An estranged couple were found dead inside a home in Lebanon on Saturday, hours after police responded to reports of gunshots there.
Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland said police believe Allyson Parker, 30, was shot to death by her former boyfriend, Thomas Doyon, 27, who then shot himself.
The discovery of the two bodies inside the home on Bigelow Road around 3:45 p.m. ended an apparent standoff that began late Saturday morning and included the evacuation of nearby homes.
McCausland said Parker and Doyon had been living at the residence for about three years but had recently ended their relationship and Parker had moved out.
She went to the home Saturday with a friend, and with her parents, who also live at the house, to retrieve some of her belongings.
Both Parker’s parents and the friend were inside the house when they heard gunshots from an upstairs bedroom. The three fled and called police.
When officers arrived, McCausland said, they didn’t know if anyone was alive or not, so they tried several times to make contact. Some nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution and the road was closed to traffic.
After several hours and no success making contact, police entered the home and found the bodies.
McCausland said autopsies would be conducted Sunday at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta but it appeared both died from gunshot wounds.
Lebanon is a town of about 6,000 residents in York County, west of Sanford and on the border with New Hampshire.
Parker had a 7-year-old daughter from a prior relationship, police said. Her Facebook profile picture shows the two making funny faces.
On Doyon’s Facebook page, he posted about a month ago, “Any good cough remedies for a 7-year-old?”
Domestic violence homicides are among the most common in Maine, McCausland said. Half of Maine’s 18 homicides last year were related to domestic violence.
Last December in Richmond, police said 46-year-old Kirk Alexander Jr. used a 9mm handgun to kill his longtime girlfriend, Niomi Mello, 37, before turning the weapon on himself. The bodies were found by the woman’s 11-year-old son.
In March, Kenneth Bryant, 48, of Gardiner shot and killed his estranged wife, Autumn Bryant, 44, before taking his own life.
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