Central Maine communities generated plenty of news to read about in 2025, but readers really took an interest in the evacuation of a Walmart in Waterville after a man sustained a self-inflicted injury in February. It was the most read local story on centralmaine.com.

Other top reads include: A Waterville restaurant being attacked on social media for flying a Pride flag in June. How some Maine parents are fighting back against conservative education groups was featured earlier in December. And, Hallowell resident Mark Keith, who believes the road he lives on is his private land, has to sue the city to prove it.

Other well-read articles included stories of a mom who said God told her to kill her teenager, various accidents and crime.

Here are the 10 most read stories of the year.

A man who “sustained a self-inflicted wound to his neck” was rushed to a local hospital after first responders provided life-saving care at a Walmart in Waterville one February afternoon.

The store was cleared of shoppers around 2 p.m. Feb. 4, and Waterville police Maj. Jason Longley said the man sustained “serious but believed to be non-life-threatening injuries.” Shoppers described a busy scene as the store evacuated.

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An unpaved section of Outer Central Street could be the subject of a lawsuit against the city after a Board of Appeals meeting.

Mark Keith bought his property in September on the outskirts of Hallowell and almost immediately found himself in a property dispute with the city.

The southern border of his new lot borders a gravel trail the city believes it owns. Keith thinks otherwise, saying the road is abandoned and should not be allowed to be improved — landowners on the western end of the trail had asked the city for permission to smoothen the road for logging trucks to drive through.

Keith petitioned Hallowell’s Board of Appeals, but lost. And now his only recourse is to sue.

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As members of some conservative “parents’ rights” groups win election to school boards across Maine, some of their detractors charge they are running in order to implement purposefully distracting tactics and anti-LGBTQ+ policy. Some parents are now organizing against those conservative groups.

In the Gardiner-area school district, some parents formed the Gardiner Regional Education Advocacy Team, or GREAT. Unlike the conservative parents’ rights organizations, these new groups don’t have national megadonors. They’re grassroots groups supporting what they call “pro-education” candidates.

The effort has seen electoral success already in the Gardiner-area school district. At least five other such groups already exist in Maine.

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After turning herself in at the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office in December 2024, Megan McDonald told police she killed her 14-year-old son, Quincy, because God told her to.

The Sidney killing last winter — a gruesome scene police said included a “makeshift altar” — shocked the neighborhood and community. In April, McDonald was found not to be mentally competent to stand trial.

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Heavily armed tactical teams lined Skowhegan streets on a September afternoon while police were looking for a Fairfield man who had several pending charges against him.

A five-hour standoff ensued. While barricaded inside a Beech Street residence, the 21-year-old Fairfield man, an 18 year old and three minors posted videos on social media “laughing, smoking, and not taking the situation they had placed themselves in with any seriousness.” 

Nearby residences were evacuated, and police established a perimeter. One resident said the crowd that gathered was “more than the town parade.”

Five hours later, the five individuals exited the house and were arrested without incident.

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6. Waterville teacher who threatened Trump supporters says she is ‘deeply ashamed’

JoAnna St. Germain said she was suffering from extreme insomnia and other mental health issues when she made posts on social media calling for the military and U.S. Secret Service to ‘take out’ Trump supporters.

JoAnna St. Germain, a teacher who faced scrutiny from her employers and community members for calling for someone to “take out” supporters of Donald Trump, apologized in an interview with the Morning Sentinel in May.

St. Germain said she had been “incredibly stressed” and had been admitted to a psychiatric unit before making the posts in late April. She said she thinks her “brain just broke a little bit” when she started posting social media rants about the president and his supporters.

She told the Morning Sentinel that she does not plan to return to teaching.

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For the first time in years, Silver Street Tavern in downtown Waterville is getting a lot of backlash on social media for hanging a rainbow-colored flag outside its restaurant during June, the annual Pride month.

Silver Street Tavern owner Charlie Giguere was surprised to see massive pushback on social media for flying a Pride flag outside of his Main Street restaurant this June.

Giguere posted a photo of the flag on Facebook and saw higher-than-usual engagement on the post, with many commenters celebrating, and others saying the flag was “the child predator flag” and that they would no longer patronize Silver Street Tavern.

He said he has flown the flag for years during Pride Month, and wouldn’t be intimidated to stop doing so.

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A four-town Somerset County police chase that ended with a rollover crash resulted in the arrests of two people in early February.

The story took a while for the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office to put together. First, the owner of a trailer tried to track down someone he thought had stolen it, resulting in an 18-wheeler chase. Then, some kind of physical altercation, and a pulled gun. Then, another chase and a rollover crash. Deputies arrived on scene and found Alexander and Sarah Wyman and a 4-month-old child in the vehicle being chased.

The Wymans — who owned Brick House Kitchen in Skowhegan — were arrested and charged.

The driver failed to stop at railroad safety gates that had been lowered on Main Street, police said.

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A 16-year-old girl escaped without injury in an evening train crash February in Waterville.

She had driven through closed track gates that indicated a train was closing in, and her 2019 Hyundai SUV was pushed about 100 yards down the railroad tracks. 

The train was moving at about 10 mph when the crash occurred. Waterville police Maj. Josh Woods said it was the first train vs. car crash he’d seen in 17 years at the department.

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Amanda Quirion-Clark, 30, was taken to a hospital via LifeFlight of Maine helicopter, the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office said.

Amanda Quirion-Clark was riding her 2016 Indian Scout motorcycle north on Kennebec River Road in Embden when she crashed in late April.

Quirion-Clark’s injuries were serious, police said, especially to her legs, which were pinned between the motorcycle and a guardrail.

Alcohol, drugs and speeding were all ruled out as factors in the initial investigation, and the crash happened during daylight hours with no inclement weather. Police said it was not clear why the crash occurred.

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