LEE, Maine — Police are searching for Anthony Lord, 35, of Crystal and Houlton in connection with the shooting of four people in northern Maine.

Lord is 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 263 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Troopers also suspect he has a stolen a pulp truck and are asking the public for help in locating Lord or the truck. The pulp truck is a 2010 maroon Peterbilt with green lettering on the side saying “McCarthy.” The Maine commercial license plate number is 631745, and the truck has an orange colored pulp boom. Anyone with information on Lord or the location of the truck is asked to call state police in Bangor at 973-3700. Lord is considered armed and dangerous. The four people were shot in Lee, Benedicta and Silver Ridge, state police said.





“This is a very active scene. State police are searching for the suspect in Lee,” Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said.

McCausland expects to release more information as it becomes available. He said he would release the conditions of those shot, once he has the information “firmed up.”

Armed police officers and agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection were stopping and checking vehicles leaving the U.S. at the Houlton port of entry late Friday morning as the manhunt continued. Normally, cars heading into Canada only stop at the Canadian checkpoint on the way out.

A Customs and Border Protection helicopter also could be seen circling the greater Houlton area.

Jessica Murchison of Houlton said Friday morning she was traveling to Woodstock, New Brunswick, for a shopping trip, and it was the first time in her memory she encountered armed guards stopping vehicles before entering into Canada.

“I almost wanted to turn around and go home,” she said. “It kind of takes the wind out of your sails.”

The Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office also alerted residents of southern Aroostook and northern Penobscot counties just after 11 a.m. that they should remove keys from their vehicles and be patient while police from several agencies were searching for Lord.

Angela White of Smyrna said late Friday morning that police stopped her vehicle at a checkpoint on Route 11 in Sherman.

“I have never experienced anything like this in my life,” she said. “I am keeping my kids in the house and locking all the doors and windows.”

In Hodgdon Friday morning, Tammy Kerekes had planned to head to the lake for the day with her son and her friend’s son when the friend called to ask whether she’d heard a rumor that the alleged shooter was in the area.

“I told her no, that I had not heard that, and I drove to the end of my road, the Catalina Road, and saw two U.S. border patrol agents there,” Kerekes told the BDN. When she asked them about the rumor, the officers told her the suspect has been spotted on the White Settlement Road in Hodgdon.

She also said that one of the officers told her that if she was his wife, he would advise her to “stay home with the doors locked.”

After that advice, she said, she dropped her son’s friend off at home and decided that she would stay indoors with all the doors and windows locked for the remainder of the day.

Steven McDonald of Bangor stopped in Benedicta briefly Friday to meet with a friend and was surprised to hear about the violence.

“This is Aroostook County, so you don’t expect any kind of crime, really,” he said. “But I know there used to be a large sisterhood of Catholic nuns here. This is a peaceful, rural town.”

Maine State Police have established a command post at Lee Academy and are searching the area of Ridge Road in Lee.

Harold Welch, a resident on Winn Road in Lee, said he didn’t know the town was on lockdown until a state police officer knocked on his door and told him a manhunt was in progress.

“It looks like every officer they can get from here and Washington County is around,” Welch said.

Welch said he saw a group of three or four police cars in a field north of his residence around 8:30 a.m.

Scott Maxwell, the general manager at Lee Motors, said several state police came to his car lot after hearing a report that shots were fired in the area. As far as Maxwell knows, nothing happened. He reported seeing a Maine Forest Service helicopter going through the air.

Lincoln police have set a roadblock at North Road and Route 6, which is about 2 miles from the high school. Maxwell said another road block was set on Route 6 near Skunk Hill Road. The roadblock stops all traffic eastbound into Lee.

In addition to state police, the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department, Maine Game Wardens and Lincoln police are involved in the search in Lee.

Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall confirmed Wednesday morning that his deputies have responded to assist state police at a “critical incident scene” related to the shootings in the Sherman area.

Crandall directed all further questions to the Maine State Police.

The Aroostook Medical Center went into lockdown at 9 a.m. because of the incident, with all exterior doors locked from the inside and additional security added to the emergency room entrance, Jason Parent, hospital spokesman, said just before noon Friday.

None of the injured were treated at the Presque Isle hospital, Parent said.

Houlton Regional Hospital has taken “precautionary security measures,” including a lockdown that started at 11:30 a.m., according to Victoria Moody, director of human resources at the hospital. A representative for Millinocket Regional Hospital declined to comment whether they were in lockdown, referring all calls to State Police, then hung up the phone.

Lord is a lifetime registrant for three unlawful sexual contact crimes committed in Aroostook County involving a person under the age of 14. He was convicted of all three crimes in September 2004 and was sentenced in March 2005 to five years in prison with 18 months suspended, according to Maine Sex Offender registry. He also was sentenced to four years of probation after his release from prison.

Lord also has a domestic violence assault arrest from January in Millinocket that he pled guilty to in February, according to District Attorney R. Christopher Almy.

The mother of Lord’s child called police to report that he became aggressive after she had to work late, Almy said in an email about the Jan. 23 crime. “[Lord grabbed her] by the throat and pushed her into the door frame and called her a whore and a slut. The children were present. The [victim] had abrasions on her neck.”

Lord was sentenced to 10 months with all but 45 days suspended and two years of probation, and also lost his license to drive from 30 days and was ordered to pay a fine of $575 for driving to endanger during the incident.

His criminal record includes drunken driving in 2008, trafficking in tobacco in a correctional facility from 2006 and a theft from 2003 that resulted in one year behind bars and an order to pay $6,877 in restitution, as well as two criminal threatening convictions from 1999 and 2002, an assault conviction from 2002, a probation violation from 2003 and a gross sexual assault in 2002 that was reduced to unlawful sexual contact.

Maine State Police also continue to investigate the death of Lord’s 6-month-old son, Larry Earl Lord, who died on May 7, two days after he was found unresponsive by his mother at her Katahdin Avenue home in Millinocket, McCausland said.

The boy’s mother on May 5 called for an ambulance, which brought him to Millinocket Regional Hospital. A LifeFlight helicopter moved him to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where he died two days later, McCausland said in June.

State police investigate all untimely infant deaths, suspicious or otherwise. McCausland said Friday he did not know whether the shootings had anything to do with the death of Lord’s son.

Houlton Pioneer Times writer Joe Cyr and Bangor Daily News writers Julia Bayly, Jen Lynds, Nick McCrea and Nok-Noi Ricker contributed to this report.

Watch bangordailynews.com for updates.

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