One was an amazing father and a hero who died trying to stop a mass shooting.
One was a bowling coach. Another had the best jokes. Two were playing cornhole.
These are some of the victims of Wednesday’s mass shootings in Lewiston. Seven people died at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, while eight others were fatally shot at Schemengees Bar and Grille. Three more people died at area hospitals.
Tricia Asselin, Billy Brackett, Peyton Brewer-Ross, Maxx Hathaway, Bryan MacFarlane, Ron Morin, Joshua Seal, Bob Violette, Arthur Strout, Steve Vozzella, Joseph Walker and Aaron and Bill Young are 13 of 18 people fatally shot Wednesday night in Lewiston. The pair of mass shootings also left 13 injured.
Police have not released any names, but family and friends are sharing their stories. The Bangor Daily News reporters are working to confirm the names of additional victims and will add them as we learn them.
The BDN wants to tell the stories of the people killed and injured. If you would like to tell us about a loved one who was a victim of the shooting, please email news@bangordailynews.com or text 207-990-8280.
Tricia Asselin
Tricia Asselin was running for her phone to call 911 when she was shot and killed on Wednesday night. Her mother, Alicia Lachance, told Rolling Stone her daughter was trying to get law enforcement to the scene to protect children bowling at Just-In-Time Recreation.
Asselin and her family were regulars at the bowling alley and she had worked there, Lachance said.
“We all worked there — my whole family,” she told Rolling Stone. “We helped out because our friends owned the place.”
Lachance said she was not at all surprised her daughter died trying to save others. Years ago she said Asselin had performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for 20 minutes on a man trying to revive him.
“Tricia is the type of person who would have done anything for children and anybody,” she said.
If she liked you, she made you feel like you were in her inner circle, said Lisa Osgood of Lewiston, Asselin’s best friend for 36-years.
The pair met playing softball and bonded over the years playing sports, in part because Asselin was a sports fanatic.
“She knew more about the [Boston] Bruins than anybody,” Osgood said. She immediately thought of Asselin when the hockey team paid tribute to Lewiston yesterday by posting a picture of a jersey embossed with the phrase “Lewiston Strong” and Maine’s area code, 207.
The two also played golf together in the summers, and bowled together in a winter league, which is what drew Asselin and Osgood to Just-In-Time on Wednesday night. Osgood and her husband, David Greenleaf, escaped by running out a back door.
On Facebook, more friends remembered Asselin as a kind woman with a warm smile. Michelle Morin Bruns wrote that Asselin was a second mom to her two sons and will always be one of her favorite people.
“I am eternally grateful for knowing you,” Bruns wrote on Facebook. “You touched the lives of so many.”
Billy Brackett
Billy Brackett was one of the victims in Wednesday’s shootings, wrote Karen Hopkins, executive director of the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, on Facebook.
“We lost four of our cherished community members in last night’s Lewiston shootings,” she wrote, including two fathers of children in the center’s programs. “Some of our staff were very close to these members of our community.”
Hopkins said the four were Brackett, Bryan MacFarlane, Joshua Seal and Steve Vozzella.
Peyton Brewer-Ross
Peyton Brewer-Ross was a new father who died doing what he loved. He was playing cornhole with friends at Schemengees Bar and Grille when a gunman walked in and opened fire.
His brother, Ralph Brewer, said Peyton Brewer-Ross was taken too soon from his friends and family.
Peyton Brewer-Ross was a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local S6 and was remembered on Facebook by co-workers and fellow union members from around the country as a dedicated family man who loved making people laugh.
“He loved — and I mean loved — working with all of his crew,” Ralph Brewer said on Facebook. “Along with loving Rachel and Elle he loved to play cornhole — he was doing something he loved when he was taken way too young.”
Maxx Hathaway
Maxx Hathaway, a father to two daughters and a third on the way, died during the shootings in Lewiston, one of his sisters wrote on Facebook.
Kelsay Hathaway created a GoFundMe to help raise funds for Maxx Hathaway’s wife, Brenda. She wrote that Maxx Hathaway was a stay-at-home father taking care of his youngest daughter, Lilian.
She described him as down to earth and goofy, and he “always had an uplifting attitude no matter what was going on.”
Another sister, Courtney Hathaway, wrote on Facebook that the family will miss Maxx.
“I’m feeling a lot of things right now, but I’m mostly heartbroken that he’s gone,” she said. “Nothing really prepares you for the sudden and shocking loss of a loved one, especially when it happens in such a tragedy.”
Bryan MacFarlane
Bryan MacFarlane was one of several people taking part in a cornhole tournament at Schemengees Bar and Grille Wednesday night when he was killed during the mass shooting in Lewiston, according to what his sister Keri Brooks told CNN.
The cornhole game was a regular event among members of the local deaf community who gather weekly to play at the Lewiston bar.
“I grew up in Maine and the deaf community is a tight-knit community. Not only was my brother slain but my friends were too,” she said, speaking to CNN about the other victims she has learned about.
MacFarlane worked as a truck driver for several years and his sister said he was one of the first deaf people in Vermont to get his commercial trucking driver’s license. He had recently moved back to Maine.
Brooks remembered her brother as one who loved riding his motorcycle and hanging out with his dog M&M.
Ron Morin
Ron Morin was a gregarious, upbeat guy, his family member Cecile Francoeur Martin told the BDN.
“He was just always smiling, happy,” Martin said. “Just one of those people that if you are having a bad day, he was going to make your day better just by his presence.”
Morin was a regular at Taboo Hair Design on Bates Street in Lewiston, where stylist Rosa Storer remembers him as “an upstanding man with a lot of joy in his heart.” Her mother, who also works at the salon, cut his and his wife’s hair for more than 25 years. Morin’s wife told Storer about her husband’s death in a private message.
“He rarely missed an appointment and was there every other week,” Storer said. “Ron and my mom shared many laughs and stories. He had the best jokes.”
Storer, who lives in Lewiston, is heartbroken about the shootings in the tight-knit community and is concerned about learning who else has died because “I probably do know them.”
Joshua Seal
Joshua Seal was also killed in the shootings, his wife, Elizabeth Seal, posted on Facebook.
Seal was the best father to four children, always there to help and take them camping or to the beach, her post said. He was also a great friend, brother, uncle and grandson.
“Not only was he an amazing father, he was a wonderful husband, my best friend, and my soulmate,” Elizabeth Seal posted. “He loved his family and always put them first. That is what he will always be remembered for. We love and miss you so so much already, Joshua Alfred Seal.”
He worked as an American Sign Language interpreter for Pine Tree Society in Scarborough.
Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Seal was his colleague and friend.
He also shared a photo of the two of them delivering COVID-19 information at a news conference during the pandemic. Shah is the former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Seal worked as an American Sign Language interpreter, helping those tuning in from home to understand the latest.
Arthur Strout
Arthur Strout, a dedicated father and husband, was one of the victims killed Wednesday night, his family members told CBS News.
Strout and his father, Arthur Bernard, were playing pool at Schemengees Bar and Grille.
“He was supposed to leave with me because he didn’t bring his car,” Bernard told CBS News, but Strout decided to stay to play a few more games.
Strout’s wife, Kristy Strout, had to wait to hear from the medical examiner, who identified her husband’s body among those who were fatally shot. Arthur Strout, 42, was a family-oriented man who made sure to provide everything for his family, and going through life without him will be hard, she told CBS News.
“Because of one man’s choices, my daughter has to grow up without a father,” she said.
Bob Violette
Bob Violette, 76, was killed at Just-In-Time Recreation, his daughter told CBS News.
He was known as “Coach Bob” to numerous kids and families, according to social media posts. He would do anything for the kids and loved coaching them, his friend Brandon Dubuc wrote on Facebook.
Violette died doing what he loved, teaching others, and he is a hero to Dubac, he wrote.
More people echoed those thoughts, sharing how much passion Violette had for coaching. He was patient with a child who was learning to bowl and barely said a word throughout the lesson, a father posted on Facebook.
Steve Vozzella
Steve Vozzella was one of the victims in Wednesday’s shootings, wrote Karen Hopkins, executive director of the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, on Facebook.
In her post, she noted four victims, who are “cherished community members.” They are Vozzella, Billy Brackett, Bryan MacFarlane and Joshua Seal.
New England Deaf Cornhole also identified Vozzella as a victim. He brought excitement and a huge smile to the community, and he will be missed on and off the courts, the group wrote on Facebook.
The group will hold a moment of silence to honor Vozzella during a tournament Nov. 18.
Joseph Walker
Joseph Walker, a bar manager at Schemengees Bar and Grille, died in one of Wednesday’s mass shootings in Lewiston, his father told NBC News Thursday.
About 10 a.m, Leroy Walker was still trying to find out what happened to his son, he told the BDN.
Before being shot to death, Joseph Walker picked up a knife in an attempt to stop the gunman from shooting at others, Leroy Walker told NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt. His son was shot twice in the stomach, he said.
Learning the details of his son’s death made Leroy Walker feel worse, he said.
“He died as a hero,” he said.
Maine resident Nick Perry wrote that Joseph Walker welcomed him into a cornhole league a few years ago. He will “forever be grateful for the laughs,” and Walker’s generosity, he wrote on Facebook.
Payton Austin wrote that his dart and softball community lost two fathers in the shootings: Walker and Ron Morin. He sent condolences to the families of both men, who he said touched many lives.
“I know both of you probably put others before yourself last night … because that’s who you both were,” he wrote on Facebook.
Aaron and Bill Young
Bill Young and his 14-year-old son, Aaron, were shot and killed at the bowling alley, Bill’s brother, Rob Young, told Reuters.
Rob Young, 41, had flown from Baltimore to Lewiston on Thursday to help his sister-in-law search for information about the pair after she had not heard from them since they went bowling Wednesday, he told the news agency.
Robert Young also spoke with the Los Angeles Times, noting something was off when he texted his brother about buying tickets to see Blink-182 in Washington, D.C., but Bill hadn’t responded for hours.
The Young family learned about Bill’s and Aaron’s deaths from Maine State Police about 1 p.m. Thursday.
Bill Young’s children were “the most important thing to him,” Rob Young said. He told the newspaper that Bill Young had his 18-year-old daughter’s name tattooed on his forearm, and he had taken Aaron to Just-In-Time for league competition. Aaron was a talented young bowler.
Rob Young remembers his brother as a “man’s man” and the “life of the party,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Aaron, he said, was intelligent and wanted to be just like his father.
“They were both the apple of each other’s eyes,” he said.
BDN writers Callie Ferguson and Lori Valigra contributed to this report.