The innkeeper and her daughter had moved to Maine from California less than three years ago, hoping to find new lives after tragic experiences. The man from Arkansas had arrived only recently to seek custody of two of his children. Another woman who lived in the area for a decade or more was simply helping a friend.

All four were victims of a grisly string of killings over the Labor Day weekend that left the tourist-friendly region around Maine’s Sunday River ski area in shock.

Julie Bullard, 65, who owned a bed and breakfast in San Francisco, moved to Newry, Maine, in May 2004 after her daughter Selby’s husband was killed in a car crash. Bullard and her 30-year-old daughter were looking for a fresh start in the western Maine countryside.

Bernie Vielwerth, who used to operate an inn near Bullard’s B&B in the city’s Castro neighborhood, described her as a cheerful free-spirit who kept a pair of dogs and several parrots and got along well with her guests.

He used to call her “Bette” because Bullard, with her big laugh and red hair, reminded him of singer Bette Midler.

Before innkeeping, Bullard worked for a wholesale meat distributor, according to Vielwerth. She decided to move to Maine after one of the men she bought the 1904 Edwardian-style B&B from died of a drug overdose in a room she rented to him, he said.

“She said, ‘I’m going to get out of here,”‘ Vielwerth said.

Selby Bullard, an energetic mother of two, enjoyed skiing and had recently begun work as a part-time real estate agent. Her close friend, Cindy Beatson, 43, was employed at the same agency.

James Whitehurst, disabled by polio as a child, doted on his four children and had come to Newry to seek custody of two of them, ages 7 and 10, from his estranged wife, according to his sister, Dianna Taylor of Batesville, Ark. He hoped to return to Arkansas and reunite them with his other children, both teenagers.

Whitehurst was unable to work because of his disability but was helping Julie Bullard by working as a handyman at the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast as she prepared the converted 1830 farmhouse for a sale.

The dismembered remains of the three women were found Monday at the bed and breakfast, which Bullard had put on the market in preparation for her move to the New York City area. Whitehurst’s body was burned and discarded in Upton, about a dozen miles to the northwest.

Christian Nielsen, a 31-year-old cook who was renting a room at the Black Bear, has been charged with the four killings but the motive remains a mystery. Police said he murdered Whitehurst on Friday, Bullard two days later and her daughter and Beatson on Monday when they visited the property to check on Bullard when they were unable to reach her by phone.

Beatson had been driving Selby Bullard around town after she broke her leg in a skiing accident last spring, according to Bonita Sessions, who worked with the two women at Apple Tree Realty in Bethel.

Beatson, who was married and had a 12-year-old daughter, had been living in the Bethel area for more than a decade.

AP reporters Glenn Adams in Augusta, Maine, and Lisa Leff in San Francisco contributed to this report.