A man in Maine who confessed to killing his parents and two of their friends and wounding three people in a highway shooting pleaded guilty to murder and other charges on Monday, and a judge sentenced him to the maximum term of life in prison.
Joseph Eaton has never provided an explanation for his actions and police have not publicly announced any motive. Eaton withdrew an insanity defense late last year. He was subsequently charged with four counts of murder and three counts of aggravated attempted murder. He pleaded guilty to all of the charges on Monday.
Defense lawyer Andrew Wright said Eaton chose to plead guilty to take responsibility, believing it was the “reasonable and moral” thing to do.
Anguished family members gave emotional testimony before the judge sentenced Eaton, describing sleepless nights, nightmares and loss of innocence.
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One of them called Eaton “a selfish little boy” who took the lives of the very people who cared most for him. Eaton looked down at the defense table during much of the testimony about the pain that he caused.
“I wake up every day regretting what I did,” he said after hearing the witnesses. He said he accepted his life sentence, adding, “I honestly think I deserve more. All I can say is, I’m sorry."
Law enforcement officials say Eaton confessed to the killings on a property in rural Bowdoin, and to wounding three more people while shooting at vehicles on Interstate 295 in Yarmouth. The shootings came days after Eaton was released from prison for unrelated crimes. Eaton has been jailed again since his arrest in April 2023 near the tumultuous scene along the highway, where traffic came to a halt as heavily armed police searched for the gunman.
Those killed were Eaton’s parents, Cynthia Eaton, 62, and David Eaton, 66, along with longtime friends Robert Eger, 72, and Patti Eger, 62, the couple who owned the Bowdoin home where they all were staying. Also killed was the family dog, resulting in an animal cruelty charge.
Soon after the bodies were discovered on April 18, 2023, three people were injured when shots were fired wildly on I-295 in Yarmouth, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) outside Portland, Maine's biggest city. Eaton faced separate indictments because the two shootings at the Bowdoin home and on the highway happened in different counties.
Maine Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck called the shootings “an attack on the soul of our state." But the heavy toll of the crime was surpassed months later when an Army reservist, who also lived in Bowdoin, killed 18 people at two locations in Lewiston, in what would become the state's deadliest mass shooting.
Police still don’t know Eaton’s motive for the slayings.
An unsigned note found at the scene of the killings mentioned “someone being freed of pain and that the writer of the note wanted a new life,” according to a criminal affidavit. Eaton told the Portland Press Herald newspaper in jailhouse interviews that he was not in control of his actions at the time of the shootings and didn't understand why he did it.
Eaton, 35, had a criminal history in Maine, Kansas and Florida, and had just completed a prison stint in Maine triggered by an aggravated assault case. Eaton’s parents were staying with their friends in Bowdoin after Cynthia Eaton picked up Joseph Eaton at a Maine prison on April 14.
