A man who was shot and killed by police on the Interstate 95 bridge at the New Hampshire-Maine state line is believed to have killed his wife in western New Hampshire overnight, and authorities said his 8-year-old son was also found shot to death inside his vehicle.
The man was killed on the Piscataqua River Bridge on Thursday morning, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office and state police said in a joint press release. They said the incident appears to have started when the man killed his wife at a home in Troy, New Hampshire, and then drove nearly 100 miles to the bridge at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, state line with Kittery, Maine.
At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Col. William Ross, chief of the Maine State Police, said York, Maine, police received a 911 call around 2:07 a.m. from a man saying he had been involved in a fight with his wife in Troy and that his wife was dead. New Hampshire State Police responded to the residence in Troy and found a woman dead.
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Around 2:30 a.m., Ross said police from Kittery, Maine, located the man's vehicle parked in the middle of the Piscataqua River Bridge on the Maine side. Law enforcement from New Hampshire and Maine responded and tried to negotiate with the man, but those negotiations were unsuccessful. The man exited his vehicle and raised a gun, and was shot by Maine State Police Trooper Craig Nilsen and two New Hampshire State Police troopers whose names have not yet been released.
The man fell into the water below the bridge, Ross said, where he was recovered by the U.S. Coast Guard at 8:30 a.m. and declared dead.
Law enforcement on scene located an 8-year-old boy who had been shot to death in the back seat of the vehicle. Ross said police did not know there was a child in the back seat when they fired their guns, but the boy's death was not caused by the shots fired by troopers.
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"Based on information we saw, it was very clear the officers involved in shooting did not fire on that child," he said.
No names have been released.
The man's shooting is under investigation by the Maine Attorney General's Office, and Ross said the troopers involved have been placed on administrative leave pending that investigation, per standard procedure.
"Please be patient with us," Ross said. "This is an ongoing investigation, and when we have more information we'll be sure we get it to you."
There are multiple cameras in use on the bridge to monitor traffic, but there is no record of the shooting because they are not set to record, according Paul Merrill, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Transportation.
Ross said the Piscataqua River Bridge was closed in both directions just after 2:30 a.m. for the safety of the public and reopened shortly after 9:30 a.m. Traffic was backed up on both sides as drivers were diverted to two other bridges.
Between 70,000 and 80,000 vehicles use the bridge daily, according to the Maine DOT.
Photos from the initial crime scene on Monadnock Road in Troy, located in the western part of the state near Keene, showed a New Hampshire State Police Major Crime Unit vehicle and several unmarked cruisers outside a townhouse complex in a wooded area. Yellow police tape surrounded the property.
A neighbor told NBC10 Boston the family had just moved into the home a little over a month ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
