Dennis Blasens and Tanner Dostie lived across the street from each other for about a decade on Randall Circle — a quiet Brunswick neighborhood of mobile homes on wooded plots near the Durham town line.

Blasens, 61, a retired Navy mechanic, was known to help Dostie repair his pickup truck, according to Blasens’ wife, Michele.

Dostie is accused of fatally stabbing his neighbor on April 10, dismembering his body with a chainsaw and burning the remains in a firepit behind his home.

Neighbors and acquaintances have said in interviews with reporters and police that Dostie was exhibiting concerning behavior, and may have been struggling with addiction. Some said the loss of his estranged wife and daughter, in 2022 and 2024, could have worsened his situation. Others suggested that Dostie always displayed signs of significant anger and a capacity for violence.

Court documents have offered a glimpse into Dostie’s tense interaction with police in early April, when repeated concerning statements led law enforcement to his Randall Circle home, where they discovered human remains and other evidence of the killing.

Dostie has been charged with murder and is being held without bail at the Cumberland County Jail. Dostie’s attorneys said two weeks ago that their client plans to plead not guily at his arraignment, which had not been scheduled as of Tuesday.

THE ALLEGATIONS

A woman running an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Bath on the evening of April 10 called police to report that a man was acting erratically and making other attendees uncomfortable, and suspected the man was under the influence.

Bath police officers arrived at the church and found Dostie seemingly being consoled by others at the meeting. When an officer asked what was going on, Dostie dropped to the floor and crawled on the ground toward the officer, according to an affidavit.

Officers saw a knife on Dostie’s belt and ordered him to place his hands behind his head and comply with a pat-down, but he did not comply.

An officer moved to detain Dostie, who then stood up. They “controlled Tanner to the ground” and attempted to pry his arms out from under him, police said.

During the struggle, officers used a Taser on the 45-year-old 13 times. Officers reported that Dostie yelled, “Shoot me. Tase me. I don’t care.”

Tasers cause a person’s muscles to seize up, said Brian Higgins, a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former police chief in New Jersey. Therefore, it can be dangerous — and potentially lethal — for officers to deploy a Taser more than a few times.

Typically, Higgins would advise officers to call for backup — which was done in this case — or use other nonlethal means like batons or pepper spray if a Taser isn’t successful in incapacitating a suspect.

Bath police Chief Andrew Booth said he can’t comment on the arrest or why police deployed a Taser so many times because it is under the jurisdiction of Maine State Police, which investigates most homicides in the state. However, he said officers escalate to nonlethal methods like Tasers “as the situation requires,” after and in addition to verbal commands.

At some point during the scuffle, Dostie allegedly said, “I killed someone today.” Officers handcuffed him, checking for additional weapons.

As officers loaded Dostie into an ambulance and rode with him to the hospital, he made several more concerning statements, according to the affidavit.

“Tanner said, ‘I killed my neighbor.’ A few minutes later, Tanner said very slowly, ‘Dennis Blasens,’” Maine State Police Detective Anna Doughty wrote in the affidavit. “The officers pulled the probes out of Tanner and then sat him onto an ambulance gurney. While escorting Tanner outside to the waiting ambulance, Tanner again said he killed his neighbor. ‘I killed him to free his wife. She’s free.’”

Dostie continued to claim that he killed his neighbor and described chopping up his body, police said. He said it was the “happiest (he’s) ever been” and claimed to have ingested psychedelic mushrooms. At one point, he claimed to have also used amphetamines.

Dostie was wearing navy blue swim shorts with a brown leather belt, black sneakers and a black tank top on an April day with a low of 38 degrees in Brunswick. He wore “multiple” skull necklaces, several silver bracelets and white bandanas around his knees.

A neighbor on Randall Circle later told police that it was common for Dostie to leave the house in shorts and no shirt. His legs “looked like he ran through a thorny bush,” and officers observed cuts on his hands.

Dostie told detectives that when Blasens came over to his house that Friday morning, he hit Blasens with a baseball bat and then stabbed him several times and was unable to stop. He described cutting up the body with a chainsaw before burning it and his clothes in his fire pit. He said he attempted to clean up the scene using a power-washer and chemicals.

Then, Dostie said, he headed to the AA meeting in Bath.

FRIENDS, FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS SHOCKED

Many details of Dostie’s life are still unclear. However, people who knew the 45-year-old father were shocked and disgusted by the violent killing.

Some expressed sympathy, saying Dostie was battling issues and had lost members of his family in recent years. Others described him as violent and angry.

Dostie was born on Oct. 7, 1980, according to the affidavit. He attended Gardiner Area High School, where he captained the Tigers’ football team. In his senior year, the linebacker ranked second in the conference in tackles, according to an October 1999 Kennebec Journal story.

As a teen, he also participated in shot put and was a lifeguard for Gardiner Summer Recreation, a program his mother, Mari McGuire, directed, according to newspaper clips.

It’s unclear when or for how long, but Dostie moved to Oregon at some point, according to his former mother-in-law. He later reconnected with a high school classmate, Karen, whom he later married.

Tanner Dostie had two daughters from a previous relationship, and Karen Dostie had one.

The couple filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2019, claiming about $85,600 in debt from credit cards and loans. Dostie’s earnings as a pipefitter at Bath Iron Works left him with just $20 of net income after expenses, according to the filing.

BIW spokesperson David Hench recently confirmed that Dostie had worked for the Bath shipbuilder, but not for at least three years. It’s not clear when or why Dostie left BIW and what kind of work he did after. The filing claimed mortgage and vehicle debts not subject to Chapter 7, including just under $114,000 owed on their Randall Circle home.

In early April of this year, Tanner Dostie’s homeowner’s association put a roughly $4,000 lien against the home, apparently over unpaid dues, according to the Cumberland County Registry of Deeds.

The Dosties filed for divorce in 2021, according to court documents. It was never finalized, though, as Karen Dostie died at age 39 in February 2022 after suffering from a progressive form of a mitochondrial disease.

Karen Dostie’s mother, Lorran Launiere, described the marriage as abusive. Criminal background checks of Tanner Dostie did not reveal any previous arrests in Maine, and no protective orders were filed in Cumberland or Sagadahoc counties.

After Karen Dostie’s death, Tanner Dostie, who was living in Richmond during the divorce, moved back into the home in Brunswick, his former mother-in-law said.

Then, his daughter, Madeleine Dostie, died at the age of 23 from cancer. She was remembered in an October 2024 obituary as an animal lover and a great cook. She often spent time with her dad at camp, and the family made trips back to Oregon, according to the obituary.

Launiere described Tanner Dostie as “a very mean person” who was violent and had issues with his anger. She said she was aware of past drinking problems. Launiere also said Dostie failed to support his wife during her illness.

She hopes he receives a steep punishment if convicted.

“I hope Tanner gets the book thrown at him,” Launiere said.

Josh Spearin was four years ahead of Dostie in high school. They lost touch after graduation until he reappeared and started dating his ex-wife, Karen.

Spearin heard from his daughter Kelsey, who is Dostie’s stepdaughter, that Dostie turned to alcohol a couple of years ago. He hid it well at graduation parties and other events, Spearin said.

Exactly what impact the losses of his wife and daughter had on Tanner Dostie are unclear, but some people around him said it must have influenced his decline.

“When I knew him, he was married and had a family,” said James Carville, who worked with Dostie in the pipe shop at BIW.

Carville said he didn’t know Dostie to have issues with drugs or alcohol, and said he never displayed concerning behavior around him.

The two worked together for more than five years and lost touch after Carville left BIW in 2019. Carville described Dostie as a “super dependable co-worker” who always stepped up to help during ship launches.

“He was the guy you would want on your crew,” Carville said.

Speaking just after Blasens’ killing, Kate Dupree, a neighbor on Randall Circle in Brunswick, described Dostie as “haunted” throughout her several years of knowing him, mentioning the deaths of his family members.

“I really wish he had gotten some help,” Dupree said.

Staff Writer Dana Richie contributed to this story.