Police tape blocks Highwood Street in Waterville Tuesday at Mount Joseph at Waterville, right, following a shooting that left one man dead. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

WATERVILLE — A Clinton man was charged with murder Tuesday in connection with the shooting of another man in a car parked outside a rehabilitation and nursing center on Highwood Street.

Richard Hatt, 57, of Clinton, allegedly shot Stephen Killam, 47, of Fairfield, around 6:30 a.m. in a parking lot at Mount Joseph at Waterville, according to Shannon Moss, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Waterville police officers responded to the scene at 7 Highwood St. after receiving reports of multiple gunshots, Moss said in an email Tuesday night. Witnesses reported seeing a black Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck leaving and gave police the registration plate number, she said.

Mount Joseph, located at 7 Highwood St., formerly was called Mount St. Joseph Nursing Home.

Area police early Tuesday were alerted to be on the lookout for the truck and just before 9 a.m., Clinton police Chief Rusty Bell located the truck and Hatt in Clinton, according to Moss.

Contacted Tuesday night, Bell said he got a call at home from the school resource officer early Tuesday, who told him schools were in lockout and that Hatt was being sought. Bell, who has known Hatt for years, thought about where he might go if he had done something wrong and wanted the situation to go away and make himself comfortable.

“Richard is a Clinton boy; his sister lives in town,” Bell said. “I know her really well. I thought, if I were Richard, I’d go to my sister’s. I just drove out to his sister’s on the Battle Ridge and he was standing right there with his sister and her husband on her lawn.”

“He had his hands up and I just got out of the truck and I was like, ‘Hey, Richard,’ He was already apologizing. He was just very contrite. He walked over to me and he was crying and I put the handcuffs on him.”

In this video provided Tuesday by Mark Mansfield Jr., who lives on Harold Street, facing Mount Joseph at Waterville, sounds of a shooting can be heard. Contributed video 

Clinton police Sgt. Roger Smith arrived and took Hatt to the Waterville Police Department, Bell said.

The Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit and evidence response technicians responded to the scene Tuesday morning to interview witnesses and process the scene, according to Moss. Major Crimes officials and Waterville police detectives continue to investigate the circumstances of the shooting, she said.

She said Killam’s body will be taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta where an autopsy will be performed Wednesday.

She said Killam and Hatt were known to each other. Hatt was arrested, charged with murder, and taken to Kennebec County Jail in Augusta, she said. Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Waterville police or Maine State Police, she said.

Students were placed on lockout in Waterville, Fairfield and Oakland schools after the shooting. During a lockout, school doors are locked and students are kept inside while classes continue.

Lockouts at the schools lasted until about 9 a.m., several district officials said.

“We are unaware of any known connections to our schools or other schools in the area,” Regional School Unit 18 Superintendent Carl Gartley said in an email to students’ parents. “There are no reports that anyone involved is in or headed to the towns in our district.”

Police tape blocks Highwood Street in Waterville Tuesday where a police officer walks near Mount Joseph at Waterville, a rehabilitation and nursing center, following a shooting that left one man dead. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Gartley said he was told by authorities the suspected shooter was apprehended, which led to his district’s lockout being lifted.

“It was a very rapidly evolving situation and there was a lot of uncertainty around what was going on, so we decided to go on to lockout,” Gartley said. “It can be scary for the kids, so that’s why we communicate it with parents so they know what’s going on in their kids’ schools.”

At the scene Tuesday afternoon, streets to the west of Highwood were blocked to traffic and crime scene tape was strung along areas around Mount Joseph so people could not see the dark-colored car in which the man was shot.

Highwood Street is off College Avenue, less than a mile from downtown. Across Highwood Street is a large building at 150 College Ave. that is part of the Home Place Inn complex of apartments.

Angel Wilbur, a tenant who lives in the back of the apartment building, facing Mount Joseph, said she had gone outside around 6:10 a.m. Tuesday to smoke a cigarette and after a few minutes, walked west on Highwood when she heard shots fired near Mount Joseph.

“I heard a gunshot and I crouched down immediately,” Wilbur, 52, said. “I heard some more shots — boom, boom, boom. It was really close by. I looked over and saw somebody take off. I didn’t realize it was anything having to do with any crime. I ran back into the apartment.”

She said she believed the person who ran off was a man, but she didn’t get a good look.

She said that later, a friend who has a police scanner told her a man had been shot.

Mount Joseph is sandwiched between Highwood Street on the south of the building and Harold Street to the north. Central Avenue runs parallel to College Avenue on the west side of Mount Joseph. Streets were blocked off on that side to essentially block access to the parking area where the crime took place.

Mark Mansfield Jr. lives on Harold Street, facing the crime scene, and his porch camera captured the sounds of the shooting, which started at 6:28 a.m., he said. He said he rises early to go to work and put his children on the bus.

“At 6:15 a.m., my alarm goes off,” Mansfield said later Tuesday. “I went into my kids’ bedroom and 6:28 a.m. is when I heard the first shot, and then another shot. I’m pretty sure it was a pistol — a semi-automatic pistol.”

He said it was rapid fire after that and his children were frightened. He ran around looking for his bathrobe and then went outside and crept around the corner, he said.

“I came around the corner and there was a girl screaming she had a protection order on him,” Mansfield said.

He said he was not sure who she was referring to.

He said he saw another woman there and then someone wearing a green shirt running toward a blue house on Central Avenue. And then he heard sirens.

Mansfield described the incident as “nerve-wracking.”

“This is a quiet, nice neighborhood,” he said. “That’s why we moved here recently.”

A woman who answered the phone at Mount Joseph Tuesday said a Mount Joseph official would return a reporter’s call, but the call was not returned by 4:30 p.m.

Mount Joseph many years ago was a hospital — Sisters Hospital — and then became a nursing home. Now, it is described on its website as a “post-acute skilled rehabilitation and nursing facility that caters to our elderly population, independent living apartments, amenities, activities and a certified staff with a heart.”

Some workers taking breaks outside the building Tuesday afternoon said the man who was shot worked there as a janitor but they declined to comment on him or the incident.

A woman employed in the kitchen said it was a sad day in the building.

A camera on a tripod and police tape are shown Tuesday where a police officer walks near the Mount Saint Joseph retirement home following a shooting that happened off Highwood Street in Waterville. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel