragic as this is, it seems to be an isolated incident and not part of a bigger problem, which I think is good news for the residents of Maine,” he said.