3-12-2013 Maine:MOLUNKUS TOWNSHIP, Maine — The death of a registered sex offender on Macwahoc Road is connected to a four-hour standoff on Interstate 95 that ended Monday with a man’s suicide, state police said Tuesday.
State police officers found the body of Lawrence J. Lewis, 68, in his home at 450 Macwahoc Road on Monday night while other officers were engaged in a standoff with 59-year-old Bruce King several miles away. The standoff ended shortly after 8 p.m. when King shot himself in the head with a rifle.
Investigators who gathered outside Lewis’ home on Tuesday declined to release details of the connection between the deaths of Lewis and King. It might be days before they have the whole story, state police Lt. Christopher Coleman said.
“We are not in a position to draw any conclusions yet. We are trying to establish how Mr. King knew Mr. Lewis,” Coleman said during a press conference at Lewis’ home.
“This is Day One of a very complex investigation,” Coleman added.
Lewis was convicted in 1996 of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy who lived with him and is a lifetime registrant on the Maine Sex Offender Registry, according to previous Bangor Daily News reports.
He was convicted in September 1996 of gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact with the child and sentenced to 14 years in prison with five years suspended and six years of probation after he was released.
King was a passenger in a rented truck that Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office deputies stopped on the highway near mile marker 225 at about 4 p.m. Monday, said Coleman, who leads the Major Crime Unit for northern Maine.
