MEXICO — A few hours after state police arrested and charged a Mexico teen with Monday night’s killings of Victor Reed Sheldon and Roger Leroy Day Jr. in Rumford, people in both towns expressed shock and relief.

State Police Detective Lucas Hare arrested Eric Joseph Hamel, 19, of 21 Mexico Ave. Apt. 1, at 4:45 a.m. Friday and charged him with two counts of murder. Hamel lists his address as his grandmother’s apartment.

On Friday afternoon, state police arrested Richard Moulton, 20, of Mexico, and charged him with the murders of Sheldon, 22, and Day, 48, at Day’s home at 244 Pine St. in Rumford.

Moulton, the state’s witness to the double homicide, had been cooperating with police in the days since the murders, including helping draft a composite sketch of the shooter, describing him as a white man in his early 20s running from the scene on foot.

News that Hamel had been arrested and charged with fatally shooting Day and Sheldon in Day’s living room at about 9:45 p.m. Monday came as a shock to Hamel’s neighbors on Mexico Avenue.

They described Mexico Avenue as a quiet, child-friendly neighborhood where the neighbors all know each other and watch out for each other and their property.

“Oh, my God! This is so weird,” Angela Blanchard said.

“I love Mexico, but it does seem surreal, because I have a nice yard, a dog, and there are nice people here, and to think that somebody is living right next door who is even capable of (killing), it is scary,” Blanchard said. “To just go and shoot two people, there’s got to be a motive, and that’s scary. I never would have thought that in a million years.”

“I don’t even know (Hamel), but just looking at the sketching, it kind of creeps me out,” said Blanchard, who has lived across from 21 Mexico Ave. for less than two months. However, she had lived elsewhere on the street for five years.

She thought the shooter would be from Rumford.

“This is a small town and people talk,” Blanchard said. “So it’s just amazing he went this long without being arrested.”

Marcus Collins, who moved to Mexico Avenue last summer and lives across the street from Hamel’s home, described Hamel as a decent guy.

“I see him when he walks up and down the road, and he seems like a pretty nice kid, so I really didn’t think he’d do something like that,” Collins said. “He rides his bike up and down the road, but I haven’t seen him for the past month.”

Teddy Blanchard, Angela’s uncle, who lives a few houses down, said he had lived on the street for 17 years, but didn’t know Hamel.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “I just found out on my computer that he lives a couple streets down from my house and all this time, I figured it was someone over in Rumford.”

“I wouldn’t be sitting at home (after the killings), but I’m glad he was and they got him,” Teddy Blanchard said.

Pam Giberson and her boyfriend, Jay White, live beside Collins and care for a neighbor’s yard beside 21 Mexico Ave.

They said Hamel looks just like the sketch released on Tuesday by state police.

“He was always dressed in black, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad person,” Giberson said of Hamel. “He was always quiet over there. He seemed to be a good kid. He never bothered any of us.”

Hamel had no police record, but is credited with saving his grandmother, Maxine Farrar, in 2003 from their burning trailer on Route 17 in Roxbury.

Hamel had woken up early in the morning, smelled smoke and awakened his grandmother and helped her out of the structure.

Additionally, according to Sun Journal archives, Hamel, his sister, Jessica, and his mother, Charlotte Hamel, were at their home in Roxbury on Dec. 23, 1999, when fire broke out. It was possibly linked to a Christmas tree, and it quickly burned the structure.
The three managed to escape and get horses out of the barn.

On Somerset Street in Rumford Friday afternoon, Mountain Valley High School students Justin White and Travis Blanchard, who is related to the Mexico Avenue Blanchards, said they knew Hamel.

They said he always dressed in Goth style and had long black hair, but when they saw a police mug shot of him on Friday, both said they were stunned at his appearance.

“There was definitely a big change in him, and his hair was way different,” Travis said.

“He was also all shaved and cleaned up, and usually he wasn’t that clean,” White said.

The boys had a school yearbook with them and pointed out the picture of a smiling, long-haired, bespectacled Hamel, underneath which was Hamel’s name and the word “Alucard.”

Travis said he had study hall with Hamel earlier this year.

“He was just quiet, into Goth and always wearing black,” Travis said. “He was just really quiet, and he didn’t do much. He just sat with his head down in study hall and played online video games, particularly World of Warcraft.”

“He drew a bunch of stuff — definitely World of Warcraft — and he has a picture of what he would be as a warrior, and on his MySpace page, he’s got words like ‘Authority’ and ‘Evil,'” Travis Blanchard said.

At the apartment house at 48 Main St. in Mexico, where Moulton had been living, news of his arrest appeared to travel slowly.

Three hours after Moulton was taken into custody, a handful of people who live there said they had not heard.

Laura
Chesley reacted with surprise when she was told that Moulton was
charged with murder. She also said she did not know much about
him. “They just moved down there not long ago,” Chesley said.

Another woman responded more adamantly when told of the arrest.

“That’s
absolute bull,” the woman said. “I’ve known him since he was a baby. He
would never kill anybody. I don’t believe any of it. It’s a crock … He
did not commit those murders.”

The woman declined to give her name.

A
dozen telephone numbers are listed for the apartment house. Calls to
many of them went unanswered while other numbers were listed as out of
service.

Over at 244 Pine St. in Rumford, Sonya Martin of Spruce Street and her daughter, Brenna Brown, checked out a memorial display for Day.

Relatives had left three white Styrofoam crosses atop Day’s lawn on Thursday. The shorter cross, which rocked gently in the breeze, had red silk roses and was flanked by blue and purple silk roses.

 
In framed photos, a gray-haired Day was wearing a black cowboy hat, jacket and jeans in two framed photographs.

Between the pictures was a handwritten green placard, which read, “In loving memory for our precious and loving brother, Roger L. Day. Be at peace ‘White Dragon.’ Love, Eternity April and Vickie.”

Lying on the ground at the base of one picture were two Winston cigarettes side by side.

Martin said that since Sheldon and Day were killed, she has lived in fear. But on Friday, she rejoiced upon learning someone had been charged.

“I could almost cry,” she said. “It’s so relieving, I mean, my chest hurt all night, and I was so stressed. Every noise I heard, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God!’ So I’m completely relieved now.”

When told that police had arrested Hamel in connection with the killings, goosebumps suddenly appeared on Martin’s arms and she shivered uncontrollably.

“We were so scared,” Martin said of herself and her family. “I feel so different now. I mean I never locked my doors before now and then yesterday, that helicopter was flying around, and we were like, ‘Oh, my God! The guy’s running around!’ I lock my doors now.”

Staff writer Mark LaFlamme contributed to this report.

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