WEST GARDINER — By Monday morning, there was no outward indication that a person had been shot and killed outside 9 Yeaton Drive in this town.
A shirtless young man who answered the door Monday morning at the location where 41-year-old James Leslie Haskell Jr. of Chelsea died early Saturday morning declined to speak to a reporter about it.
The outside light was on at the home, the dog was inside, no police were there.
There was no barrier along the dirt drive that leads to two homes.
“The game plan was to do everything we needed to do there on Saturday,” Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety said on Monday afternoon. “There are no new developments.”
McCausland previously said police interviewed the person who did the shooting. He said the shooting death remains under investigation, and that it is likely some of the people interviewed earlier would be interviewed a second or third time as police continue to put together what happened.
Haskell was dead when police arrived. McCausland said earlier there was no indication it was a suicide.
Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office deputies went to the scene in response to a 911 call from the home about 2:50 a.m. Saturday. State police detectives joined them there later.
A number of people were at the home for a gathering at the time of the shooting, according to McCausland, and all were cooperating and were interviewed by police. No one was in custody as of Monday morning.
Yeaton Drive is just over the Farmingdale line in West Gardiner and directly across the Hallowell-Litchfield Road from Fuller’s Market.
A clerk at the market said no one there knew anything about the shooting or the victim. The store was closed at the time of the shooting.
The Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office log indicates a call came at 2:50 a.m. Saturday from 9 Yeaton Drive. “Caller reports he shot someone.”
Haskell’s step-mother Allison Haskell, of North Waterboro, gave an interview with WCSH-6 TV, saying that while she had not seen her stepson in some time, he was working to get his life together.
She said he had struggled with drugs from a young age but that his death was not related to that.
“We loved him and he’s gone,” Haskell said on camera.
She did not respond to a request to talk to the Kennebec Journal sent via Facebook. A phone number for her and one that appeared to be for Haskell’s brother, who formerly lived in Augusta, did not work.
The Office of the Maine Medical Examiner did not respond to a request sent Monday seeking the cause and manner of Haskell’s death.
Public records show that Haskell had a lengthy criminal history and did extensive time in prison.
At age 23, he pleaded guilty in Kennebec County Superior Court to charges of gross sexual assault, burglary and reckless conduct, all of which occurred June 19, 1998, in Winthrop, where he lived at the time.
For the gross sexual assault, the most serious crime, he was ordered to serve 16 years in prison.
Jody Breton, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections, said Haskell was released from prison on Aug. 31, 2012.
In April 2013, he was sentenced to six months in jail for eluding an officer and operating a vehicle without a license two months earlier in Farmingdale. His address at the time was listed in North Waterboro.
James Haskell also was indicted on a charge of violation of sex offender registration that occurred March 14-May 8, 2014, in Gardiner, where he was living at the time. He was sentenced to serve nine months and a day behind bars for that offense.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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