Shooting spree in Maine leaves 2 dead

LEE, Maine – A former convict beat a man and stole guns and a pickup truck before shooting five people, two of them fatally, during a rampage across several northern Maine towns, state police said Friday.

Anthony Lord was arrested at his uncle’s home in Houlton and faces murder and kidnapping charges, and a woman who was being held with him was safe, state police Lt. Sean Hashey said.

Investigators were searching for a motive for the shootings, which left 58-year-old Kevin Tozier and 22-year-old Kyle Hewitt dead. Two other men and one woman were being treated for gunshot wounds and were expected to survive, police said.

Dozens of law enforcement officers had been searching for Lord after an outburst of violence that started Thursday night with a fire at a barn in Benedicta and then escalated early Friday when a man was robbed of his guns and pickup truck in Silver Ridge.

Lord faces two counts of murder and one count of kidnapping, police said. Additional charges will likely be added, they said.

Lord, 35, has a criminal record that includes convictions for domestic assault, criminal threatening and assault, police said. He was placed on the state’s sex-offender registry after being convicted of unlawful sexual contact with someone under the age of 14.

State police also are investigating the death of his 6-month-old son, who was discovered unresponsive by his mother in May.

Lord returned to the site of the barn fire and the home where 22-year-old Brittany Irish lived to get her, Hashey said. There, he shot Hewitt, who was Irish’s boyfriend, and her 55-year-old mother, Kim Irish, police said.

Carlton Eddy was shot through the window of his truck in the home’s driveway, police said. Tozier and 54-year-old Clayton McCarthy were shot at a woodlot in Lee where a logging truck was stolen after Lord ditched the pickup, they said.