2023 Photos of the Year: Maine in mourning

On the night of Oct. 25, minutes after Lewiston police began fielding calls about multiple shootings in the city, the newspapers of the Maine Trust for Local News mobilized as one newsroom to learn everything we could about what would turn out to be the deadliest shooting in Maine history. On that night, 18 people were killed and 13 injured and a manhunt was launched to find the shooter. Photographers from the Sun Journal, the Kennebec Journal and the Portland Press Herald fanned out across the area to document it all – the fear, the shock, the anger, the manhunt, the extraordinary outpouring of shared grief and pain. This is some of their best work from those dark days.

Posted December 26, 2023

SCROLL

Photo by Brianna Soukup

Benjamin Rogers, 6, right, and Logan Rogers, 8, center, with their mother Bryanna Rogers, of Lisbon, bow their heads during a moment of prayer at a Lisbon vigil for the victims of the Oct. 25 mass shootings in Lewiston.

Photo by Derek Davis

Officers guard the entrance to the emergency room at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston on October 25, the night when 15 men, two women and a 14-year-old boy were killed by a mass shooter.

Photo by Derek Davis

A helicopter hovers over Lisbon Street in Lewiston on Oct. 25, the night mass shootings in the city left 18 dead and 13 wounded and a massive hunt began to find the gunman.

Photo by Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Two people embrace hours after the mass shootings in Lewiston at a reunification center set up at Auburn Middle School in Auburn.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Police in tactical gear cling to the back of a Portland Police Department armored vehicle as it speeds northbound on Rt. 196 in Lisbon the afternoon after the mass shootings in Lewiston. Police presence was heavy in the surrounding area all day Oct. 26 as authorities continued to search for the shooter.

Photo by Gregory Rec

On Oct. 26, the day after the mass shootings in Lewiston, police searched outside the home in rural Bowdoin of the parents of Robert Card, the suspected shooter.

Photo by Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

People hold candles and make the “I love you” sign in American Sign Language at the end of a vigil on Nov. 1 for victims of Lewiston’s mass shootings in Winthrop.

Photo by Gregory Rec

President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Gov. Janet Mills hold hands on Nov. 3 as they approach Just-in-Time Recreation, where seven people were killed in the mass shootings in Lewiston.

Photo by Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

On Oct. 29, the Sunday after the mass shootings in Lewiston, Elizabeth Seal, whose husband Joshua Seal was killed, weeps with her daughter at the One Lewiston Community Vigil at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.

Photo by Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Hundreds turned out for the One Lewiston Community Vigil at Lewiston’s basilica on Oct. 29, the Sunday after the mass shootings. The overflow crowd spilled into the street to watch the memorial on video.