Man killed by police on I-95 bridge; wife and child found dead
Aug. 29—A man suspected of fatally shooting his wife in Troy was shot and killed by police 100 miles away after raising a gun on the Interstate 95 bridge early Thursday, authorities said.
Police then found the man's 8-year-old child fatally shot in his vehicle.
"I want to stress this right now that the child's death is not associated with the police officers' use of deadly force today," Maine State Police Col. William Ross told reporters at a news conference in Kittery, Maine.
Officials didn't release the names of any of the deceased.
At 2:07 a.m., York, Maine, police received a 911 call from the man saying he had been in a fight with his wife in Troy.
"During that call he told authorities that his wife was dead," Ross said.
Police went to the home in Troy and found a woman dead.
About 2:30 a.m., Kittery police located the man's vehicle parked in the southbound lanes "right in the middle of the bridge" on the Maine side of the state line, Ross said.
Officers tried to negotiate with the man, who got out of the vehicle and raised a gun.
A Maine state trooper and two New Hampshire state troopers responded with deadly force, Ross said.
The man fell from the bridge into the water below. The Coast Guard recovered his body.
After the shooting, police found the child in the back seat of the man's vehicle.
Authorities would not say where and when the child was killed.
"I know everyone wants to know the why," Ross said.
An autopsy on the female victim was scheduled for Friday morning, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office.
The I-95 bridge which spans the Piscataqua River was closed in both directions for hours, forcing commuters to seek detours through the streets of Portsmouth and Kittery.
The bridge carries 70,000 to 80,000 vehicles a day, according to the Maine Department of Transportation.
Troy is a town of about 2,200 residents in southwestern New Hampshire, west of Jaffrey.
In Troy, a worker at the Minute Mart said a suspected murder in town was "a little bit scary."
Monadnock Regional School District Superintendent Jeremy Rathbun said, "Our hearts go out to those affected by this tragedy."
"The child involved was not a current or former student at Monadnock Regional School District," he said in an email.
