HEBRON — Police investigators are certain that former pastor Daniel Randall shot and killed his daughter last week before turning the gun on himself.
What they’re not sure about is whether Randall also had a role in the death of his first wife, Greta, who reportedly died in a fall at a Cape Elizabeth park in 1993.
Police have no immediate plans to reopen that case, investigators say, but they have asked Cape Elizabeth police and the Medical Examiner’s Office for any reports they have on the death of Greta, who lost an unborn son in the July 3, 1993, fall.
Maine State Police say that on the morning of Dec. 8, Randall checked himself out of an alcohol rehabilitation facility in Portland, bought a shotgun at a gun shop and drove to his former home on Marshall Pond Road in Hebron where he shot his 27-year-old daughter Claire in the bathroom.
Randall then went out onto the porch and shot himself in the head, police said.
The neighbor who found the bodies reported seeing spray-painted messages on the walls of the home, including “Vow breaker,” and “Anita, it’s all your fault.”
The latter message, police suggested, was meant for Randall’s current wife, who had recently filed for divorce.
Details in the deaths of Daniel and Claire Randall are pretty clear, police have said. Circumstances around the death of Greta in 1993 may prove more elusive.
State Police said Wednesday that Greta, six months pregnant, died after “falling from a cliff” at Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth. The baby died a day later.
Daniel, at the time a pastor at a Saco church, moved with his two daughters to Arizona about a year after Greta’s death, according to information from the Saco church’s website.
He married Anita Kimball, a native of Waterford, Maine, before beginning his ministry in Arizona.
The family moved to several locations, according to police and church records, ending up in Rhode Island. Neighbors on Marshall Pond Road in Hebron said the family had moved back to Maine earlier this year. Claire had been living at the house with her stepmother and teenage brother, who were not at the home when Daniel arrived last Thursday with a shotgun and cans of spray paint.
As part of their investigation, police said they have discovered where Daniel Randall bought the shotgun he used in the killings. However, police declined to name the store as their investigation continues.
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