BANGOR — The woman found strangled in her Bangor apartment Monday is a graduate of Edward Little High School in Auburn.

Police on Tuesday identified Brooke Locke, 21, as the woman found dead at the Essex Street apartment she shared with a 21-year-old local man who is charged with her murder.

“An autopsy was performed by the State Medical Examiner’s Office and the cause of death was determined to be strangulation,” Bangor Police Sgt. Catherine Rumsey said in a prepared statement. The manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Locke was attending Husson University after graduating from EL where she was consistently named to the dean’s list. 

Zackery Mailloux was arrested and charged with murder after police arrived at their apartment to investigate a domestic disturbance at about 2 p.m. Monday and discovered Locke’s body, Rumsey said.

Both Mailloux and Locke are enrolled at Husson, university spokesman Eric Gordon said Tuesday.

Mailloux, with his attorney Jeffrey Silverstein beside him, made his initial court appearance before Justice William Anderson at the Penobscot Judicial Center on Tuesday. Anderson ordered Mailloux to be held without bail and ordered the police affidavit to be sealed until he is indicted by a grand jury.

The judge also ordered Mailloux, who is being held at Penobscot County Jail, to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is competent to stand trial or he has any mental health issues.

Mailloux could be indicted Nov. 30, which is the next time the Penobscot County grand jury convenes, Anderson said.

Mailloux, who graduated from Houlton High School in 2010, lived at the apartment with his girlfriend and another man, neighbor Emily Linehan said Tuesday morning.

“I was shocked,” Linehan said, sitting in her second-story apartment that overlooks the building’s parking area where Bangor police’s criminal investigation unit set up to collect evidence Monday night.

Mailloux was a continuing education student at Husson and Brooke was a third-year occupational therapy student who was a member of Epsilon Tau Epsilon, ETE, a sorority on campus, Gordon said.

The off-campus crime “is the first incident of this nature” to involve a Husson student, Gordon said, adding the school has a great safety record.

“It’s sad. It’s really tragic,” he said.

Counseling is available for grieving students, staff and faculty at Husson University, Gordon said.

A group of female students who said they knew Locke could be seen crying in the Campus Center cafeteria area at Peabody Hall on Tuesday. They said they were too upset to talk about her.

Mailloux worked at Cressey Marketplace at Husson for a time. A former co-worker said he was fun to work with.

“It definitely took me by surprise,” Husson senior Matthew Blake of Dexter said of the murder charge. “When I saw them together on campus, they always seemed happy. It blew me away.”

Many students on campus were talking about the death of their classmate, and charges against another, he said.

“It’s hard to believe somebody you see everyday in the hall is capable of that,” Blake said. “It absolutely shocked everybody.”

Attempts to reach Locke’s family were unsuccessful.

Linehan said she was leaving her apartment on Monday night when she saw Mailloux on his cellphone with police, who had just pulled into the driveway.

“I walked right past their door,” she said. “He looked perfectly normal. He didn’t seem upset.”

BDN reporter Judy Harrison and Sun Journal reporter Mark LaFlamme contributed to this story.

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