OAKLAND, Maine — As police continued to search for a motive in a triple homicide and apparent suicide that occurred Wednesday night, those who knew the deceased were waiting for answers at week’s end.
According to investigators, sisters Amanda Bragg, 30, and Amy Derosby, 28, and Bragg’s boyfriend Michael Muzerolle, 28, were shot and killed at their Belgrade Road home by Herman Derico, 42, who was dating Derosby and lived with her in the home’s upstairs apartment.
Derico was known by the first name “Khalil,” not Herman, and he is not from Maine, a friend of the deceased said on Friday.
“That was the name we knew him by,” family friend Tawni Lively of Waterville said. “We didn’t know him by his real name. What I think is what we’re going to find out from this investigation is we didn’t really know who he was at all.”
Investigators said that Bragg, Derosby and Muzerolle were shot in the first-floor apartment where Bragg and Muzerolle lived with their 3-year-old daughter, who was home and unhurt, and Derico was found outside with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A 9 mm handgun was found next to Derico’s body in the driveway.
Oakland and Maine State Police continued to investigate the shooting deaths and released no new information on Friday.
“Detectives worked well into last night at the home collecting and removing evidence,” Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland said Friday afternoon. “We still do not have any answers as to what sparked the violence.”
Neighbor Jason Thomas said he believed Derico came to Maine from New York City and that he and Derosby had lived together for about nine months. The neighbor said he saw the gunman earlier in the day and he had been drinking. After hearing gunshots, Thomas called Bragg, and in the 49-second call, she asked for help, saying she couldn’t move.
Muzerolle, a local handyman, is the nephew to Oakland Police Chief Mike Tracy, who described him as “a wonderful person.”
As the tragic events unfolded Wednesday night, Lively was listening to her police scanner and updating her Facebook page with information.
Bragg and Derosby are survived by their mother, who has taken in her orphaned granddaughter, Lively said, adding that everyone in the family is devastated by the deaths.
Lively has created a GoFundMe site to raise money for the orphaned girl.
“There is now a family we all know and love, suffering and grieving in the loss of two sisters … and a young man that was like a son-in-law to them,” she posted on the fundraising site. “Amy Derosby, her sister Amanda Bragg, and her boyfriend Mike Muzerolle were all taken from us much too soon, at the hands of a very sick man.”