‘FREED FROM PAIN’

Creepy Note Gives Clue Into Motive Behind Horrific Quadruple Murder in Maine

Authorities say Joseph Eaton, 34, killed his parents, their two friends and shot at others on the highway just days after he was released from prison.

A creepy note left at the Maine home where a man is accused of murdering his parents and their two friends this week has provided insight into a potential motive behind the grisly crime.

Authorities say they recovered an unsigned note on a kitchen island at the murder scene that claimed someone had been molested, “but there was nothing done about it.” The note also mentioned wanting to be “freed from pain.”

The disturbing detail emerged Thursday in an arrest affidavit obtained by the Bangor Daily News, which described the horrific crime scene where cops say 34-year-old Joseph Eaton gunned down Cynthia Eaton, 62; David Eaton, 66; Robert Eager, 72; Patricia Eager, 62, and the family dog.

The note found by investigators expressed similar sentiments to those shared by a man—identified by the Daily News as Eaton—in a rambling, since-deleted video uploaded to Facebook on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

“Being molested and stuff, you know, it destroys somebody,” the man in the video said. He also criticized Christians who are “unwilling to forgive.”

Eaton made his first appearance in court on Thursday. He faces murder charges for the slayings, with authorities saying additional charges—for allegedly shooting three people on a Maine highway on Tuesday—are still pending.

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Eaton’s arrest affidavit says the bodies of the victims were found by Patricia Eager’s sister on Tuesday morning at a home in Bowdoin, Maine, the Daily News reported. Cops say she walked into the home after spotting blood on the front steps and was greeted with a horrific scene—a bloodied body on the kitchen floor and two others elsewhere in the home, which was filled with shattered glass and bullet holes and had guns strewn about. A fourth body was recovered in a barn on the property.

Authorities say that Eaton has confessed to the quadruple killing and for the highway shooting—in which authorities say 25-year-old Paige Halsey was critically injured. Cops have not clarified what they believe Eaton’s motive was for the alleged rampage.

Eaton was arrested at the scene of the highway shooting on Tuesday, just four days after he’d been released from prison for an aggravated assault conviction.

The Daily News reported that Eaton’s mother, Cynthia, had picked her son up from prison on Friday and drove him to the same home—owned by the Eagers—where cops say he later slaughtered the four friends.

A judge ordered Eaton to be held without bail on Thursday and said he’ll undergo a psychiatric evaluation, the Daily News reported. Eaton’s past convictions include assault on a child younger than six and assault on a fellow prisoner in Maine.

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