ELLSWORTH, Maine — A Lamoine man was arrested and charged with murder Friday morning in connection with a fatal shooting that took place outside his home in March.
Michael Carter, 30, was arrested at his home on Route 184 by Maine State Police and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department without incident following his indictment Thursday by a Hancock County grand jury, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
In addition to the murder charge, Carter was indicted on charges of elevated aggravated assault, aggravated assault and illegal possession of a firearm stemming from the same incident in which two other men suffered gunshot wounds.
Lawrence “Randy” Sinclair, 32, of Ellsworth, was shot to death outside Carter’s house around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, March 11. The two men wounded in the incident are Torrey Garland, 34, and Joshua McKinney, 25, both of Ellsworth.
Two other people were at the home at the time of the shooting but were uninjured. Tacy Mullins, 23, lives with Carter at the home. Jacob Sinclair, 25, of Ellsworth had just arrived at the house with Garland, McKinney and Randy Sinclair, his brother, when the shooting occurred.
Sinclair died after being shot in the head, according to the state medical examiner’s office.
Garland suffered critical injuries as he was shot and then drove away from the scene in a pickup truck he had borrowed earlier from a friend, police have said. Garland crashed the vehicle on Route 184 about a half-mile north of Carter’s home before he was found by emergency response personnel and then taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Garland remained at EMMC for more than a week after the shooting as he recovered from his injuries.
McKinney’s wound was not considered life-threatening, police have said. Carter also suffered a gunshot wound not considered life-threatening during the incident — a result, according to McKinney, of Mullins trying to take the gun away from him.
McCausland indicated that Carter was taken Friday to Hancock County Jail and is expected to be arraigned on the charges at 12:45 p.m. Monday, June 11, in Hancock County Superior Court in Ellsworth.
Why the four men appeared at Carter’s doorstep at 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday was a topic of much speculation in the Ellsworth area following the shooting. McKinney later told the Bangor Daily News that the shooting stemmed from a dispute over a paint job of a truck owned by Carter.
Police have said they recovered a firearm from the scene but have not indicated what kind of gun it is. McKinney, however, has publicly indicated that the weapon used in the shooting was a 9 mm handgun.
According to the Maine State Bureau of Identification, Carter has prior criminal convictions for hindering apprehension or prosecution, obstructing government administration, refusing to submit to arrest or detention, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicants, disorderly conduct, unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs, theft, negotiating a worthless instrument and violating conditions of release.
Garland and both Sinclairs also have prior criminal convictions but Mullins and McKinney do not, state records indicate. McKinney was arrested March 23 in Ellsworth on charges of operating a motor vehicle after revocation and unlawful possession of prescription drugs but those charges still are pending.
Garland was convicted in 2009 in Ellsworth of unlawful possession of scheduled drugs and has three subsequent convictions for violating conditions of release. Jacob Sinclair was convicted in 2008 in Ellsworth of disorderly conduct, according to the state agency’s records.
Randy Sinclair was convicted in 2002 on an assault charge in Ellsworth, state records indicate, and according to federal court documents he was sentenced in 2002 to serve a year and a day in prison after breaking into the Ellsworth Post Office in 2001.
According to Sinclair’s obituary, published March 16 in the Bangor Daily News, he was a lifetime Hancock County resident and an avid sports fan who started working as a carpenter for his family’s construction business after graduating from Ellsworth High School.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
how about a link to the original story…
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2012/05/23/news/hancock/ellsworth-hospital-recognized-for-response-to-quadruple-shooting/
Talk about a Friday afternoon news dump!
Glad to see they finally made an arrest. Was actually thinking this case was going to be swept under the proverbial rug.
about time
Without knowing all the facts its tough to say an arrest was in order. 4 guys showing up at my house in the middle of the night might have drawn the same response. But again, without knowing the real truth its hard to say.
This case was thoroughly investigated over a long period of time. Now the defendant will have his chance to make his case. This will be a very interesting trial. I hope Mr. Carter is able to retain one of the areas better defense attorneys. He’ll be up against some excellent lawyers for the state.
Its hard to claim self defense when a person dies.
No but four people showing up at his house at 0400 hrs sure says alot.
Unless they can prove that he lured them there with the intent to shoot them. Since we are not on the grand jury we don’t know.
yeah because we know the three surviving wouldn’t lie to give the dead friend some justice…come on seriously
Just out of idle curiosity does anyone in your book tell the truth?
LOL..jd! Call me a little jaded after working for the government for the 25+ years. Most people I trust are our service members and law enforcement. Everyone else…from a distance
Working for the government would make you trust law enforcement agents. I suppose youd probably have to trust them before. I dont trust the government, therefore I cannot trust law enforcement.
Shaking my head…..he was sitting in the van, unarmed and shot in the head. One person had a gun and he is now behind bars where he belongs. A coward, who tried to get his girlfriend to take the rap for him. 4 people who probably shouldnt have been there but 4 people who were unarmed. Think about what makes sense. If 4 people had guns and showed up at somebody’s house, isn’t it pretty clear that there would have been more arrests?? And why would the girlfriend be grabbing his arm and trying to get the gun away as he was shot in the foot if there were a bunch of people out there with guns?? I think what some of you are not thinking about is the forensic evidence. How do they know he was in the van?? Maybe because that’s where they found evidence. How do they know nobody else had a gun. Same reason. Same way they must know that not one person attempted to enter that house. Let’s face it…I’m sure there’s no love lost with any of these men and law enforcement. So I’m pretty sure that law enforcement arrested the person that all the evidence pointed to. It’s what makes sense.
actually its easier to claim when the other person isn’t alive to contest your claim. remember the eastbrook case? dead burglary/robbery suspect and the homeowner was found to be justified in his actions because he claimed to be defending himself. it’s called “justifiable homicide” – dummy
as the saying goes use a gun go to jail.
FREE MIKE CARTER – although he was not supposed to posses a firearm, four against one, on mikes property, at 3-4am with his family inside the home! any reasonable person can see he was defending his family, property, and his life! Seems like a case of self defense, and should be found to be justifiable. I guess it is up to the courts to decide now. I hope the judges/jury members take their duty seriously do the right thing, whatever that might be.
Even though he may have been defending himself and his family he did not have to shoot the guy in the head, sorry but to me that’s not justifiable it’s called murder!
How do we know he aimed for the head?
Because he was shot up close and exactly right between the eyes….He was also sitting in the vehicle. Considering the amount of time this took to investigate, I’m pretty sure the authorities involved have some clear evidence of where and how he was killed. Apparantly, the grand jury agreed. Like I said before, everyone should have stayed home. Settling whatever it is that was an issue is something that should have been left behind in the school yard a few years ago. Unfortunately, with this, one side forgot to mention he was going to settle the issue with a gun and then have his girlfriend say she did it before he finally decided he would admit he shot and not her. Kind of a big lie don’t you think???
If 4 guys are coming at you where would you shoot? You have a limited amount of time (seconds) before they reach your position. You must neutralize the threat in a life or death situation. What if they threatened his wife or kids? They had no business being there at that time of day. This is clearly self defense. Unless the man was shot in the back as he was trying to leave there is no evidence of murder.
You’re theory is a good one-IF that’s what happened. It is also entirely possible, that these 4 individuals were lured out there, and Mr. Carter had the INTENTION of harming them all.
I wasn’t there, nor do I know any of the individuals involved, so I don’t know. I’m just saying that while your theory is a possibility, it’s also possible that it didn’t really go down that way at all.
9mm could have fractured a femur rendering an assailant available for accountability and unavailable for defense corroboration before law enforcement arrives. Where would I have shot? The femoral head or socket region. 4 people, 8 legs, 15-1 rounds. That’s two chances per leg. It would have taken only one to cause enough panic for everyone else to leave.
If you read and watch the previous news stories and updates by the State Police, Sinclair never left the van. He was shot point blank in the head while sitting behind the steering wheel.
Well hope if it ever happens to you that you are an excellent shot when it come to moving targets with less then large mass.
If you’re Doc Holliday or Wyatt Earpp maybe!
or called a good shot
??? If someone comes to my house and threatens me and refuses to leave, I will shoot. And I’m not going to “shoot to wound”, whatever that means.
BUT, it appears there is more to this case then meets the eye. Like Carter inviting them over, which is one of the stories…
I hope that the threat is more than verbal.
In Maine: “Deadly force justified to terminate criminal trespass AND another crime
within home, or to stop unlawful and imminent use of deadly force, or to
effect a citizen’s arrest against deadly force; duty to retreat not
specifically removed”
Criminal trespass PLUS assault = justified use of deadly force. Assault can be verbal, but the details are important.
Like I said, I think the criminal trespass is in question here…
But the key words in your post are “within home” and sitting behind a steering wheel (if that is where he was) does not fit the definition.
Also criminal trespass in Maine has very specific definitions. http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/17-a/title17-asec402.html
Agreed: the details of what actually happened are key. Sounds like it wasn’t trespass or an assault, or else the Grand Jury wouldn’t have proceeded. I was simply responding to the poster who implied that “even if he was defending himself and his family”. If he was truly “defending” then yes, shoot to kill. But it doesn’t sound like he was defending…
I do believe we are on the same page here. If someone enters my house and threatens me or my family they will very likely leave in a body bag.
He called all of those guys and asked them to come over..knowing full well they all carry guns. The min they got there..well thats pretty self explanatory.
Sounds like you should have testified before the grand jury.
Because of the time this occurred, it appears that they showed up to collect a debt by roughing him up or scaring him but I have yet to hear why four people were shot…Why were guns brought if this was simply over a paint job? Seems like there is a lot more to this and no one is talking.
Drugs Drugs and more Drugs is that what went wrong here????
I thought bullets were the problem here.
i wonder if it has anything to do with drugs???? mmmmmm
Birds of a feather…
Unfortunatley.
As an Ellsworth resident, along with others, we are finally glad to see an arrest made in this case….Without all the facts, that will soon come to light, The Sinclair man didn’t deserve to lose his life with a bullet to the head…Maybe now the Sinclair family will have some closure soon. Anytime someone takes a bullet to the head, that seems “personal”…