Accused killer enjoys notoriety, jail inmate says

PARIS – A jail inmate accused of killing and mutilating four people in a Labor Day weekend killing spree seemed to be enjoying his notoriety and laughed about news accounts, according to another inmate.

Ryan Brown, who was allegedly attacked Friday by Christian Nielsen at the Oxford County Jail, said Nielsen laughed whenever he saw newspaper accounts of the killings.

“We asked what was so funny, and he just laughed,” Brown told WGME-TV.

Brown, 22, of Conway, N.H., was attacked by Nielsen at the jail before Nielsen was transferred to the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, which has a segregation unit.

Nielsen, 31, allegedly grabbed a mop wringer out of a bucket and struck Brown on the back of his head in a room where inmates were mopping the floor, said Oxford County Jail Administrator Ernest Martin. Nielsen tried to follow Brown out of the room but slipped and fell on the wet floor, where he was subdued by guards, Martin said.

Police said Nielsen confessed to shooting and dismembering three women at a bed and breakfast where he was staying in Newry. The body of another victim, a man, was burned beyond recognition and left in nearby Upton.

Nielsen is being held without bail on four counts of murder.