LONG ISLAND, Maine — The tiny Casco Bay town of Long Island grieved Thursday after the shocking death of a local lobsterman whose body was found in his driveway on Wednesday.
“I didn’t know anybody that didn’t like him,” Long Island resident Peachie Stevens, 71, said of Steven Michael “Mike” Hanson, 59, whose body was found about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday in the driveway of his home at 573 Island Road.
Maine State Police have said the death is “unexplained,” and the body will undergo an autopsy on Thursday.
Stevens, who runs Peachie’s Golf Cart Rentals on Beach Avenue, was born and raised on Long Island, which boasts a winter population of about 200 people. She said Hanson worked as a handyman on the island when he wasn’t lobstering.
“He would do anything for anybody and not expect a dime,” she said.
Hanson was not a native islander, she said. He lived on Island Road with his wife and 14-year-old son, who were not on the island Tuesday night, according to Stevens.
“That was probably a blessing,” she added.
Two islanders, Kade Brown and Michael Johnson, came upon Hanson’s body as they walked about a mile across the island to the 6:45 a.m. ferry into Portland.
Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies and state police detectives swarmed the island on Wednesday, interviewing neighbors and trying to piece together the last 24 hours of Hanson’s life.
As friends and neighbors grieve, rumors “are circulating like crazy” about how Hanson might have died, Stevens said.
“I heard he fell down the stairs, but I’ve been in his house, and the stairs are quite a ways from where they found him,” she said.
Stevens said that earlier this year, the tight-knit island community endured the sudden death of 18-year-old Benjamin LaMontagne, who died on Feb. 22 at his Long Island home after contracting a rare flesh-eating bacteria after oral surgery.
Meanwhile, Stevens said residents await the results of an autopsy on Hanson.
“We feel terrible — just terrible,” she said. “I feel very bad for his family. Everybody does.”