Cdn man wanted in slayings of two sex offenders fatally shoots self

[The_Return]

Not the most up-to-date article, but I thought this deserved to be posted.


Cdn man wanted in slayings of two sex offenders fatally shoots self

U.S. police look for link between men


A soft-spoken Cape Breton dishwasher suspected of killing two Maine sex offenders had visited an online registry that listed their names and addresses, a U.S. official said Monday.

Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said the two victims were among 34 names that Stephen Marshall, 20, of North Sydney, N.S., had looked up on the state website.

"The events of the weekend will obviously be reviewed, but there are no plans to change the site at this point,'' McCausland said.

Investigators searching for a link between Marshall and the murdered Americans discovered that the young Canadian had entered his name on the sex offender registry in order to get more information, including the street addresses of the victims.

Despite the possible break in the case, police still have more questions than answers about what might connect Marshall to the murdered men.

Marshall's father, Ralph Marshall, told reporters Monday that his son didn't appear troubled and never said he had been sexually abused.

"Right now, everything seems to be about speculation,'' he said.

Most of the answers may have died with Marshall, who shot himself in the head when cornered by police on a bus outside Boston on Sunday. A laptop computer was found with his body.

The bodies of the victims in the puzzling double-murder-suicide were found in their homes about 40 kilometres apart in towns in Maine.

Marshall, of North Sydney, N.S., was named as "a person of interest'' in the deaths of Joseph Gray, 57, of Milo, Me., and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth, Me.

The names and addresses of the victims were on the online registry until state authorities suspended access to the site after the killings.

Gray's name was posted on the state registry because he had moved to Maine after he was convicted in Massachusetts of sexually assaulting a child under 14. Elliott's conviction was for having sex with a girl under the legal age.

Marshall was last seen in Cape Breton on Thursday.

Police in Maine said a witness saw him leave the second shooting scene in Corinth in a white pickup Sunday morning, about five hours after the first shooting in Milo was reported.

The truck, which belonged to Marshall's father, was later found abandoned near an arena in Bangor, Me.

After a 12-hour manhunt that stretched through three states, police pulled over a bus from Bangor as it approached Boston at 7:25 p.m. EDT.

As officers climbed aboard, Marshall was 13 rows behind the driver in a window seat. He pulled out a .45-calibre handgun and shot himself in the head, said David Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney.

Investigators believe the handgun was the same one used in the Maine killings, McCausland said.

When paramedics arrived, they found a second handgun in Marshall's possession.

Marshall died at 11:24 p.m. at Boston Medical Center.

In North Sydney, no one answered the door Monday at a weathered, two-storey wooden home where Marshall lived.

Two doors doors down, George and Eileen Forrest said the house seemed to have an ever-changing parade of young tenants.

"No one bothers you around here -- it's a quiet spot,'' Eileen Forrest said. "But now I'll never go and leave my door open again. Not as long as I live.''

Marshall's former employer described him as a good worker who kept to himself.

"He was a friendly kid, he was quiet, not someone you'd think would be twisted up in something like this,'' said Charlie MacArthur, assistant manager of the Chinese restaurant where Marshall had worked for about a year.

MacArthur said it was out of character for Marshall to miss his shift on Saturday. Then, on Monday, MacArthur recognized Marshall's picture on a morning television newscast.

"It was the same as everybody else -- in shock, hard to believe,'' said MacArthur.

Holly Tizzard, an employee at the restaurant, said she can't believe her co-worker could be involved in a possible double killing.

"Give me any other name, but not Steve's,'' she said. "That wasn't his nature. He was quiet, really quiet, friendly, an outgoing kind of guy but kind of kept to himself. Not a mean person at all.''

Police in Cape Breton said Marshall had moved out of his mother's home in Little Bras d'Or about a year ago.

Marshall's mother told police her son once lived with his father and it wasn't unusual for Marshall to visit him in Maine.

"From what we can gather, he was down there previously -- he lived with his dad for a while years ago,'' said Const. Max Sehl of Cape Breton Regional Police in North Sydney.

"When the officers went and spoke with his mom, she wasn't startled with the fact that he was there, just startled with ... what he may have been involved in.''

The fact that Cape Breton police believe Marshall had visited his father before contradicts information released by authorities in Maine.

U.S. authorities said Marshall travelled to Houlton, Me., for the first time to meet his father. They also believe he took three firearms from his father -- two handguns and a rifle. Police had yet to find the rifle.

Maine's sex offender registry, which went online in December 2003, has the names, pictures and addresses of more than 2,200 people.

Jack King of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington said revealing the addresses of sex offenders can be an invitation to violence.

"There are going to be crazy people out there,'' King told Associated Press. "And there's going to be vigilantism.''