Posted on 09/05/2006 1:10:38 PM PDT by metesky
Cook held in Maine B&B murder spree
By Joe Dwinell
Community Newspaper Company Managing Editor
Tuesday, September 5, 2006 - Updated: 03:20 PM EST
The 31-year-old cook accused of going on a murder spree in Maine of horrific proportions shot and dismembered the bodies of three female victims and shot and burned a man, police said today.
The suspect, Christian Nielsen, also shot and killed three pet dogs in a slaughter police say took four days to complete.
This is the worst homicide in Maine in the past 14 years, said Col. Craig Poulin, commander of the Maine State Police.
The quadruple murder took place at a bed and breakfast near the popular Sunday River ski resort.
This is a crime of horrific proportions, a solemn Poulin said, adding they do not expect to find any other victims.
Detectives say Nielsen told them he first killed a Maine man on Friday, then two days later attacked the owner of the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast where he had been renting a room, according affidavits filed today as Nielsen made his initial court appearance.
The owners 30-year-old daughter and a friend were killed when they arrived at the inn unexpectedly on Monday, the state police affidavits said, the Associated Press reports.
Nielsen was charged with four counts of murder and ordered held without bail. He smiled as he left Oxford County Superior Court today, AP is reporting.
The bodies of Julie Bullard, 65, owner of the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast, her daughter Selby, 30, and a third woman, Cindy Beatson, 43, were found at the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast, according to Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland.
A body found in the woods 10 to 15 miles away in neighboring Upton was that of a fourth victim, James Whitehurst, 50, McCausland said.
Nielsen had recently been renting a room at the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast, where the bodies of three women were found Monday. He worked at another bed and breakfast in nearby Bethel.
Whitehursts remains were found north of Grafton Notch State Park, 10 to 15 miles away in the neighboring town of Upton, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.
News swept across the communities in Maines western mountains.
"Were all just numb with shock," Robin Zinchuk, executive director of the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Associated Press.
Police assured residents they had nothing to fear. All victims were accounted for, "and there is no danger," McCausland said.
Police were called to the Black Bear early Monday evening at a time when many vacationers were streaming out of Maine at the close of the Labor Day weekend that marks the traditional close of the summer tourist season.
Newry is near the New Hampshire line, about 75 miles northwest of Portland.
Nielsen, who police said knew at least two of the victims, has family in western Maine but his last known address was in Farmington.
Nancy White, co-owner of the Sudbury Inn, was stunned to learn that the cook she and her husband had hired this summer had been arrested for murder.
"This is a surprise to me," White said. "Hes a reliable, soft-spoken employee who has cooked with us since late June."
The phone rang unanswered Tuesday at the Black Bear, a white clapboard farmhouse with a red roof that was converted into a six-room bed-and-breakfast with a pool and tennis courts.
Nielsen had a history of driving offenses that included an arrest for drunken driving, but nothing more serious, Farmington police said. His license was revoked a year ago, said Farmington Lt. Jack Peck.
Maine is a state known for its low crime rate, so the killings came as a shock.
Maines last quadruple murder occurred on Dec. 3, 1992, when Virgil Smith set fire to a tenement at the foot of Portlands Munjoy Hill neighborhood, killing a woman, two men and a 10-month-old baby. McCausland said Smith was upset after his girlfriend broke up with him.
Earl Losier shot and killed four people, including his brother, at a neighbors apartment in Bangor on March 19, 1988, because of a loud stereo that disturbed him.
Just ick.
Amen. The case where the DHS worker killed a child made me want to puke.
Northern New England has horrible soil and climate. It once had a thriving agricultural economy, but most of the ambitious farmers went to better land in the West when it became available. Then there were industrial mills, but many of those died. What was left in some towns was the unmotivated dregs. Of course, there were also many hardworking people who just liked the country and lifestyle, and the vacation industry helped them survive. I would advise avoiding old mill towns where there is little employment. Crime and substance abuse seem to be concentrated there.
The late Stan Rogers wrote a song about that:
Stan Rogers -- Northwest Passage -- "CANOL Road"
Well you could see it in his eyes as they strained against the night,
And the bone-white-knuckled grip upon the road,
Sixty-five miles into town, and a winter's thirst to drown,
A winter still with two months left to go.
His eyes are too far open, his grin too hard and sore,
His shoulders too far high to bring relief,
But the Kopper King is hot, even if the band is not,
And it sure beats shooting whiskey-jacks and trees.
Then he laughs and says "It didn't get me this time, not tonight,
I wasn't screaming when I hit the door."
But his hands on the tabletop, will their shaking never stop,
Those hands sweep the bottles to the floor.
Now he's a bear in a blood-red mackinaw with hungry dogs at bay,
And springtime thunder in his sudden roar,
With one wrong word he burns, and the table's overturned,
When he's finished there's a dead man on the floor.
Well they watched for him in Carmacks, Haines, and Carcross,
With Teslin blocked there's nowhere else to go,
But he hit the four-wheel-drive in Johnson's Crossing,
Now he's thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road.
He's thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road,
In the Salmon Range at forty-eight below...
Well it's God's own neon green above the mountains here tonight,
Throwing brittle coloured shadows on the snow,
It's four more hours til dawn, and the gas is almost gone,
And that bitter Yukon wind begins to blow.
Now you can see it in his eyes as they glitter in the light
And the bone-white rime of frost around his brow,
Too late the dawn has come, that Yukon winter has won,
And he's got his cure for cabin fever now.
Well they watched for him in Carmacks, Haines, and Carcross,
With Teslin blocked there's nowhere else to go,
But they hit the four-wheel-drive in Johnson's Crossing,
Found him thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road.
They found him thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road,
In the Salmon Range at forty-eight below,
They found him thirty-eight miles up the CANOL road...
All the locations referenced are real places, including the Kopper King bar in Whitehorse. The CANOL Road goes north from Johnson's Crossing, and is not maintained during the winter months. 38 miles is roughly to the middle of Quiet Lake.
Inside info?
Soil and climate aren't all that bad, just rocky. Hard to compete with the midwest once the railroads were finished.
Once you're north of Rt. 2 it's all the same, Bill.
I you are interested I will tell you the story of the Arkansas relative and the cow, never read any thing from "Yankee" for the truth.
Any word on a motive for such carnage?
This country cries out for an effective death penalty...even if he is insane. Why should citizens pay to keep him alive for the rest of his life??
It started to really suck in '70 when a lot of the old timers started to sell out due to State Mandates, which pissed me off, because these people had nothing but their land.
There was a dark day in St Jay when you couldn't eat at the restaurant on Railroad Ave, with a half opened sixer in the front seat and a .357 in you pocket, with little exaggeration.
mark for later reading
He was in the process of being evicted.
http://www.sunjournal.com/storyupdate.php#109
I bet he is a democrat and is a member of the DU.
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