A Canaan man who was convicted in the 2006 death of his girlfriend died Thursday at a state prison in Penobscot County, state corrections officials said.
Shannon Atwood Maine Department of Corrections photo
Shannon Atwood, 53, died at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, where he was serving a murder sentence in the death of Cheryl Murdoch.
Corrections officials in a statement gave no cause of death, only saying Atwood’s death was “attended by medical personnel.”
He was sentenced in Murdoch’s death in 2009 in a Skowhegan courtroom, and his earliest release date was to be in 2054.
Atwood and Murdoch lived together in Canaan, and Murdoch was the mother of a 14-year-old girl. Her bludgeoned body was found in the woods, about 5 miles from the house they shared.
Atwood had a lengthy criminal record that included two assault convictions.
He began dating Murdoch shortly after his wife, Shirley Moon-Atwood, disappeared. He was charged in Moon-Atwood’s death, but it was later dropped.
Moon-Atwood was last seen in April 2006. Her body has not been found.
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