AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Attorney General Janet T. Mills said Tuesday that York and South Berwick police fired in self-defense when they shot and killed 55-year-old Karin Moller last December in South Berwick.
Moller of Cape Neddick was shot and killed Dec. 4, 2014, by York police Detective John Lizanecz near the York town line. Police from both agencies had surrounded the house after a nurse manager at Kittery medical office called 911 to report that Moller was threatening to shoot herself.
“It was also learned that Ms. Moller told a physician to whom she was speaking on the telephone that she would be on the porch of her home and she hoped the police would kill her when they arrived,” Mills said in a release Tuesday.
According to the results of an investigation by independent detectives in Mills’ office, the nurse manager and a physician reported to police that Moller had told them by phone that she had taken Xanax and Valium and was in bed with a loaded gun. Nearly 50 minutes later, the nurse manager said Moller told them she knew police were outside and had hung up the phone.
Minutes later, Moller left her home and drove away in her car, headed toward South Berwick, and soon drove over a spike mat placed in the road by Lizanecz.
South Berwick police Lt. Christopher Burbank pulled his cruiser behind her with lights and sirens activated, Mills said, and Lizanecz pulled up right behind him just as Moller stopped her car abruptly in the center of the road.
Burbank, in uniform, drew his gun and got out of his car, and Lizanecz, wearing a vest and jacket clearly marked “police” and carrying a carbine firearm, stepped from his cruiser, the release states.
Moller emerged, holding a handgun in both hands pointed at the officers, and Burbank retreated behind his cruiser, fired one round at Moller, crouched, then stood and fired three more rounds.
Lizanecz fired a single round. Then Burbank fired two more rounds, but Moller continued to walk toward the officers pointing her gun at them. Lizanecz fired five more rounds, one of which struck Moller in the chest, causing her to fall to the ground. She died shortly later at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, hospital of a single rifle wound to the chest.
Mills said Burbank and Lizanecz each reasonably believed that unlawful deadly force was imminently threatened against them and that it was necessary to use deadly force to protect himself and each other, as well as others in the area.
No criminal charges will be pursued, Mills said. However, the determination does not preclude personnel action, civil action or an investigation into whether the use of deadly force could have been averted.