LAMOINE — A neighbor says a Lamoine man who was fatally shot by his son Tuesday recently told him he was afraid his son might kill him.

Maine State Police on Wednesday were back at the scene of a double homicide in Lamoine to determine what caused 27-year-old Leon Tilden to fatally shoot his father, Robert Tilden, and his uncle, Russell Pinkham, who were both 50.

After the shootings early Tuesday morning, Leon Tilden was fatally wounded during an armed confrontation with troopers.

A neighbor, Stan Olencki, told the Bangor Daily News that he recently talked to Robert Tilden while Leon Tilden was firing a gun in the woods. Olencki said that’s when the older Tilden told him in all seriousness he was afraid his son was going to kill him.

On Tuesday, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department called for reinforcements after receiving the 911 call shortly after 3:30 a.m. and failing to locate Tilden, who’s accused of killing the men outside his father’s house.

The victims lived next door, McCausland said. Tilden’s mother and his brother also were at home when the violence erupted but weren’t harmed.

State police detectives were looking into what sparked the violence, the second fatal shooting this year in Lamoine, a town of 1,600 residents located on the mainland across Eastern Bay from Mount Desert Island.

Pinkham worked as a truck driver and Robert Tilden worked as a bloodworm digger, said Stu Marckoon, an administrative assistant to the board of selectmen.

“Both of them were the nicest guys you’d want to meet,” Marckoon said. “They were delightful when they’d come into the office to transact whatever they needed to transact. They were just good down-to-earth folks.”

Robert Tilden was featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs,” demonstrating how to dig bloodworms for host Mike Rowe.

Marckoon said it was unusual to have two violent episodes in the quiet town in less than a year.

In March, a man was shot to death and two others were wounded following a dispute outside a home.

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