Police suspect a murder-suicide on Knox Street.
By Lindsay Tice
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – State Police are investigating a possible murder-suicide on Knox Street.

Just after 1 p.m. Saturday, Lewiston police found the bodies of Billie Jo Smith, 22, and Raymond Tripp Jr., 30, in the second floor apartment the couple shared at 97 Knox St.

Police said Smith died of multiple stab wounds. Investigators refused to comment further on Tripp’s death, saying it would be up to the Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the cause.

Although police have not ruled out murder by an outside assailant, they say they believe the incident was a murder-suicide.

“Initially, right now, we’re investigating this as a possible domestic violence incident,” State Police Sgt. Walter Grzyb said.

According to police, friends called the Lewiston Police Department Saturday when they didn’t see Smith and Tripp as expected.

“They had partied last night with their neighbors on the first floor, and it was those neighbors that discovered the bodies this morning when they couldn’t make contact with them,” said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the State Department of Public Safety.

When Lewiston police arrived, they found Tripp and Smith in separate rooms. Both were dead.

There was some indication of a struggle.

According to police, Tripp had recently lost his job, but they couldn’t say where he had worked. Smith was unemployed.

Lewiston police responded to a call to the apartment two or three days earlier indicating Tripp might be suicidal, “but he convinced police that was not the case,” McCausland said.

Police don’t know whether the couple had a history of domestic violence.

“We’ll be looking into that further,” Grzyb said.

The couple had two children, a 2-year-old and a 2-month-old. Neither child was in the apartment at the time of the deaths. Both children are being cared for by relatives.

On Saturday afternoon, Smith’s relatives stood in the apartment’s driveway and cried as the medical examiner removed the bodies. More than a dozen neighbors looked on from their porches and front lawns.

Many of the neighbors said they hadn’t known Smith or Tripp well. They were shocked at the violence.

Tom Dion lives across the street from the couple’s apartment and said the incident made him second-guess the safety of his neighborhood. “It’s kind of scary when you think about it, something like that happening over there when we live right here.”

The Medical Examiner’s Office will perform an autopsy on the bodies Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

ltice@sunjournal.com

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