LEWISTON – Police were continuing their investigation Sunday night into the deaths of two men whose bodies were found Saturday off Foss Road.
State Police Sgt. Walter Gryzb, a detective who specializes in homicide cases, walked the crime scene Sunday afternoon looking for any evidence that might have been missed during sweeps by police Saturday.
Gryzb said autopsies that were being performed on the bodies Sunday revealed that both were men. As of Sunday evening, however, neither man had been identified.
Nor had their ages or causes of death, according Steve McCausland, a Department of Public Safety spokesman.
“That’s one of many questions,” he said when asked if medical examiners had determined when the men had died.
One police source said the bodies hadn’t decomposed to the point where only bones were left. He said that indicated that the deaths were fairly recent.
Gryzb said both bodies were clothed.
McCausland and Michael Bussiere, Lewiston’s deputy police chief, each said police were scouring their missing person reports to see if they could connect either or both bodies to people who had gone missing.
McCausland said that besides reviewing Lewiston and Androscoggin County missing persons reports, state police were checking their database for any connections.
The bodies were found Saturday. A group of hunters came across one after checking a shallow depression that appeared to have been pawed up by animals. They reported their find to police shortly before 11 a.m.
The second body was found by police while searching the area later Saturday.
Bussiere said the bodies were each buried in a shallow grave close to one another, not far from railroad tracks that cut through the area off the dead end of Foss Road. A rough path leading to the graves runs from a corner of the parking lot of EVM Fire Apparatus.
On Sunday afternoon, groundwater had seeped into one of the graves. Both sit in wetlands only feet to the southwest below the railway grade. The area is a mixture of swamp, brush and alders, and woods.
McCausland said investigators were expecting to get a briefing at midmorning today from medical examiners. Police were hoping that identities and causes of death would be available then.
Lewiston police are working with state police on the case, McCausland said.
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