BIDDEFORD, Maine — A one-time “great employee” at an insurance agency who police said was speeding across Maine with designs of shooting his old boss had an arsenal of weapons in his sports car, and later told police he brought a loaded gun to a showing of the new “Batman” flick.
Timothy Courtois, 49, also had press clippings of last week’s Colorado movie theater massacre in his brand-new Mustang when police clocked him at 112 mph and pulled him over Sunday morning on the Maine Turnpike, police report.
Inside the car they found an AK-47 assault rifle, four handguns and several boxes of ammo, according to state police, who say they later discovered a machine gun and thousands of rounds of ammunition at his Biddeford home.
The startling discovery became even eerier, police added, when Courtois said he was driving to Derry, N.H., to shoot his “former employer.”
The once “great employee” abruptly “terminated himself” last week from the Rousseau Insurance Agency in Biddeford, where he worked for the past eight years and lived just three doors down, owner Marc Rousseau said.
“Sometimes things happen in a person’s life that disrupt the way you behave,” Rousseau said, adding that Courtois sent him a note last week saying he was terminating his employment last Wednesday.
Rousseau said he last saw Courtois Saturday morning when he pulled up in his brand new 2013 black Mustang. “He wanted to show it to me,” Rousseau said. “He was Tim being Tim again.”
Rousseau said Courtois’ father had worked in law enforcement all his life. Courtois’ father declined comment at his home.
The disturbing arrest rattled Courtois’ neighbors. Jeanne Mailhiot, 56, said Courtois was a private person who ordered a lot of Chinese food takeout.
Mailhiot said she saw Courtois dotting on his new car in the driveway Saturday — and so did her 12-year-old car-buff grandson. “It’s just so scary to think he had (those guns) in his car,” Mailhiot said.
Courtois volunteered that he hid a gun inside a backpack when he attended a Saturday night showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” at a Saco, Maine, Cinemagic theater. The allegation came just a day after police say a deranged gunmen burst into a packed showing of the summer blockbuster in Aurora, Colo., and opened fire, killing a dozen people and injuring 58 others in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.
A theater manager in Maine yesterday referred all questions to a Cinemagic spokesman, who didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“We don’t know truly what his intentions were,” said Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland.
Courtois was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail at his arraignment in Springvale District Court on initial charges of having a concealed weapon and criminal speed. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland is also reviewing the case to see if additional federal charges will be filed.
(c)2012 the Boston Herald
Distributed by MCT Information Services
you got your 5 minutes of fame…now go enjoy prison…glad you get to sit in jail and we pay for your eats?
Probably won’t be the Chinese food he is used to!
unless he says that he needs it to keep him calm or some stupid shenanigans like that.
then they have to make special meals.
The disturbing arrest rattled Courtois’ neighbors. Jeanne Mailhiot, 56,
said Courtois was a private person who ordered a lot of Chinese food
takeout.
yeah, I smell a new line of defense – the “MSG” defense.
“It’s just so scary to think he had (those guns) in his car,” Mailhiot said. You should be scared of the Messed up Minds , who plan these attacks, Not Guns.
After all, the Colorado attacker could have killed just as many people just that fast with his fists, or knives, or a crowbar, or something… Yeah, right.
After all, criminals follow the laws banning guns…Yeah, right.
The next time I read a comment from some gun owner who promises to defend himself and the rest of us with his concealed weapon, I’ll visualize this guy. This is the face of the concealed weapon holder (who just so happens to be a complete lunatic).
Next time I want to visualize a person who is ignorant and very much in the wrong I will think of you.
And why is this guy the face of of the concealed weapon holder?(other than it fits with your political agenda).
Did I miss in the article where it said that he had a concealed weapons permit? So your rationale is (because of your hatred of guns) is that a guy who had a bunch of guns (legally or not) is now the poster child for having a concealed weapons permit? (which I don’t see that he had)? Why not have the gangbanger in Chicago (you know, Obama’s stomping grounds) as the poster child for that? They have guns, after all.
I don’t hate guns. Just the NRA and people who tell me they and ammo should be unregulated to the point where nuts can apparently squire all of any of it quite easily. And if I read one more person equate it with drunk driving I’m gonna puke.
I have a concealed carry permit. Why are you trying to paint thousands of us honest Maine citizens, with your wide, dirty brush, as some “evil and lesser sort” of person?
It is difficult to try and dignify your totally ignorant, and demeaning, post with any sort of reply!
why do you bother calling police when someone gets violent?
might it be because the police have guns that they use to defend themselves and the rest of us?
An ILLEGALLY CONCEALED weapon…
Do you think going 112 miles per hour might get you stopped by the police? Seems like he was asking to get caught.
some people have exactly that thought when they’re about to do something foolish like attack or commit suicide.
It’s their way of saying “stop me” before they do something that somewhere in their minds they know is wrong.
Bankers have distroyed peoples lives without the use of guns. So this guy is going to jail for fantasies and for speeding.
and for illegally carrying concealed weapons…
and possibly criminal threatening….
The MSG drove him insane. I don’t understand why he would admit to taking a gun to the movies and conspiracy to murder his old boss..
drugs?
I’m wondering why it took MSP so long to catch up with a car going nearly 40 mph slower than the “troop.” ?
Hey Tim, when all this is over with look me up and I’ll hook you up with 1/3 or better higher gas mileage and few extra horses to go along with it. http://www.hydroclubusa.com/360.html
He heard they serve a really good egg roll and shrimp fried rice in prison……fortune cookie say… you go to jail
… Do not pass Go, do not coleect $200.
Any of you all think that another law will fix the problem, remember you can’t legislate stupidity.
Who want’s to legislate stupidity? Too much of that going around. How about legislation favoring intelligence, justice, and for the common good?
Do any of the chinese takeouts in the Thomaston area deliver to the state pen?
Mental Illness hurts many. Thankfully this man was captured before he could cause serious harm. Hope he gets the mental health that he seriously needs.
For all that think a “Ban on guns” or “more regulations” is a good idea, think about it… this would mean all the good law abiding folks would be unarmed, and all the wacko criminal types that already don’t obey the law would be. Does this sound like a good resolution to you?