To some, slaying confirms Canaan as ‘lawless’ town

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CANAAN – To an outsider, Canaan appears to be a sleepy, peaceful community that straddles U.S. Route 2 in Somerset County, winding up into hills and down around shimmering ponds.

It has farmland and woods and homes.

Yet to some who live here, the murder mystery surrounding three people who lived together on Hartland Road came as a not-too-unexpected surprise this week.

They maintain that Canaan has a dark side.

“We’re pretty much lawless here,” said Patty at the Canaan Superette, who declined to share her last name Tuesday. “Canaan has always been known as a party town.”

She listed recent illegal activities: stolen cars, drug busts, home burglaries, thefts, arson. She said there have been a few arrests while other crimes remain unsolved. She said the problems are not with teenagers, but with adults.

Others are quick to see similarities with countless other towns.

Laurie Knight is a quick, efficient waitress at the Canaan Family Restaurant who jokes with her morning regulars: “More coffee? You want an IV?”

As she served breakfast eggs, she summed up the town’s attitude toward the recent slaying of Cheryl Murdoch, 37, the related search for the missing Shirley Moon Atwood, 35, and the arrest of Atwood’s estranged husband, Shannon Atwood, 36.

“It happens everywhere,” Knight said. “We’re no different than anywhere else. This time it was Canaan.”

Across the road from the Canaan Superette is the Canaan Country Store, owned by Stephen Comfort. Armed robbers have hit the store twice within the past year. Still, Comfort said, he feels lucky: The Hill Road Market across town had to close after being robbed nine times.

“We are a lawless town,” Comfort said, sipping coffee outside his store. “There is rarely a law presence here unless there is a murder or a robbery. Then everyone shows up.”

As he spoke, both a Somerset County Sheriff’s Department cruiser and a Maine State Police cruiser passed by on Route 2. “See?” he said. “They are on their way somewhere else.”

Comfort said a lot of Canaan’s crime goes unreported.

“People just sort of accept it or take care of it themselves,” he said.

There are a lot of good people in Canaan. The Fire Department is raising money for a Jaws of Life. Donation jars in stores are filling to help a person who needs an organ transplant. A Civil War discussion series is being held at the library.

There is also an underbelly, some residents are quick to admit, that makes crime a nearly daily affair.

State police statistics for Canaan appear to back up the claims.

In 2005, troopers responded to 236 situations in Canaan, ranging from simple assault, family fights and burglary to traffic accidents and thefts.

Compare that to Burnham, which has half the number of residents and a similar reputation for lawlessness, but warranted only 52 responses.

The Somerset County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a request for its statistics.

Over the past decade, at least two Canaan crimes have gained nationwide attention.

In June 2004, a Canaan man beat a dog so severely with a walking stick that it was blinded. The dog later was abandoned in a gravel pit but was found by its owner. The man responsible served 10 months in jail.

In 1994, a 71-year-old tourist from Quebec was beaten, stabbed seven times, robbed and left for dead in a ditch after he had stopped and asked for directions at a Canaan convenience store. A local man was convicted of the deed and is serving 45 years in prison. The victim never recovered.

Wilfred Dodge, a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department, patrols Canaan. One deputy per shift covers the east side of Somerset County, with Route 150 being the dividing line.

“Canaan has its problems, that’s for sure,” Dodge said Tuesday. “We get a lot of theft complaints, a lot of domestic complaints.”

State police Trooper Bruce Scott, who is assigned to Interstate 95, was guarding the Atwood home Tuesday.

“I often get called off the interstate to respond to Canaan,” he said. “It is such a rural area that even if you patrolled it constantly, you couldn’t see everything.”

Dodge agreed that because Canaan is so rural, it is easy for crime to flourish. But that is not the only reason, he said. “I cover Ripley and other small towns like that, and we get nowhere near the complaints there that we do in Canaan.

“I really don’t know the cause or the answer.”

Inland Fisheries and Wildlife forensic specialist Deborah Palman holds the leash on her dog Alex, used in searches for bodies, as she speaks with Maine State Police Trooper Bruce Scott in the driveway of the Atwood home in Canaan on Tuesday. The search for a missing Canaan woman who lived in the home, Shirley Moon Atwood, 35, continued in various locations in town after the body of her house mate Cheryl Murdoch, 37, was found Friday in the woods about five miles from the home. A third person who lived at the residence, Shannon Atwood, 35, was arrested Sunday in connection with an armed standoff with police.