MARSHFIELD (AP) – A Machias man was charged Wednesday with killing a man and a woman and wounding the woman’s 6-year-old girl.

Richard W. Widdecomb Jr., 25, was charged with murder in the shooting deaths of Katie Cabana, 29, of Marshfield and Aaron Settipani, 41, of Eastport, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Widdecomb, who’d recently broken up with Cabana, shot Cabana in her home and Settipani in his truck outside her home, McCausland said.

One of Cabana’s three children, 6-year-old Autumn Rodgers, was near her mother and was shot in the foot, McCausland said. Autumn was taken to a hospital; Cabana’s other children, Gabriel Brady, 9, and Ethan Rodgers, 9, were not hurt.

The shootings of Cabana and Settipani represented the first homicides of the year, and they’ll be classified as domestic violence.

Police were alerted to the shootings shortly before 2 a.m. by both victims as they called for help on separate phones, McCausland said.

After the shootings, Widdecomb barricaded himself inside his own home in Machias while nearby homes were evacuated.

Widdecomb eventually surrendered without incident after being contacted by a state police negotiator at about 8:45 a.m. He’s scheduled to make his first court appearance this afternoon in Machias.

AP-ES-01-23-08 1749EST

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