OAKLAND, Maine — Moments before her death, one of the victims in a shooting incident that claimed the lives of four people Wednesday night called 911 and provided “valuable information” that assisted responding officers, according to state police.
Another victim managed to answer a call from a concerned neighbor and ask for help before she died at the scene.
Oakland and Maine State Police on Thursday continued to investigate the shooting deaths of Amanda Bragg, 30, Amy Derosby, 28, Michael Muzerolle, 28, and Herman Derico, 42, at an apartment house at 41 Belgrade Road in Oakland.
A 3-year-old child at the scene was unharmed and was removed from the apartment by the state police tactical team, according to Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland.
McCausland identified Derico as the shooter and said a 9 mm handgun was found next to his body in the home’s driveway where Derico shot himself.
The remaining three bodies and the toddler were all found in the building’s first-floor apartment.
McCausland did not know whether the girl saw or heard the shootings, which he said bring the state’s homicide count from 14 to 17 for the year.
According to McCausland, in the moments after the shooting, an injured Derosby managed to call 911 and provide information that helped first responders when they arrived on scene. He declined to provide specifics of the call.
Meanwhile, a neighbor, Jason Thomas, said he was able to contact Bragg by phone after hearing gunshots at the home and that when he asked if she was OK, she responded only, “No, I can’t move, I need help,” before the call disconnected.
“The task that investigators have is to try to find out what sparked this violence, what set this man off, and at this point, we do not have answers, but we’re going to work very hard to get them,” McCausland said during a press conference at the apartment house Thursday afternoon.
He also said there is no guarantee investigators will find the motive.
According to neighbors and state police, Bragg and Derosby were sisters. Bragg and Muzerolle lived together in the building’s first-floor apartment with their 3-year-old daughter, and Derico and Derosby — whom McCausland described as boyfriend and girlfriend — lived together in the second-floor apartment.
A landlord who also lived on the property was not injured, according to McCausland. The 3-year-old is currently staying with her grandmother, the mother of the two female victims, McCausland said.
Other than Derico, all the victims were from the Waterville area, according to state police. McCausland said Derico was not originally from Maine and investigators are not sure how long he has lived in the state.
Thomas said he believed Derico came to Maine from New York City and that he and Derosby had lived in the second-floor apartment for about nine months.
McCausland said police were able to contact Derico’s mother in California and his grandmother in Alabama. He also said Derico had no criminal history in the state of Maine, but a nationwide criminal background check had not been completed.
Bragg and Muzerolle had lived in the apartment house for more than two years, according to Thomas, who said he knew Derico by the first name “Khalil,” not Herman. McCausland said Muzerolle — whom neighbors described as a local handyman — is nephew to Oakland Police Chief Mike Tracy.
Thomas said he saw Derico outside the home just hours before the shooting but that he gave no indication anything was wrong.
“He yelled to me, ‘Go, Raiders!’ and he was smiling. I mean, I could tell he had been drinking, but he didn’t seem aggressive or anything like that,” said Thomas, who is also a fan of the Oakland Raiders professional football team.
Shortly after 8 p.m. though, Thomas said he went outside to smoke a cigarette and heard Derico yelling and a scuffle and then two gunshots. He said he told his girlfriend and three daughters — ages 2, 3 and 7 — to stay inside and called 911.
While he was on the phone with the emergency dispatcher, Thomas said he heard Derosby and Derico yelling and then heard two more gunshots.
According to Thomas, police arrived on the scene moments later. He then called Bragg to check on them, but she was unable to respond to most of his questions.
“She was in trouble. She said she couldn’t move, that she needed help. I was scared for her. I was worried for her because there were so many cops outside, and I didn’t hear them in the background,” Thomas said.
He said his call to Bragg lasted only 49 seconds and that he ran outside to tell police that he had just spoken to one of the victims, but he was told to go back inside. He said he then called 911 a second time at 8:25 p.m. to inform them of his call to Bragg.
Thomas did not learn of the deaths until Thursday morning and said he had no idea what motivated the shootings.
“He was just a regular guy,” Thomas said of Derico. “We connected because of the fact that we’re in Patriot land and we were Raiders fans. He’d never shown aggression, nothing like that.”
McCausland said police are analyzing the firearm and attempting to determine where it was purchased.
Another neighbor, Chris Perry, said he heard two shots when he arrived at his house adjacent to the crime scene at approximately 8 p.m. and noticed a male standing outside the apartment house as he opened his garage door.
“As I put my car in park, I heard some gunshots, and so then I rolled the passenger window down, because I thought I heard some yelling, and I did hear a little yelling, screaming, crying or something. It was a pretty short window of time,” Perry said.
McCausland said during the press conference that autopsies had been completed on the bodies of Derico and Derosby and both died of gunshot wounds. Autopsies were planned for the other two bodies, and McCausland said he anticipates the same cause of death in those examinations.
Residents in the quiet community on Messalonskee Lake expressed shock over the incident Thursday.
“This is a wonderful vacation area and living area. It’s just a sad shock to have things like what happened across the street going on,” said Dick Duncan, who works across the street from the crime scene, running a realty business with his wife.
According to McCausland, Oakland police had never been called to the apartment house for a domestic disturbance or any other type of incident, and their only encounter with Derico was noticing him sitting outside the building from time to time as they drove by.
“It’s a tragedy, and it’s a pain endured by everyone in our community,” said Tracy, Oakland’s police chief. He described his nephew, a victim in the shooting, as “a wonderful person.”
According to Oakland Town Manager Gary Bowman, Wednesday’s shooting marks the town’s first homicide investigation since 2003, when the body of kidnapped Colby College student Dawn Rossignol was discovered in the town.
“This is sad news for Oakland and it’s probably the most horrific event that’s ever happened in the town of Oakland,” he said. “We feel awful. Our community has just taken such a loss, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family members.”
Bowman, who served as an Oakland police officer for 15 years before taking over as town manager, said he knew all of the victims and had never had a problem with any of them.
Follow Evan Belanger on Twitter at @evanbelanger.