Suspect arrested after 4 found murdered in Maine home, 3 drivers wounded in highway shooting

A man has been arrested in connection with the shooting deaths of four people Tuesday morning at a home in Bowdoin, Maine, and a highway shooting in a nearby town in which three drivers were wounded, authorities said.

Maine State Police identified the suspect as 34-year-old Joseph Eaton.

Officers on Tuesday morning were called to a home in Bowdoin, where they found four people dead inside, state police said. Their names were not immediately released.

A short time later, at about 10:30 a.m. local time, several vehicles were struck by gunfire on Interstate 295 in Yarmouth, a town about 25 miles south of Bowdoin.  

State police later confirmed that three drivers had been hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and one was in critical condition.

Cassidy Voisine, who witnessed the highway shooting, told CBS affiliate WGME-TV, “We just saw a bunch of smoke. And my friend in the truck was like, ‘I think that’s gunpowder, like gunsmoke.'”

She said she was a passenger in a pickup truck heading south on I-295, when a car with its windshield shot out swerved in front of them. 

“So weird to think that we were right behind them when this happened,” Voisine said.

Eaton was later arrested and charged with murder for the slayings of the four people found in the home, state police said. It was not clear how he was taken into custody.

“A person of interest has been detained, and the incidents are connected,” Maine State Police Lt. Randall Keaten told reporters in a briefing prior to the arrest.

Authorities did not disclose a possible motive in the shootings, or provide details on a link between the suspect and the deceased victims. A news conference was scheduled for Wednesday. 

In response to the shootings, Maine Gov. Janet Mills tweeted that she was “shocked and deeply saddened — acts of violence like we experienced today shake our state and our communities to the core.”