SCARBOROUGH – Police on Tuesday morning said the 5-year-old girl who died in a shooting Monday evening was visiting her grandparents’ home with her family.
Elise Dorr died in the shooting while staying at her grandparents’ Milliken Road home with her parents and two older siblings, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Maine State Police, who are investigating the shooting, have still not provided any details about what led to the shooting.
McCausland said an autopsy is scheduled, but he did not say when it will take place.
According to McCausland, Elise is the daughter of Todd and Virginia Dorr, of Belfast. He said the family was staying at the home of Elise’s grandparents while the elder Dorrs were away. Her parents were in the house at the time of the shooting.
No one answered the door Tuesday morning at 17 Milliken Road, the house where the girl was shot, and police and rescue crews had left overnight, neighbors said. There was no crime scene tape around the house Tuesday morning.
According to state police, the girl was shot in the home around 7:30 p.m. Monday and was taken by ambulance to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she died.
“We’re not sure what happened. It appears to be a gunshot wound,” Sgt. Chris Harriman said in a Monday night news conference near the scene of the shooting.
McCausland said Tuesday afternoon that the family has been cooperating fully with the investigation.
The neighborhood, on a short stretch of road between Route 1 and Payne Road, was quiet Tuesday morning.
Neighbors said a couple that appeared to be in their late 50s lived in the house, but they didn’t know much about them.
The home where the shooting took place is owned by the Donald W. Perkins Trust, according to the Scarborough assessor’s database.
Tim Bayley, who lives across the street, said he heard a gunshot around 7:30 p.m. and saw a commotion at the house until police and an ambulance arrived a few minutes later.
He said police were still at the home about midnight, but had gone by the time he woke up early Tuesday morning.
No one else was injured in the shooting.
In a Facebook post, Scarborough Police Chief Robbie Moulton urged the community to draw together after the shooting.
“Unfortunately, we wake up, nearly every morning, to hear of tragedies that occur on a national or state level, and all too often the focus immediately turns away from the event and more to philosophical differences that pit neighbors against neighbors,” Moulton wrote. “Like any family, club, or group, we will have differences of opinions, and that is healthy, but it does not need to result in anger, hate, and disdain. While some people have already begun to speculate and use this as a platform to angrily promote their ideologies, I would like to ask that we as a community take pause and focus on healing.”
Without revealing any information on the investigation, Moulton told residents there is no danger to the community.
McCausland said he didn’t expect investigators to release more information on the shooting Tuesday.