Dustin Tuttle and his girlfriend were sleeping in bed together early in the morning of July 5 when they heard a gunshot, and then Tuttle’s mother “started running through the house screaming.”

They awoke, but the 26-year-old Tuttle didn’t get a chance to make it out of the bedroom. His father, Carroll Tuttle Jr., was already there. Tuttle Jr. shot his son in the head with his girlfriend by his side “and told her he wasn’t going to hurt her and she got out of there.”

Before escaping from the rampage, the girlfriend said Tuttle Jr. “said he was going to kill himself.”

Those details of the harrowing violence on Russell Road in Madison are revealed in 911 transcripts of the shooting at the home at 316 Russell Road, as well as the shooting of neighbor Mike R. Spaulding at 299 Russell Road. On Monday the Morning Sentinel obtained transcripts of two 911 calls about the shooting through a Freedom of Access Act request.

Release of the transcripts comes as the Maine attorney’s general’s office continues to investigate the shootings, which ended when officers with the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office shot and killed Tuttle Jr. in his driveway.

Just before 7:30 a.m., Tuttle Jr. shot and killed his partner, 53-year-old Lori Hayden, and their son, Dustin Tuttle.

Advertisement

A 911 call received at 7:48 a.m. appears to have come from the mother of Dustin Tuttle’s girlfriend, whose name has not been released.

His girlfriend told dispatch that she didn’t see Hayden get shot, but she heard it.

She and Tuttle were sleeping when they heard Hayden run through the house screaming, she said. They jumped up, but Tuttle didn’t make it out the door.

Earlier in the call, her mother told dispatch that “he shot her boyfriend in the head with her laying right beside him.”

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released autopsy results that show both Hayden and Tuttle died of gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Toward the end of the conversation, the dispatcher says “my partners are talking with the people in Madison on the other end,” indicating that they were talking with someone else in the area, though it’s unclear who it was.

Advertisement

Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster declined to comment further or clarify the sequence of events that morning, but said he may be able to say more later this week.

The first 911 call came in at 7:37 a.m. and appears to have come from Sherry, the girlfriend of the family’s neighbor, 57-year-old Mike R. Spaulding.

According to some sources, Tuttle Jr. committed the murders over the belief that Hayden was having an affair with Spaulding. Michael J. Spaulding, his son, said that wasn’t true, and that his father was trying to get Hayden out of an abusive relationship with Tuttle Jr.

Police have confirmed that Sherry was at Spaulding’s home at the time of the shooting and also called 911.

The first line in the transcript is the caller, believed to be Sherry, saying, “Honey, breathe.”

She told the dispatcher that her boyfriend was shot by “a man in a gray pickup,” which is what Tuttle Jr. drove to the house.

Advertisement

The dispatcher asked which way the shooter headed, but Sherry, who says later in the call that she’s not from the area, said she didn’t know. The four-page conversation is tense and panicky as she begs Spaulding to “stay with me.”

The dispatcher assured her that emergency responders were on their way and continued to try to get some sense of the direction the shooter took for the police.

“I don’t know which way, I don’t know which way,” Sherry said.

The dispatcher also asked if the shooter was white or black, or what he looked like, but Sherry said she didn’t know — just an “older guy.”

She didn’t know the type of gun, either, telling the dispatcher she thought Tuttle Jr. was shooting squirrels at first.

Spaulding wasn’t awake or breathing well and was bleeding, Sherry told the dispatcher.

Advertisement

When she said his heart wasn’t moving, the dispatcher instructed her on how to do CPR. They told her to put the heel of her hand on his breastbone and push down hard and pump his chest.

“I can do this, honey, got to get all this blood out of here,” Sherry said.

Soon after, a deputy arrived at the scene and the call ends.

Three Somerset County Sheriff’s deputies — Chief Deputy James Ross, his son Detective Michael Ross, and Deputy Joseph Jackson — responded to the calls, shooting and killing Tuttle Jr. in a gunfight after he had killed Hayden, Tuttle and Spaulding.

He had also wounded Harvey Austin, Hayden’s brother-in-law, before opening fire on the police.

Austin was taken to the Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan and then to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor by LifeFlight helicopter. He has since been released.

Madeline St. Amour — 861-9239

mstamour@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @madelinestamour


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: