2023 Bowdoin–Yarmouth shootings | |
---|---|
Location | Bowdoin and Yarmouth, Maine, U.S. |
Date | April 18-19, 2023 |
Attack type | Mass shooting, spree shooting, familicide |
Weapons | Firearm |
Deaths | 4 |
Injured | 3 |
Perpetrator | Joseph Eaton |
On April 17, 2023, four people were shot to death on a property in Bowdoin, Maine, United States. On April 18, shots were later fired at vehicles, seemingly randomly, along Interstate 295 in Yarmouth. Three members of one family were wounded, one critically, while driving. The perpetrator, 34-year-old Joseph Eaton, was then taken into custody. [1] On July 1, 2024, Eaton pleaded guilty in the shooting and was sentenced to life in prison. [2]
The first shooting happened at a rural property in Bowdoin, where four people—the parents of the suspected shooter and their long-time friends—were killed. [3] One person was found dead in the barn, and the other three were found in the house.
The next day, the shooter then drove 40 minutes south to the Yarmouth area. [3] He opened fire indiscriminately at several cars on Interstate 295 southbound, between exits 17 and 15, [4] wounding a 59-year-old man and his son and daughter, both in their 20s. The daughter was seriously wounded. [5] [6] [7]
Joseph Eaton, 34, was arrested and charged with four counts of murder on April 18 after police located and detained him off Interstate 295. Police say he subsequently confessed to the killings of his mother and father and a couple, described as the parents' best friends, in Bowdoin, as well as to shooting at vehicles along the interstate highway. [8]
Eaton started drinking alcohol and using recreational drug and steroids at a young age. [3] He has had multiple mental health diagnoses, most recently borderline personality disorder, and says he was sexually assaulted by two babysitters and another person. [3] According to a forensic psychologist who has not met him personally, borderline personality disorder is associated with symptoms such as "poor impulse control, minimization of responsibility, and justification of violence because he was treated unfairly". [3] Eaton was upset that when he was released from prison, most people, including his two ex-wives, did not welcome him back into their lives. [3]
Eaton had a substantial criminal record before the shooting. [9] He had previously been convicted of crimes in Kansas, Maine, and Florida, [10] on charges such as burglary, drunk driving, and aggravated assault. [3] At least three women, including both ex-wives, broke up with him after he physically assaulted them. [3] In 2018, he assaulted three police officers with a baseball bat in Florida, in what he says was an attempted suicide by cop. [3] This resulted in a three-year prison sentence in Florida, plus two years in the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, because the Florida assault violated the terms of probation for a previous conviction in Maine. [3] [9] He was released from the Maine facility four days before the shootings. [5] His mother picked him up from the prison; his parents, whom he described as "the absolute epitome of unconditional love", paid for a hotel, and bought new clothes for him. [3]
For his actions in Bowdoin, Eaton was charged with four counts of murder for the family and family friends he killed, one count of aggravated cruelty to animals for killing a dog, plus nine charges for stealing firearms from his mother [3] and the friends he killed, and one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. [9] [10]
For his actions in Yarmouth, Eaton was indicted on 11 criminal counts, including three counts of attempted murder for the people he injured on the highway. [10] Eaton said that he opened fire on the cars because he thought they were police cars. [3]
In July 2023, he entered pleas of both not guilty and not criminally responsible. [9] Later, in December 2023, he withdrew the not criminally responsible plea. [11]
On July 1, 2024, he pleaded guilty in the shooting and was sentenced to life in prison. [2]
A school shooting occurred on November 8, 2005, at Campbell County Comprehensive High School in Jacksboro, Tennessee, United States, when a 15-year-old freshman student shot the school principal and two assistant principals. One assistant principal, Ken Bruce, died as a result of the shooting.
William J. Kreutzer Jr. is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted of killing one officer and wounding 18 other soldiers when he opened fire on a physical training formation on October 27, 1995, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Kreutzer was sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life in prison by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in connection with concerns regarding mental illness.
Stephen Alexander Marshall was a 20-year-old American-Canadian man who travelled from Nova Scotia to Maine with the intention of shooting and killing convicted sex offenders in an act of vigilantism. Using the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders retrieved through searching publicly available sex offender registries in the United States, Marshall drove to the houses of two convicted sex offenders and killed them, before later shooting and killing himself in Boston, Massachusetts as police were stopping the bus he was on.
Terry Anthony Blair was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, although investigators believed that there were additional unidentified victims.
The murders of Byrd and Melanie Billings occurred on or around July 9, 2009, in Pensacola, Florida, United States. Byrd Billings, 66, and his wife, Melanie, 43, were found shot to death on July 9, 2009. The suspects, dressed in "ninja garb," stole a safe and other items during the break-in at the sprawling Billings home west of Pensacola. Nine of their children were home at the time, but were not hurt by the intruders. The family's attorney said that the safe contained jewelry, family papers, and prescription medications.
The murders of John Forest "Johnny" Goosey and Stacy Marie Barnett occurred on July 21, 2009, in the West Campus area of Austin, Texas, when a man, who had two accomplices, shot to death two recent graduates from the University of Texas at Austin who originated from the Greater Houston area. This event is sometimes called the West Campus murders. Police stated that the murder was the result of a drug deal debt. The murder resulted in media attention on the marijuana trade among young, college-educated people.
The shooting of Anthony Hill, a U.S. Air Force veteran, occurred on March 9, 2015, in Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta. Hill, fatally shot by police officer Robert Olsen, suffered from mental illness and was naked and unarmed at the time of the incident. The incident was covered in local and national press and sparked the involvement of Black Lives Matter and other advocacy groups who demonstrated their anger at the shooting. In January 2016, a grand jury indicted officer Olsen on two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. Nearing the fourth anniversary of the homicide, it was decided that Olsen's trial would be rescheduled for September 23, 2019, with delays including three successive judges having recused themselves in the case.
On September 2, 2008, 28-year-old Isaac Zamora killed six people and wounded two more on a shooting rampage in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The incident began when Skagit County Sheriff's Deputy Anne Jackson responded to a call at Zamora's home in Alger. Zamora shot Jackson and then left the residence. He shot seven additional people and led authorities on a high-speed chase along Interstate 5 before surrendering at the Skagit County Sheriff's Office in Mount Vernon, Washington.
On October 24, 2018, a man and woman were shot and killed by a gunman at a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville.
On January 26, 2019, a gunman shot and killed five people in Ascension and Livingston parishes, Louisiana, before being taken into custody in Virginia. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Louisiana history.
Crime in South Australia is prevented by the South Australia Police (SAPOL), various state and federal courts in the criminal justice system and the state Department for Correctional Services, which administers the prisons and remand centre.
On October 9, 2015, Steven Edward Jones, an 18-year-old freshman at Northern Arizona University, shot four people, killing Colin Charles Brough and severely injuring three others, in a parking lot outside of Mountain View Hall on the Flagstaff Mountain campus in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Ee Lee was an American woman who was raped and murdered by two black teenagers in a racially-motivated daylight attack in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two perpetrators, Kamare Lewis and Kevin Spencer, pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide and second-degree sexual assault in 2023. Later that year, Lewis was sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Spencer was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
Larme Price is an American serial killer who murdered four people in New York in 2003. Price claimed he carried out the murders in revenge for the September 11 attacks and said he was driven to kill by a paranoid hatred of Arabs. Despite this claim, only one of his victims was Middle Eastern. Price confessed to the murders, was found guilty, and was sentenced to 150 years in prison without parole.
Christian Charles Nielsen is an American spree killer who fatally shot four people, dismembering three, over the span of four days around the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast (B&B), a remodeled farmhouse and Inn located in the resort town of Newry, Maine, United States. On September 1, he murdered a handyman and attempted to incinerate his corpse. Over the next three days, he murdered and dismembered three women – including Julie Bullard, the lodge's owner – to cover up his first murder. On September 4, 2006, Nielsen invited his father and stepmother to the property for Labor Day. After they arrived at the lodge and found one of the victims, Nielsen's father immediately called the police. Christian Nielsen was subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to the murders in 2007. The motive behind the crimes was never established.
On June 15, 2023, in Monroe Township, Ohio, U.S., Clayton, Hunter, and Chase Doerman were shot and killed at their home. The 34-year-old wife of the perpetrator was injured in the attack, and her daughter was held at gunpoint but escaped.
On October 25, 2023, 40-year-old Robert Card carried out a spree shooting in Lewiston, Maine, United States, killing 18 people and wounding 13 others. The initial attack occurred at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley during a youth league event, followed shortly by a second shooting at the Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant. Following these events, Card escaped, prompting the Androscoggin County Sheriff's Office to initiate an extensive manhunt and release his photograph identifying him as the suspect.
Andrew Levi Hammond is an American serial killer. He is serving life imprisonment, having been convicted of shooting three people to death in Fresno, California between 2020 and 2022.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)