Sometime just before 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Carroll Tuttle Jr. shoots and kills his wife, Lori Hayden, and their son, Dustin Tuttle, at the family’s home at 316 Russell Road. Dustin Tuttle’s girlfriend also is there, witnesses the shootings and escapes, calling 911 around 7:37 a.m.

 Carroll Tuttle then gets into his pickup, drives to the home of Mike R. Spaulding at 299 Russell Road, shooting and killing him. Spaulding’s girlfriend is there and she also calls 911. She calls Spaulding’s son, Michael J. Spaulding, 21, of Gorham, and tells him Tuttle had just shot his father.

Tuttle leaves the Spaulding residence. Where he went is unknown.

Three Somerset County sheriff’s deputies arrive in the area and go to the Spaulding home and get a description of Tuttle’s pickup from Spaulding’s girlfriend.

Neighbor Donald Curtis sees the deputies and an ambulance at the Spaulding residence, then sees the deputies come down the Spaulding driveway and notice Tuttle’s pickup parked along the road near the Hayden/Tuttle home.

Around the same time, Harvey Austin arrives at 316 Russell Road to check on Hayden, his sister-in-law and an employee at his construction business. Austin goes into the house and comes out, and Tuttle shoots him in the face. Curtis sees Austin fall to the ground.

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After the gunshot, a sheriff’s deputy confronts Tuttle, who begins shooting at police.

Another deputy grabs Curtis and moves him under a truck to take cover as the deputies return fire at Tuttle. Curtis says he hears “20 to 30” gunshots in all.

When Curtis next sees Tuttle, the gunman is dead in the driveway.

Austin is taken by ambulance to Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan, where a LifeFlight helicopter lands to take him to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor for treatment of gunshot wounds.

Sources: Police statements and an eyewitness account by Donald Curtis


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