RANGELEY — Maine State Police say one man was killed and two others were severely injured during an apparent home invasion early Thursday morning.

The incident occurred at 2564 Main St. in Rangeley at 1:30 a.m., according to police. The building there has two apartment units overlooking Rangeley Lake and the altercation occurred in one of the apartments.

Rangeley Police Chief Russell French said one man was dead when police arrived at the scene.

According to police, two men entered the apartment where another man lived and there was “some kind of altercation.” The man who was killed was not the resident of the apartment. The deceased was not identified; an autopsy is scheduled for Friday in Augusta.

At a news conference at the scene Thursday afternoon, Lt. Brian McDonough of the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit said, “These investigations do tend to have elements of drug involvement in them. We can’t confirm that in this case yet, but that’s one of the things we’re going to be looking into.”

No one had been charged and no one was in custody.

According to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland, the two injured men were taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where one had emergency surgery. They were flown to Lewiston in separate LifeFlight helicopters.

McDonough declined to provide any information about the injuries the men suffered, or to release their names. Police were trying to figure out why the man who was killed was there and why the altercation took place, he said.

He estimated the onsite investigation would take days because of the complicated scene inside the apartment. Investigators will seize and take evidence to the crime lab in the coming days, McDonough said.

He emphasized that the Main Street apartment was specifically targeted and police do not believe there is any risk to the general public.

A team of detectives was in Rangeley and Farmington, working out of the Farmington Police Department. The detectives were questioning several people and by midday Thursday had conducted about a dozen interviews. The U.S. Border Patrol also was assisting with the investigation.

With so many officers in town Thursday, townspeople and business owners were sharing what information they received from police, although it wasn’t much.

This type of situation is not a normal occurrence in Rangeley, said Sara Anderson, who works at a Main Street business. She saw a lot of police vehicles when she went to work, she said.

“I was very shocked,” she said. “I didn’t really realize what happened until I came in to work. Everybody was talking about it.”

Her co-worker, Matt Lojas, also of Rangeley, said when he went to get his coffee at 5 a.m., many police officers were working at the scene.

Everything was blocked off with tape, Anderson said.

This does not happen in Rangeley, Lojas said.

“This is a very quiet town,” he said.

Asked whether they were aware of any drug trade in town, both Lojas and Anderson said there were a lot of drugs in Rangeley.

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