OAKFIELD — A Houlton man was arrested Monday morning following a manhunt in southern Aroostook County, but no charges have been filed related to the two shooting deaths and three arson fires for which he was sought.

A search by Maine State Police for Matthew Davis, 32, ended around 10:45 a.m. on Monday when troopers found him in a stolen car on Beaver Dam Road in Island Falls. He was taken into custody without incident and charged with stealing a car, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The bodies of a man and a woman were discovered before dawn Monday by firefighters responding to a fire at a house at 331 Oakfield-Smyrna Road in Oakfield. The names of the man and woman are not being released as state police try to locate and notify the next of kin of one of the victims, McCausland said.

Police were looking for Davis in connection with the shooting deaths and three fires, though no charges related to those events have yet been filed, McCausland said. He said the series of events involves two stolen cars, including one taken from a property near where Davis was arrested.

“He is being held on (the car theft charge) as we try to connect the dots as to this series of events that took place in the pre-dawn hours,” McCausland said.

The house at 331 Oakfield-Smyrna Road is owned by Heidi L. Pratt, according to town tax records. The house was “demolished” by fire, McCausland said.

McCausland said fires also were reported at Katahdin Forest Products in Island Falls and in a pickup truck near a boat landing on Richardson Road, on the shore of Upper Mattawamkeag Lake, he said. Calls to the owner of Katahdin Forest Products were not returned Monday.

The shooting and fires are being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s Office and a team of state police detectives. Autopsies on the two victims are scheduled for Tuesday in Augusta at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Oakfield, a town of about 730 people, sits between Island Falls and Houlton on Interstate 95.

The Southern Aroostook Community School in Dyer Brook was closed Monday because of “emergencies in the community,” said Superintendent Larry Malone. The school, part of RSU 50, serves students in kindergarten through grade 12 from Dyer Brook, Oakfield, Island Falls and Smyrna.

Davis was found guilty in 2005 of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, according to the Maine State Bureau of Identification.

Gillian Graham can be contacted at 791-6315 or at

ggraham@pressherald.com