BETHEL – The manager of the Bethel Hostel said a guest, who has since been evicted, acknowledged he had punched a Raymond man last week, not long before the man’s car was hit by a freight train.

Scott Libby, 25, was found dead inside his car after it was struck from behind by a St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad train. The car was parked 200 feet west of the railroad crossing at Barker Road.

A railroad executive said last week the car was not running and had no lights on. Train crews saw the vehicle and attempted an emergency stop but still struck the car, moving it 850 feet along the tracks.

An investigation is ongoing and autopsy results from the state medical examiner’s office have not been released.

The crash scene is less than a mile from the hostel, which is on Route 2. Hostel manager Wyling Cambrium said a former guest was of particular interest to state investigators. Cambrium did not identify the guest.

“It was two days of cops here trying to get a search warrant and guarding (the guest),” Cambrium said.

He said police interrogated the guest in question, but left Sunday afternoon without filing charges.

The guest, a male in his mid-20s, told Cambrium that Libby, a landscaper for whom the guest worked during the summer, visited him at the hostel to collect a loan and return the guest’s collateral.

That transaction was apparently friendly.

“He gave him the money and got back his collateral, which was a watch and a bracelet,” Cambrium said, but then there was a disagreement.

Cambrium described the guest’s version of subsequent events:

“So he said he hit (Libby) a couple of times in the head. At that point, things get vague. According to (the guest) the guy left; he was only here a short time. He doesn’t know whether there was somebody else out in the car or not, but then the guy gets hit by a train.”

Libby’s compact Chevrolet Cobalt was hit by the train shortly before 3 a.m. last Friday. Damage to the car, however, was minimal.

“You wouldn’t suspect it had been hit by a train,” said Bethel Fire Chief Mike Jodrey. “It looked like someone had rear-ended it at a stop sign.”

Libby’s body, found lying across the front seat, was covered in blood.

Bethel Police Chief Alan Carr said the apparent level of injury to the body was well beyond what would be expected from such a collision.

Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said Thursday that a team of investigators and the crime lab staff were working on the case. He confirmed that several people had been interviewed about Libby’s death.

“We haven’t classified the death in any category other than to confirm that it is a death we are investigating,” McCausland said.

He said he could not comment on where evidence may have been collected. “We’re still trying to resolve exactly what happened.”

Lt. Brian McDonough, the state’s lead investigator on the case, said state and Bethel police were working together on the case.

“We’re continuing to work on it and trying to find out exactly what happened,” McDonough said. “There’s still some questions that need to be answered surrounding the death, and I think we’re getting close to those answers.”

Sun Journal staff writer M. Dirk Langeveld contributed to this report.