By Alex Barber
Bangor Daily News
DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — The Attorney General’s Office and Maine State Police are still investigating a pair of shootings that rocked the town of Dover-Foxcroft two months ago.
On Nov. 29, 2011, Michael Curtis, 46, shot and killed maintenance worker Udo Schneider, 53, around 9:30 a.m. outside Hilltop Manor, where Schneider had worked for more than a decade.
After shooting Schneider, Curtis drove his white pickup truck to the nearby Piscataquis Valley Fairgrounds. He was tracked there by police, who surrounded the grounds.
After engaging in a standoff, “Curtis was subsequently shot and killed by Maine State Trooper Jon Brown,” Lt. Col. Raymond Bessette said on the afternoon of the shootings.
Curtis later died at Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft from a single gunshot wound. Schneider died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to his autopsy.
Why Curtis killed Schneider that morning and what action if any will be taken against Trooper Brown remain unclear.
Brenda Kielty, spokeswoman for the Maine Attorney General’s Office, said the investigation into the police-involved shooting is still under way.
Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said there were no new developments in the state police investigation into Curtis’ shooting of Schneider.
Kielty said there were nine police-involved shootings in Maine in 2011 and another this month in Portland.
“It just takes time,” said Kielty. “All of these cases are being investigated.”
Kielty said she couldn’t give a time frame for when the investigation might conclude.
“When you have 10 cases, your staff gets smaller with every new case,” she said.
Curtis and Schneider once worked together as bouncers at the Bear’s Den Tavern in Dover-Foxcroft.
Schneider’s close friend Stephanie Boutilier said the two got along fine until Curtis started dating Schneider’s ex-wife. Curtis eventually married Schneider’s ex-wife, Margaret Jean Curtis.
Although Boutilier said she never witnessed any physical altercations between them, the two had arguments on how to raise Schneider’s children. She said she “lost it” when she heard of Schneider’s death on the TV news.
Other friends were shocked to learn of the shootings.
” We never saw it coming,” said Dover-Foxcroft Fire Capt. Eric Berce, who added that he had known Curtis for nearly 25 years.
Both men were from Sangerville. Curtis was a Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department dispatcher when he died.
Copyright 2012 Bangor Daily News