PARIS – A 31-year-old cook accused of shooting and killing three women and a man over the Labor Day weekend had dismembered the women’s bodies and and burned the man’s, police said Tuesday.

Christian C. Nielsen of 829 Sunday River Road in Newry was charged with four counts of murder in Oxford County Superior Court, less than a day after his stepmother reported the killings to Maine State Police

During an interview at the Newry Fire Department on Monday night, Nielsen confessed to police that he had killed Julie Bullard, 65; her daughter Selby Bullard, 30; Cynthia Beatson, 43, and James Whitehurst, 50, according an affidavit written by State Police Detective Terrance James. Whitehurst was killed in Upton, while the rest were slain at the Newry bed and breakfast, the affidavit stated. Nielsen told police he killed Beatson and Selby Bullard on Monday after they arrived unexpectedly at the bed and breakfast.

“It is a crime of horrific proportions,” State Police Chief Col. Craig Poulin said at a packed afternoon news conference at the Newry fire station on Sunday River Road, just down the street from the bed and breakfast.

“This is not only an unusual quadruple homicide, it’s also a trying investigation,” Poulin said.

Poulin called the grisly killings one of the worst cases of multiple homicide in Maine in the past 14 years.

Police did not reveal a motive for the killings or discuss the types of firearms that may have been used. They also did not say how the bodies of the three women were dismembered.

Nielsen’s father, who lives in nearby Woodstock, knew the victims, Poulin said.

“But, we don’t know how well (Christian Nielsen) knew them,” he said.

The Bullards, both of Newry, and Beatson of Bethel were found shot and dismembered outside the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast in Newry. Both Bullards and Nielsen, a cook at the Sudbury Inn in Bethel, also lived at the Newry bed and breakfast, and Whitehurst is believed to have been staying there.

During his appearance in court Tuesday, Nielsen seemed calm. He occasionally smiled or smirked slightly during the proceedings, which lasted less than 20 minutes.

Dressed in blaze orange jail clothing and wearing a brown bulletproof vest – a handcuffed and shackled Nielsen confirmed his identity when asked by Oxford County Superior Court Justice Robert Crowley. He also talked softly to his lawyer a few times before and after the felony charges against him and the upcoming court proceedings were explained. He did not enter a plea.

Nielsen, a former resident of Farmington, will be held without bail at the Oxford County Jail until at least Sept. 12, when the court will hold a hearing to establish whether he can be released on bail while awaiting trial.

Police had learned of the killings from Nielsen’s stepmother, Lee Graham, who called Maine State Police at 5:34 p.m. Monday to say a woman’s body and a trail of blood had been found behind the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast in Newry.

Her husband and Nielsen’s father, Charles Nielsen, thought his son was responsible, Graham told police.

Ten minutes later, Graham called back to say Christian Nielsen told his father he had killed four people.

According to the affidavit, Christian Nielsen confessed to killing Selby Bullard and Beatson Monday; Julie Bullard Sunday and Whitehurst on Friday. The three women’s bodies were found outside the Newry bed and breakfast, owned by Julie Bullard, along with three dead dogs.

Christian Nielsen also led investigators Monday night to a remote area in Upton where he said he had disposed of Whitehurst’s body.

On Tuesday, Edward David, the state’s chief deputy medical examiner, and Marcella Sorg, a forensic anthropologist, were investigating an area off Campbell Brook Road where officials believed Whitehurst’s body had been buried.

David said they found a plastic bag and cigarette butt but couldn’t say Tuesday whether either would be considered evidence since the area is also an active logging site. Forested and accessible by only dirt and gravel roads, the area is more than 25 miles from Newry.

“Things can look like graves and not be graves,” David said. “We believe this to be a grave.”

Julie Bullard owned the bed and breakfast and Christian Nielsen was renting a room there. Whitehurst, in town on business from Batesville, Ark., was also staying at the inn.

Jail administrator Capt. Ernest Martin said Tuesday night that Nielsen is on the highest level of security, meaning he has no contact with anyone on the outside, but he is in a “communal setting” with other prisoners. Those prisoners watch television, which is covering Nielsen’s case, and Martin said that concerns him.

“I don’t know how that’s going to work,” he said. “This is particularly heinous,” he said of the killings of people and animals. The latter is seen by inmates as a “particularly bad thing to do, and people who are suspected of it don’t fare well in jail, he said.

“This might be the most extreme test we’ve had” in prisoner security, he added.

“Right now, we’re forced to hold him,” Martin said, but noted that officials might try to board him elsewhere if problems arose.

Nielsen is not on a suicide watch because a jail screening showed “no red flags,” Martin said Tuesday night.

Christian Nielsen’s lawyer, Ron Hoffman of Rumford, said he and former state prosecutor Margot Joly had been hired by Nielsen’s family to defend him.

Hoffman met with Nielsen for about 30 minutes Tuesday before the court hearing and said his client had previously only had minor run-ins with the law. He declined to comment on Nielsen’s state of mind or on any defense strategy, saying repeatedly he didn’t have all the information he needed.

When asked why his client appeared to be smiling during his court appearance, Hoffman said only, “I can’t comment on that.”

“Our hearts go out to all the families involved. This is obviously a very sad and tragic situation, both for the Nielsens and for the alleged victims’ families,” Hoffman said. “It’s not the kind of thing anyone wants to hear about.”