JEFFERSON — A Cushing man died Monday evening after shooting and wounding his ex-girlfriend outside a home in Jefferson, then leading police on a car chase that ended with an exchange of gunfire and the man shooting himself in the head, police said.
Shane Prior, 34, shot the woman in the arm at a home where she was staying on 130 Somerville Road in Jefferson, according to Maine State Police.
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The woman, Michelle Creamer, 30, of Cushing, was injured and treated at Lincoln Health-Miles Campus in Damariscotta, and was released from the hospital.
The two had been together for more than 10 years and had two children together, but they separated within the past month, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Their two children, ages 6 and 10, were outside the Jefferson home at the time of the incident but did not see the shooting and were not injured, McCausland said.
Prior shot Creamer after hiding on the Somerville Road property and calling her on a cellphone, McCausland said. Prior did not reveal he was there, McCausland said, and when Creamer left the home, he grabbed her.
“In truth, he was lying in wait there on the property, and grabbed her and forced her down the driveway where the conversation became a confrontation and she was shot in the arm,” McCausland said. “She ran up the driveway and into the home. He remained on the property for some time.”
After Creamer called police and they responded to the shooting around 10 p.m., Prior fled the scene in his truck and troopers followed him, said McCausland. They pursued Prior for 1.3 miles before he stopped on Route 32, McCausland said.
Prior had a handgun and he fired a shot in the direction of the troopers, McCausland said, and then a trooper returned three to four shots.
Prior then turned the gun on himself, shooting and dying from “a single, self-inflicted, gunshot wound to the head,” said McCausland, shortly after an autopsy of Prior’s body was performed at the State Medical Examiner’s Office Tuesday morning.
Sgt. Jason Madore, the trooper who returned fire, was not injured and was placed on administrative leave with pay as the Maine Attorney General’s Office investigates police involvement in the shooting. McCausland said placing the trooper on leave is standard procedure in all police-involved shootings in Maine.
Another woman who owns the Somerville Road home where the shooting took place, Flame Gracie, was there Tuesday morning. Speaking in the driveway of the home, Gracie declined to provide information about the incident.
Several other people were at the home on Tuesday morning, including a family member of Creamer’s who would not give her name, but said she was there to comfort Creamer.
A man who lives about a quarter-mile from the home, Alton Newell, was taking a walk down Somerville Road on Tuesday morning. He did not know the residents of the property where the shooting took place and said he thought they had only moved there in the last year or so. Newell added that he is hard of hearing and did not hear any gunfire on Monday.
A man who lives next door to the place where Creamer was staying, who declined to provide his name, said he heard what sounded like four loud firecrackers on Monday night, around the time police say the shooting happened.
Route 32 in Jefferson was closed overnight as troopers investigated the shooting, but was reopened to traffic by the morning.
This story will be updated.
Charles Eichacker — 621-5642
ceichacker@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @ceichacker
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