MEXICO — A local man who was shot in the head Tuesday morning remained in critical condition at a Portland hospital Tuesday night.

Thomas Joudrey, 30, was shot inside a mobile home at 9 Riverside Park, police said. He was taken to Maine Medical Center, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said. A hospital spokeswoman said Joudrey was in critical condition as of 3 p.m.

Joudrey and two other men were at the home at the time of the shooting, McCausland said in a news release. “One of those two other men then left the scene before police arrived.”

Police were called to the scene at about 4:20 a.m.

Robert Terrill, 28, who lives at the mobile home, was the man who left the scene and is a “person of interest” wanted for questioning, Mexico police Chief James Theriault said.

“He is a key to this puzzle,” Theriault said.  “We need to interview him and find out what he knows.”

Terrill is 6 feet tall and weighs about 175 pounds. He has brown hair and blue eyes. He left the scene on foot wearing tan pants, a black T-shirt and carrying an olive-green duffel bag. Anyone with information on Terrill’s whereabouts is asked to call 911.

The third man inside the mobile home has been questioned, the authorities said.

Shortly before 2 p.m., police confirmed that a handgun believed to be involved in the shooting was recovered from the scene. Earlier in the day, Theriault said it appeared alcohol was a factor in the shooting.

At 2 p.m., police were seen removing a large plastic bin and a caged, live bird from the home.

George Sjostrom, who lives three units away from the shooting scene, said he was up at about 4:30 a.m. “I thought it was firecrackers,” he said. “I heard a couple of pops and I figured it was firecrackers at the time. “

He added, “It’s kind of unnerving. I’ve got a 6-year-old granddaughter who visits me here often. I don’t want this in my yard.”

The Riverside Park mobile home park where the shooting occurred is off Route 2, behind the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall.

By Tuesday afternoon, police had cordoned off the mobile home with crime tape and investigators were canvassing the park, gathering information from residents.

Police said the mobile home is rented to Dan Riley, whom, police said, was in New Hampshire visiting his father at the time of the shooting.

Sjostrom said he didn’t know the three men at the scene at the time of the shooting, but he was familiar with Riley. “The guy often talks about having a loaded .45 in his house,” Sjostrom said.

According to police, the gun used in the shooting was a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun that belongs to Riley.

By mid-morning, half a dozen Maine State Police investigators and detectives were on the scene, working from a mobile crime lab.

Police were seen entering and exiting the mobile home and looking closely at a hole in a window screen on the back side of the unit. They also searched the road and nearby yards and were examining trees and utility poles outside the window.

At one point, a Maine State Police investigator used a metal detector to sweep the ground outside the mobile home but did not appear to discover anything.

The shooting victim, Joudrey, was convicted of a charge of misdemeanor assault in 2007, and a year later was convicted for violating his probation on that charge.

Terrill, who has lived in Canton, Dixfield and Mexico since 2004, has a history of misdemeanor convictions and probation violations in Oxford County, including two convictions of theft by unauthorized taking in 2002 and another in 2009. He was also convicted of trespassing in 2002, criminal mischief in 2004 and felony burglary in 2009.

When he was charged with criminal mischief in 2004, Terrill was also charged with assault for pushing a police officer in an attempt to flee arrest. The assault charge was later dismissed.

In 2009, the burglary stemmed from an incident at Ralph’s Store on Cumberland Street. Police responded to a report of a noise inside the store and arrested Terrill nearby, carrying several bottles of beer and wine and a pack of cigarettes that were stolen from the store. At the time, Terrill was wanted in Rumford and Paris for failing to appear in court since his conviction in 2002 on theft charges, and for failing to pay more than $1,000 in restitution.

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