The Cohens had gathered at the family’s East Road property in the coastal town of Brooklin just before the Fourth of July holiday. William Cohen’s brother and sister came in from out of town.
While much of the family went to Portland for the day on July 2, William, 75, and Pamela, 71, stayed home. Around 2 o’clock that afternoon, one of their children discovered the couple’s bodies in the basement, according to a transcript of a 911 call obtained by the Press Herald.
The state medical examiner ruled this week that Pamela Cohen’s death was a homicide. William Cohen died by suicide. Both had gunshot wounds to the head.
Yet the shooting remains under investigation, state police spokesperson Shannon Moss said.
“Even though it is unlikely that anyone will face prosecution, we have an obligation to investigate the circumstances surrounding what happened and why,” Moss said in an email. “The investigation continues in an effort to answer questions the investigators have and the family has.”
Police have released little information about the shootings and what may have prompted them. Messages to the family this week asking to talk about William and Pamela were not returned.
William Cohen was the chair of the Brooklin Board of Selectmen and previously served as mayor of Bangor. He had a long career in corporate communications and had worked at Verso Paper Co., Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Bangor Hydro Electric Co., according to his LinkedIn page.
Pamela Cohen was a retired special educator at RSU 25 in Bucksport. She volunteered at The Ark and TurnStyle in Blue Hill, and at the Brooklin Keeping Society, according to an obituary for the couple.
Neither William nor Pamela Cohen had criminal records, according to a background check from the Maine State Bureau of Identification.
The caller, whose name was redacted in the transcript, said they had been living with their parents temporarily for the past couple of months. They told a dispatcher they had left the East Road home around 11:30 a.m. and came back to get some “materials” out of the basement.
“I’ve just arrived home, and it appears that my parents are dead in the basement from gunshot wounds,” the caller said. “There’s also a gun on the floor.”
“I think the gun might be my father’s,” they said.
The dispatcher asks what type of gun they saw, but that information was redacted.
No one else was at the East Road home when the bodies were discovered, and the couple’s car was missing, the caller said. The caller said the “full extended family” was visiting, including William’s brother and sister and two children under the age of 16. They went to Portland for the day, according to the transcripts.
“Oh my god I just cannot understand, fathom what went on here,” the caller said.
There are no time stamps on the transcript, but it appears it took emergency responders a while to get to the remote property. The small town has a population of 827 and is located on a peninsula between Deer Isle and Blue Hill Bay.
“Sir, I know we’re a ways out here, but is some help on the way?” the caller asked the dispatcher at one point.
Staff Writer John Terhune contributed to this report.
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