HEBRON, Maine — Police say a 56-year-old man shot and killed his 27-year-old daughter at their home Thursday before turning the gun on himself.
The bodies of Daniel and Claire Randall were found by a neighbor inside the Randall house on Marshall Pond Road on Thursday.
Daniel Randall had been released from an alcohol treatment facility this week, and the family had moved to Maine earlier in the year from Rhode Island, according to Stephen McCausland, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman.
Claire Randall recently had moved from Rhode Island to stay with her mother, Anita, and her teenage brother — neither of whom were home at the time of the shootings, which state police are characterizing as a domestic violence homicide, McCausland said Friday.
The Maine medical examiner’s office determined Friday that Claire Randall died from multiple shotgun wounds. She was shot and killed in the bathroom of the family home by her father, McCausland said.
Daniel Randall died of a single shotgun wound to the head, McCausland said.
State police said he had completed a 90-day program at Liberty Bay Recovery Center on Forest Avenue in Portland on Tuesday and left the center at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
He then bought a shotgun, drove to his family’s home and killed his daughter just before 2 p.m. Police are now tracking down where he bought the gun, McCausland said.
Daniel Randall was estranged from his family and apparently did not have a key to their home because he broke into the house through a garage door. He also had been served with divorce papers during the week.
Randall spray painted messages to his family on the walls of five rooms in the house before he shot himself, McCausland said.
According to a report in the Providence Journal, Claire Randall was valedictorian of the Mount Hope High School graduating class of 2008 in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Daniel Randall had been a senior pastor and teacher at First United Congregational Church in Bristol, where his wife worked as executive director of the East Bay Food Bank, before moving to Maine earlier this year, the Providence newspaper said.
McCausland said Daniel Randall also once served as a chaplain in the Air Force.
The deaths remain under investigation by state police detectives.