A man who was known as a bodybuilder and made news a decade ago in a fight with police was found shot to death in a home in Lebanon late Thursday, Maine State Police said Friday.

Aaron Jones, 38, a 1991 graduate of Skowhegan Area High School, had been staying in recent days with the couple who live in the home, said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.

The couple, Joseph and Sarah Turner, have been interviewed by detectives and have cooperated in the investigation, McCausland said in a news release.

Detectives said the shooting occurred at 213 Oak Hill Road in Lebanon around 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

Investigators continue to look into the circumstances and are consulting with the Attorney General’s Office.

An autopsy on Jones’s body was scheduled Friday at the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta.

From the time he was in high school until he assaulted three police officers in Winslow in 2001, Jones went from being a kid who was in a band in grades 9 and 10 to a 5-foot-8, 260-pound bodybuilder.

“He was a big guy — he was really huge,” said Kelly Coughlin, manager of Skowhegan Sports & Fitness, where Jones once lifted weights. “As for what he did for training, I don’t know.”

According to a Morning Sentinel story in May 2001, Jones stripped off his clothes on Bay Street in Winslow, chanted gibberish, took his mother hostage for a short time and fought with five police officers when they tried to subdue him. A Winslow officer and two Waterville officers were bruised and battered, according to the account.

A Waterville officer finally tackled him around the legs. Officers used two sets of handcuffs, linked together, to restrain his hands behind his back.

“This guy was one rugged dude,” Winslow Police Lt. Richard Grindall said at the time. “He was probably stronger than three or four high school wrestling team members put together.”

Jones pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor assault in November 2001 and was fined $1,000, according to the district attorney’s office. Two other counts of assault were dismissed.

Coughlin said she opened the fitness center in 1998 and Jones immediately signed up, then moved to Las Vegas. She said she hadn’t seen him in more than six years. She didn’t know if Jones was married or had any children.

“Every once in a while he would show up here during the summer; he was a good guy, very pleasant,” she said. “I was always under the assumption that he came home here to see his mom.”

A woman who answered the door Friday at the home of Jones’s mother, Colleen Jones of Skowhegan, said the family did not want to comment on his death.

Morning Sentinel Staff Writer Doug Harlow can be contacted at 612-2367 or at:

dharlow@centralmaine.com