AMITY, Maine — In Jason Dehahn’s world, his family was the sun that he orbited around.
The 30-year-old’s life was interwoven tightly with those whom he cared about, his aunt Peggy Thiboutot said Monday.
He worked with his father and brother, often riding to and from work with them as they put in long hours in construction, installing sheetrock and drywall in towns and cities throughout the state.
An avid outdoorsman, he loved hunting, fishing and riding ATVs, and he took time to cultivate a similar love in his three children, she said.
But the life of the longtime Amity resident was cut short on June 22, allegedly when 20-year-old Thayne Ormsby, a man whom family members say Dehahn never met, came to the home of Dehahn’s best friend, Jeffrey Ryan, and killed Dehahn, Ryan and Ryan’s 10-year-old son, Jesse Ryan.
Ormsby was charged earlier this month with three counts of murder in connection with the slayings. He will be arraigned on the charges Wednesday in Aroostook County Superior Court in Houlton.
“It’s just unbelievable, just such a shock,” Thiboutot, who lives in Topsham, said Monday. Thiboutot is the sister of Robert Dehahn, Jason’s father. “I still have a hard time believing this has happened. I just can’t describe how it feels and how it has affected my family.”
Dehahn was visiting Jeffrey Ryan’s home on U.S. Route 1 at the time of the killings, according to police. His wife, Crystal Dehahn, told police that her husband had jumped onto his ATV around 4 p.m. June 22 with the intention of going to his parents’ home a short distance down Route 1. Instead, he chose to stop in and see Ryan, 55, his longtime friend.
He would never return home to his wife or his three children — Skyler, Jake and Isabella. The oldest is only 9. Dehahn was killed a little more than two weeks before his 31st birthday.
Thiboutot said Monday that Dehahn was a “great dad and a great human being.”
“He was a very, very hard worker,” she said. “He has worked ever since he was a teenager, and he really did everything with his family. He worked hand in hand with his dad and his brother. Where you would see one, you’d see the other two. They all worked 10-hour days and sometimes spent three or four hours on the road to get to and from jobs.”
Thiboutot said that her nephew was a quiet man who kept to himself, but who also was a “great listener” and a “loving son and father.”
“He loved to do things with his children,” she said. “They went four-wheeling together, they went swimming and fishing and snowmobiling in the winter. He taught them about the outdoors. He showed them how much he loved it, and they loved being with him.”
She said that despite all of the pain the family has gone through since Dehahn’s death, they are thankful for one saving grace — that his 9-year-old daughter, Skyler, was not with her father at the Ryan home that day.
“Skyler almost went with him that day,” said Thiboutot. “She was good friends with Jesse [Ryan] because they were almost the same age. She also loved to ride ATVs with her father. There could have been four victims.”
Robert Dehahn and Jake Dehahn, Jason’s brother, have publicly expressed doubt that Ormsby committed the murders alone. Both said that Dehahn was a strong, rugged man, someone who they felt could have overpowered the smaller-looking Ormsby.
Thiboutot said that she did not want to speculate about additional involvement in the crime, but agreed that Dehahn was “powerful.”
“He had strong shoulders and arms from carrying sheetrock and other materials,” she said. “He was a construction worker, a person who lifted a lot of weight easily.”
Thiboutot said that her family members enjoy life in Amity because of its quiet, rural surroundings.
“They like that it’s so rural, a peaceful place where people don’t have to lock their doors at night,” she said Monday. “It doesn’t seem that way anymore.”