OAKFIELD — Police have taken into custody a Houlton man believed involved in a shooting, the death of two people and an outbreak of fires early Monday morning in Oakfield and neighboring Island Falls.
Following a manhunt, Matthew Davis, 32, was found at about 10:45 when troopers located him in a stolen motor vehicle on the Beaver Dam Road in Island Falls. He was taken into custody without incident.
Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety, said Monday that Davis was the prime suspect.
Two people are confirmed dead and three separate fires have taken place in Oakfield and Island Falls, according to McCausland. School was canceled in Oakfield because of the events.
The bodies of the deceased, who were not immediately identified, were discovered inside a house at 331 Oakfield-Smyrna Road in Oakfield by firefighters who responded to the scene, McCausland said. Two other blazes were reported in Island Falls, one at Katahdin Forest Products and another a torched pickup truck.
The fires are being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s Office.
According to an eyewitness, police were looking for the suspect, who apparently drove the truck from the Oakfield home to the Island Falls boat landing, where he set it ablaze.
“It’s a manhunt right now,” the witness said. “The road [Route 2] is shut down, there are state troopers everywhere.”
At 10:30 a.m., firefighters were dousing the remains of the Oakfield-Smyrna Road fire. Two troopers were on scene.
Island Falls firefighters blocked access to Richardson Road and the public boat landing to Mattawamkeag Lake — under orders, they said, from state police examining the burnt vehicle, which might have been stolen from Katahdin Forest Products.
No other details were immediately available.
Southern Aroostook Community School in Dyer Brook — which serves Island Falls, Oakfield, Dyer Brook, Smyrna, Merrill and Crystal — is part of Regional School Unit 50. An official at SACS said that school was canceled due to the shooting, but an official at the superintendent’s office said that school would go on in other parts of the district.
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