AUGUSTA – It was a parent’s worst nightmare when Terry Dickey walked into his son’s Medway trailer on Aug. 5, 1998.

He found his son, John Dickey, 36, shot to death in his blood-soaked bed. County and state police quickly ruled the case a suicide, then “ignored and stonewalled” the family’s argument that the man was killed, the father told the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee on Friday.

After hearing the tearful, emotional testimony of five of Dickey’s family members, the committee voted unanimously to ask that Attorney General G. Steven Rowe reopen the investigation of the shooting death.

“It’s about time,” said Dickey’s mother, Sharon Dickey of Medway, after the vote. “We deserve to hear the truth. We knew our son. He wouldn’t do such a thing. This was a rush to judgment,” she said.

The vote came amid discussion of a bill to form a “cold-case” investigations unit to look at Maine’s 68 unsolved murders and eight missing-persons cases that date as far back as 1969.

Members of the Dickey family testified Friday that they have faced a “horrific comedy of errors” from county and state police and have been ignored by the attorney general and the governor when they have asked for help in investigating John Dickey’s death.

Family members doubted the suicide verdict, even before the funeral director found not one but two bullet holes in Dickey’s body. The family questioned how Dickey could shoot himself in the chest with a .44-caliber gun, then survive long enough to shoot himself in the head. It was the family, not police, who discovered bullet holes in the sheets and blanket on the bed where Dickey was found.

When the family discovered only after burial that no autopsy was performed, they ordered the body exhumed.

The father said, “I will spend the rest of my time remaining on Earth” trying to find out who killed his son.

Dickey’s three sisters also asked the committee to look into their brother’s death.

Wearing a T-shirt with her brother’s picture below the words “Justice for Johnny,” Wendy Chase spoke in a barely audible voice to say that her dead brother has visited her in her dreams to reveal that he was murdered. Laurie Stanley said, “No family should have to go through what we have.”

Ann Rondeau of South Portland said, “Even one unsolved murder is too many.”

Committee members appeared to be stunned by the emotional testimony.

Rep. James H. Tobin, R-Dexter, asked the committee chairs to have Attorney General Rowe investigate the “unfortunate death” and to meet with the Dickey family.

Rep. Patricia A. Blanchette, D-Bangor, said the Dickey family “has been treated with cold indifference by law enforcement authorities, including the attorney general and governor. That is absolutely unacceptable. This family needs answers.”

Rep. Lois A Snowe-Mello, R-Poland, said, “It is about time that this case is investigated properly.”

Later on Friday, the Governor’s Office referred all questions on the case to the state Attorney General’s Office.

The bill that sparked the testimony, LD 132, was sponsored by Sen. Michael McAlevey, R-Waterboro. He proposed that six investigators be added to the attorney general’s staff to “bring relief” to the families of victims of unsolved murders.

“This is one of the most important things we could do. We can bring closure to the moms and dads, family members and loved ones who have lived with this every day since a policeman came knocking on their door” with the bad news, McAlevey said.

Using improvements in DNA and other investigative techniques, other states have had success in reopening and solving long-standing murder cases, he said. “We can’t solve them all, but we can solve some,” said McAlevey, a former police investigator.

The cold-case squad legislation was supported by Chuck Dow of the Attorney General’s Office who said investigating unsolved murders “is our solemn duty to the victims’ families.” Debbie O’Brien, a spokeswoman for Parents of Murdered Children, also supported the bill.

Caroline Chamberlain, mother of Susan Hannah of Scarborough, who was missing for 18 months before her skeletal remains were found in the woods of Limington, broke down before the committee when she said, “No one knows who killed my daughter, only the murderer. And her file is at the bottom of the pile somewhere,” she said.

The committee will hold a work session on the cold-case squad on Feb. 23.