PORTLAND — Portland police have a tentative identification of the man found dead Sunday in Free Street after what investigators believe was an 80-foot fall from a nearby parking garage.
Portland Police Lt. James Sweatt told the Bangor Daily News late Monday morning that police are awaiting a final confirmation of the man’s ID from family members before releasing it publicly.
He also said investigators believe it’s highly unlikely the man — described as a Portland resident, a white male in his 50s, approximately 6-feet-2-inches tall and weighing about 220 pounds — was pushed from the upper floors of the One City Center parking garage.
“By all appearances right now, based on witness accounts and the evidence, it appears to be a fall or a jump,” Sweatt said, acknowledging that concrete fencing and barricades around the outside walls of the garage make an accidental fall less likely than a suicide.
Sweatt said police are hoping to track down one final individual, who investigators were told was an eyewitness to the incident, before rendering an official decision on whether to deem the incident a case of suicide.
The man was killed by what police believe was an 80-foot fall from the upper floors of the parking garage at approximately 1:30 p.m. Sunday. He landed on Free Street, just a block southeast from the high-traffic Monument Square.
The street was closed for more than two hours Sunday afternoon while authorities investigated the scene and sought clearance from the state medical examiner’s office to remove the body.
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