NEW PORTLAND – A businesswoman in the process of selling a family-owned company was found dead outside her home Friday morning and police are investigating the death as a homicide.

The body of Louise Brochu, a 50-year-old co-owner of the recently closed New Portland Wood Flooring, was found by police after a customer reported he had gone to the Route 27 business but could not find her.

Police searched the area around her home and found the body later Friday morning, according to Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland. Police said Brochu lived on the grounds of the defunct business. The property consists of a four-building complex on 43 acres of land.

Police were releasing little information about the killing by Friday evening, and would not say whether they had a suspect.

The flooring business was owned by Brochu and her three brothers, Guy, Luke and Jim, who together bought the property three years ago at an auction, according to New Portland Town Manager Andrea Reichert.

“They had recently closed down and they were selling off all of the inventory,” Reichert said.

The Brochu family for a time owned Stratton Lumber Inc. That business was sold in 2004, around the same time some of the Brochu brothers purchased Pleasant River Lumber from Gerard Crete and Sons of Quebec.

Louise Brochu, who came to New Portland approximately three years ago, had her property listed for sale on several real estate Web sites. The property was listed at $1.5 million. That number jumps to $1.75 million if the sale were to include a wood mill and related equipment on the property.

A friend of the family said the Brochus have sold off most of the equipment as well as some of the lumber through auctions.

By Friday night, a team of eight State Police detectives remained in New Portland working on the case. They did not say how Brochu was killed or where her body was found. Police believe she was killed either late Thursday night or early Friday morning.

“I expect the detectives will be working well into the night,” McCausland said. “If there’s no break in the case, they will be back there in the morning.”

Several sources said Brochu was not married, and police did not say if she had been living alone on the property.

By late Friday night, few details about the killing had surfaced.

At Morton’s Country Store on Long Falls Dam Road, a clerk and her colleague said they had not been told that a local woman was killed. They were not familiar with Brochu.

But, according to Reichert, news about Brochu’s death was sure to shock the community, home to fewer than 800 people.

“This kind of thing just doesn’t happen here,” Reichert said.

New Portland is located in western Somerset County, 28 miles northwest of Skowhegan and 18 miles north of Farmington.

State Police said late Friday they would like to talk to anyone who may have visited the flooring business Friday morning and found it closed. Anyone with information is asked to call State Police in Augusta at (800) 452-4664.

No arrests had been made by late Friday night.