NEWRY – Maine consistently has among the lowest murder rates in the nation, but multiple slayings here are not unheard of. State police on Tuesday counted four homicides in which four or more people were killed dating back nearly three decades. A search of the Sun Journal archives revealed six such killings dating back to 1941.

Most recently, in December 1992, a Portland teenager was charged with setting an apartment house on fire and killing four people inside. Virgil W. Smith, 18, of Portland, was charged with arson and murder when the apartment house fire in the Munjoy Hill district caused the death of an infant and four adults. Police said Smith set the fire because he was upset over a break-up with his girlfriend.

In March 1988, four people were gunned down and killed in Bangor after a dispute that started over a loud stereo. A 32-year-old local man, Earl Losier, was charged with killing three men and a woman who had gathered in a home on Allen Court. One of the victims in that slaying was Losier’s brother.

In 1980, the murder toll in Maine was particularly high, with quadruple slayings in both Ogunquit and Livermore.

In November 1980, the bodies of two men and two women were found at a home on Pine Hill Road in Ogunquit. Police said 23-year-old Andrew Weiss, a fisherman from Wells, left a note with the bodies admitting that he shot three of the victims and stabbed the fourth to death.

According to the note, written on a piece of cardboard, he killed one of the men because he had gotten Weiss addicted to cocaine. He killed a woman because she had witnessed the murder and killed the other couple because they were drug-addicted and having an affair.

Police found Weiss a day later at a motel in Peabody, Mass. He had killed himself by taking a lethal dose of cocaine.

In February 1980, four people were found dead of gunshot wounds at a Gibbs Mills Road home in Livermore. A six-month old infant was among the dead. Also killed in the shooting were two women and a 19-year-old man. Police later said it was believed the 19-year-old had shot the others before turning the gun on himself.

In February 1968, a similar slaying occurred in Westbrook. A father, mother and two children were found shot to death in their home off Bridgton Road. The bodies were frozen, the house having run out of oil. A six-page note and two rifles were found at the scene. After a long investigation, police determined that 19-year-old Peter Allard had shot his parents and his 12-year-old sister with a rifle before turning a different gun on himself.

In March 1941 in Lewiston, a Winter Street man led police to the bodies of four family members he had shot inside his home. Police said 24-year-old Arthur Pellerin gunned down his wife, her mother, her aunt and his nephew. Pellerin turned over a .32 caliber revolver and told police he had shot the women because of “constant nagging” and that his nephew had come in during the killings. All four victims were shot in the head.

In Newry on Tuesday, police investigating the four killings stressed that the suspect had been arrested and that Maine is still among the safest states in the country.

-Sun Journal news clerk Anna Rodrigue contributed to this article.