The house at 18 South Grove St. in Waterville, shown on Tuesday afternoon, is where a shooting occurred Monday morning. The home is a duplex and 18 is on the right hand side. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel
WATERVILLE — A Winslow man has been identified by authorities as the person killed in a Monday morning shooting in a city neighborhood.
Justin Iraola, 22, died from multiple gunshot wounds, according to Shannon Moss, public information officer for the Maine Department of Public Safety, in a Tuesday news release. Iraola’s identification came following an autopsy performed Tuesday by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta.
Police otherwise remained tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the deadly shooting on South Grove Street, where one neighbor said the quiet neighborhood had never experienced such an incident before. The circumstances and details surrounding the death are not being released by authorities at this time, Moss said in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon. Police have not released the identification of anyone else involved in the shooting.
Waterville police responded to a shooting outside a residence at 18 South Grove St. shortly after 8 a.m. on Monday. Police from multiple departments were present on the street, which was closed off by police crime tape, throughout the day.
Waterville dispatch logs show that multiple ambulances and fire crews responded to the call at 8:08 a.m. along with police, with the log describing the incident as a homicide. The Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit was assisting the Waterville Police Department in the investigation, according to Moss.
The shooting occurred outside a duplex whose address is 16 and 18 South Grove St.
A boy answered the door to 18 South Grove late Tuesday afternoon. Allowing a reporter inside, his mother, who said her first name is Amanda, confirmed someone named “Justin” was the person who was killed. She said he had been visiting her home and at some point went outside, after which he was shot. She said her daughter was a witness to the shooting and was home Tuesday, but she was sleeping so she couldn’t comment.
Kirk Boucher, 57, who lives across the street, said he was at work Monday for a flooring distributor and a neighbor called to let him know there had been a shooting.
Kirk Boucher stands outside his home across the street from where a shooting occurred Monday at 18 South Grove St. in Waterville. Boucher says it has always been a quiet neighborhood but the family that moved into he duplex across the street more than a year ago has had loud parties just about every weekend. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel
Boucher said the family living in the duplex at 18 had moved in more than a year ago and has loud parties every weekend and vehicles with out-of-state plates, including Georgia and Florida, regularly are parked outside on weekends.
“At 3, 4, 5 o’clock in the morning there is yelling, screaming out here,” Boucher said. “My house is old and there’s not much insulation and you can hear everything.”
Boucher said he has lived in his house 17 years and his father grew up there. He said his grandparents’ owned the house for many years. They also owned property next door and the land on which the duplex was built, many years ago, across the street. Nothing like a shooting has ever happened there, he said.
Echo Property Management LLC owns the duplex, according to the city assessor’s office.
“This neighborhood was very quiet and everybody is looking out for everybody,” he said. “It’s a really nice, quiet neighborhood. If it wasn’t for the streetlight out there, you’d think it was out in the country.”
South Grove Street in Waterville is cordoned off Monday afternoon with police tape after a shooting that left one person dead, according to police. Jake Freudberg/Morning Sentinel
A woman who lives in the duplex at 16 South Grove is staying with her boyfriend for a week because she remains afraid since the shooting, according to Boucher. She was home and heard the shooting when it occurred, he said.
“She was petrified — she thought it was something falling off the wall or something because she had never heard a gunshot,” Boucher said.
He said that during a party at 18 South Grove last month, a window in the door was busted out.
He said he and his neighbors still don’t know what happened to prompt the shooting and they want to know.
South Grove Street is a dead-end street off Grove Street, which runs from Water Street in the city’s South End to Carter Memorial Drive, which links to Silver Street.
“I went to Waterville Police Department yesterday to see what’s going on and they said to call state police,” Boucher said. “I called state police and they said there’s no information. I said I live across the street. It concerns me because it’s been a quiet neighborhood all my life. It’s like a little isolated. It’s tucked away.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the owner of the duplex at 18 South Grove St.
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