WESTBROOK — The shooting deaths of two men in Westbrook on Saturday were an apparent murder-suicide, Maine State Police said Saturday night.
According to state police, Patrick Milliner, 30, of South Portland shot Matthew Rairdon, 22, in Rairdon’s apartment and then shot himself. Police said the two had been in a relationship that recently ended and that the slaying of Rairdon is being classified as a domestic violence homicide, the state’s 10th this year.
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Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said police believe Milliner shot Rairdon very early Saturday morning, when Rairdon, an emergency room nurse at Mercy Hospital in Portland, returned home from work. A .40-caliber Glock handgun was found by Milliner’s body, McCausland said.
Milliner, McCausland said, was a new correctional guard at the Maine Correctional Facility in Windham and is currently enrolled in a correctional guard training program at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro.
The bodies were discovered around 11 a.m. Saturday by Rairdon’s female roommate, who has not been identified.
The shooting took place in an apartment at the rear of a house at 318A Main St., a residential neighborhood about a half-mile from downtown Westbrook.
A neighbor, Lisa Magnacca, said she was in her backyard with a friend late Saturday morning when she heard a woman across the street screaming in front of the apartment, apparently just after discovering the bodies. Magnacca said she believes the screaming woman was one of the tenants of the apartment.
Magnacca said the woman across the street called police and Westbrook officers showed up minutes later.
Magnacca said she didn’t know the names of the two people who lived in the apartment, but they would wave if they saw one another.
She and other neighbors said they don’t recall hearing any shots Saturday and said they didn’t know the man and the woman renting the apartment.
A woman who said she is the mother of the owner of the building said her daughter has been out of town this weekend. The woman said she didn’t know the tenants and that her daughter bought the house and apartment six months ago. The man later identified as Rairdon and his roommate were already tenants at the time the house was purchased, she said.
Around 5 p.m., a woman arrived at the apartment and spoke with a state police detective. She told a reporter that she was a tenant of the apartment, but declined to comment further or give her name.
The two bodies were taken from the apartment late Saturday afternoon and evidence technicians were still at the scene early Saturday night.
State police Sgt. Mark A. Holmquist, a detective, said the state medical examiner’s office is expected to perform autopsies Sunday. He declined to comment on any other aspects of the case.
Edward D. Murphy can be contacted.at 791-6465 or at: emurphy@pressherald.comTom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:tbell@pressherald.comTwitter: TomBellPortland
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