FREEDOM — Two men were found dead Tuesday at a Belfast Road home and two others were taken to the hospital with what appears to have been carbon monoxide poisoning, according to a fire official.
Freedom firefighters responded to 555 Belfast Road after receiving a call just after 6 a.m. from a phone with a Boston area code that there was a gas leak in the home, according to Freedom fire Chief Jim Waterman.
The home was raided by law enforcement agencies earlier this year because it was the site of an illegal marijuana growing operation, Waterman said. That indicates it had been part of a network of illegal grow sites across rural Maine within single-family homes that federal authorities say is being operated by Chinese transnational criminal groups.
Firefighters got people out of the house Tuesday morning and while investigating, they found lethal levels of carbon monoxide levels in the house, he said. When Waterman arrived at 6:20 a.m., a man who was uninjured, and a woman who later was taken to the hospital, were outside the house. Two men, one of whom was dead, were on the porch; another man was found dead in the living room, according to Waterman.
A man on the porch was also taken to the hospital, but Waterman said he didn’t know where.
Officials did not immediately release the identities of the victims.
The Waldo County Sheriff’s Office is investigating. A call to Waldo County Sheriff Jason Trundy Tuesday afternoon was not immediately returned.
A Waldo County dispatcher said just after 5:30 p.m. Tuesday that information about the case had not yet been released.
Following the discovery, firefighters opened windows and used fans inside the house to air it out and make it safe for investigators, Waterman said.
“The carbon monoxide leak came from a severed exhaust pipe that went on the heating system mounted on the wall in a utility room,” Waterman said.
He said most propane heaters must be vented to the outside; the house was heated with a propane heater.
“This pipe had been severed on the inside and leaking carbon monoxide in the house,” he said.
He said his first assistant fire chief, Hank Elkins, pointed out the leak to Waldo County Sheriff’s officials who arrived on the scene. Elkins also is fire chief for the town of Knox, which doesn’t have a fire department, Waterman said.
Before Waterman arrived, John York, fire chief for the town of Montville who also is a firefighter for Freedom, was there, he said.
In May, law enforcement agencies raided the home because it was the site of an illegal marijuana growing operation, according to Waterman, who said the people who were there Tuesday were of Asian descent. He said that after the raid in May, the occupants moved out and he doesn’t know when people returned to the house.
But he said it was apparent Tuesday that people were living there.
“The TV set was on, there were lots of empty cartons and the kitchen looked like it was in use,” he said.
The house is owned by Austin Zhen, but Waterman said he didn’t believe he was there Tuesday. He said the occupants looked to be in their late 20s, early 30s.
“The sad part about it is, and this is what really bothers me, is that the individual who was uninjured — I asked him, ‘Who are the other people?’ and he said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
At the house mid-Tuesday afternoon, all was quiet. No one answered the door when a reporter knocked.
The house, which had what appeared to be four propane tanks against it, is set back off Belfast Road in a wooded area with a pond behind it and several outbuildings around it. One was a long white building with no windows and an open door. A cursory glance inside revealed renovation materials including sheetrock and carpentry equipment.
A white van was parked next to another large white building behind the house.
Elaine Higgins, who lives next door to 555 Belfast Road through the woods, said that before the marijuana raid in May, a young man and woman lived there with a small boy and after the raid, no one appeared to be living there.
She said white box trucks with New York registration plates would come and go from the property. She wondered aloud who was occupying the house Tuesday.
“Why were they there and why were there so many of them there?” she said.
Higgins, 72, said she has lived there since 1981 and only in the last couple of years had she been hearing about illegal marijuana growing operations in the area.
The house at 555 Belfast Road, which is also Route 137, is about a four-minute drive to the U.S. Post Office in Freedom, where people on Tuesday were talking about the carbon monoxide deaths. Some neighbors said they saw police and ambulances rush to the scene and wondered what was happening and then they saw the report of the deaths on the television news.
Waterman, the fire chief, said Brooks and Unity ambulances responded to the scene.
Waterman said the man outside the home who was uninjured had a telephone number with a 347 area code for New York City.
“We had a language barrier,” he said.
This story will be updated.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.