A man has been arrested on a charge of manslaughter in connection with the campfire death of a woman last year in the Kennebec County town of China, authorities said Friday.
Travis Mitchell, 31, of Vassalboro, was indicted by a grand jury and arrested around 7 p.m. Thursday, Maine State Police spokesperson Shannon Moss said in a news release. Mitchell’s next court date is scheduled for April 22.
“Mitchell was indicted Thursday by a Kennebec County Grand Jury for his role in a fire that killed 46-year-old Liza Bragg of Albion in May of 2023,” Moss said in the statement, without further elaboration of what role Mitchell allegedly played. “Mitchell was transported to the Kennebec County Correctional Facility in Augusta, where he posted bail.”
Bragg died after sustaining fatal burns from attempts to start a fire on May 5, 2023, at the D&R Campground at 109 Pellerin Road in China. Authorities said at the time that she was standing too close to the campfire as someone tried to start it, although officials did not specify how they were attempting to start the fire or any additional details leading up to the incident.
Bragg was taken to a local hospital and then to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she later died.
Police did not say how Mitchell and Bragg knew each other, but Bragg’s obituary posted online by the Plummer Funeral Home in Windsor lists Travis Mitchell as her son-in-law. Bragg graduated from Mt. View High School in Thorndike in 1995 and went on to work as a certified nursing assistant, a bookkeeper for LLP Trucking in Jefferson, Belfast Dental and Central Maine Motors, according to the obituary. She was enrolled in classes to pursue a nursing degree to become a traveling nurse and she co-owned East Coast Nutrition in Belfast with her daughter.
Copy the Story LinkComments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
