“I don’t have any details about how the two knew each other at this point,” he said.

State Police are investigating the suspicious death of Lawrence J. Lewis, 68, of Molunkus Township, near Medway, “whose body was discovered after yesterday’s standoff along Interstate 95, south of Lincoln,” McCausland said in a statement.

The body of Lewis was found inside his home at 450 Macwahoc Road and “detectives are now processing the residence for evidence,” McCausland said Tuesday morning.

Lewis is a lifetime registrant of the Maine Sex Offender Registry after he was convicted in 1996 of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy who lived with him, according to previous Bangor Daily News reports. He was convicted in September 1996 of gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact with the child and sentenced to 14 years in prison, with five years suspended and six years of probation after he was released.

Bruce King, 59, was a passenger in a rented U-Haul truck that was stopped by Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office deputies on Interstate 95 near Lincoln at about 4 p.m. as part of an ongoing investigation, state police Lt. Christopher Coleman, who leads the Major Crime Unit for northern Maine, said Monday from the scene of the standoff.

At some points, King was holding the .30-30 rifle to his head, while police surrounded the truck and tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with him, McCausland said. King died of a gunshot wound to the head, police said.

“Detectives say that Lewis’ death is related to yesterday’s standoff, and a team of detectives have obtained a number of search warrants today to search Lewis’ house in Molunkus, the U-Haul truck and a couple of other locations, including the Medway motel room where King had stayed,” McCausland said.

The relationship between the two dead men is something investigators are trying to piece together, McCausland said.

“I think the circumstances and what we’re dealing with are still being worked on by detectives,” he said. “Many of these questions will take awhile to answer.”

The 43-year-old female driver of the U-Haul, who police have not identified but have said was in a relationship with King, was able to get free of the vehicle after it was stopped by deputies near mile marker 225. She is from Medway and King, whose hometown was not available, had been staying in the area for the last couple of months, McCausland said.

The couple had been at a motel in Medway shortly before the U-Haul was stopped.

The woman has been interviewed and is being cooperative, police said.

King did not offer much information about himself when he checked into a Medway motel last week, a worker there said Tuesday.

The couple had been staying at the River’s Edge Motel & Pizza in Medway since Thursday, a worker at the establishment, who declined to identify herself, said.

Both appeared to be in their 50s and did not say where they were from. “They were very evasive about that,” the woman said.

“They came in that day and were asking one of the employees here about where they could rent a U-Haul, and she never gave her name. Only his,” the woman said Tuesday.

State police detectives, the woman said, visited the River’s Edge on Tuesday morning before heading to the Gateway Inn, which is in Medway near the I-95 exit.

East Millinocket and Lincoln police were among several local departments that assisted state police and county sheriffs with the investigation.

Police closed all north- and southbound lanes of I-95 between the Howland and Lincoln exits at 4:35 p.m. Traffic was detoured to Route 116 and Route 2. The highway’s northbound lanes reopened to traffic at 7:45 p.m., but the southbound lanes didn’t reopen until about 9:25 p.m., McCausland said.

Investigators used the time to collect evidence from the scene.