CARIBOU (AP) – A 19-year-old Caribou man was charged Monday with murder in the death of a co-worker he allegedly abducted from a Tim Hortons coffee shop.
Christopher Shumway is charged with killing 20-year-old Erin Sperrey of Presque Isle, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Shumway was scheduled to appear in Caribou District Court on Tuesday morning.
Shumway and Sperrey were reported missing from the Tim Hortons at about 8 p.m. Sunday after a customer went into the restaurant and nobody was there. Sperrey and Shumway worked together at night, but that was the only relationship between the two that police are aware of, McCausland said.
Nearly four hours later, Sperrey’s green Kia was found more than 120 miles away in the median of Interstate 95 near Lincoln, where it had spun out and left the road.
Sperrey’s body was found inside the car, but Shumway was nowhere to be found. He was later located early Monday morning by Bangor police at a Motel 6 in Bangor.
Police aren’t revealing how Sperrey was killed or a possible motive in the case, but an autopsy is expected to determine the exact cause of death. The car was taken to the state crime laboratory for analysis.
Detectives are hoping to talk to motorists who gave Shumway a ride to Bangor from where the car spun out off the road near Lincoln. McCausland said police believe a small car carrying a young man, two women and an infant gave Shumway a lift.
Investigators were processing evidence at the Tim Hortons in Caribou as well as the Motel 6 in Bangor.
“We have teams of detectives working throughout the state,” McCausland said.
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