ALFRED – A 21-year-old man charged with killing his mother, stepfather and half brother will undergo a psychological evaluation, a judge ordered Monday at the man’s initial court appearance.

Meanwhile, his friends at the University of Maine said they couldn’t believe Matthew Cushing was capable of such conduct.

Cushing appeared in York County Superior Court on three counts of murder and one count of arson. He is accused of fatally stabbing the three family members last Wednesday and then setting their Old Orchard Beach home on fire.

Cushing wore a bandage on one hand and looked straight ahead as Justice Paul Fritzsche read the charges. He avoided eye contact with other relatives who were in the courtroom holding hands and crying during the brief hearing.

Cushing was represented by a court-appointed attorney, Joel Vincent of Portland, and did not enter a plea.

Cushing is charged with killing his mother, Carol Bolduc, stepfather, Christopher Bolduc, and his 15-year-old half brother, Joshua Bolduc.

Until late last year, Cushing was a student at the University of Maine. His college friends said the crime doesn’t fit with the Cushing they knew.

“I had never, ever seen anything like this coming,” said Shawn Coulombe, a University of Maine senior from Augusta and one of Cushing’s closest friends.

Coulombe said he spent several hours with Cushing watching TV and hanging out Tuesday, the day before the stabbing deaths.

Others described Cushing as well-liked, with good parents and a close relationship with his half brother.

Court documents indicate there was friction between the Bolducs and Cushing because they disapproved of his plan to leave school and to visit a friend in London and go backpacking in Europe. Cushing had taken the semester off while living in Old Town.

Cushing lived on Eaton Street in Old Town with three roommates, all whom attend Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor.

“The house was taped off [with yellow ‘do no cross’ police bands] Thursday and Friday,” one roommate said Monday while standing in the apartment’s doorway.

He asked not to be identified, but said police and others had removed everything from Cushing’s former room in the apartment house.

“The only one who has any answers is Matt Cushing,” another roommate, who also declined to identify himself, said from the doorway.

The roommates said they moved into the apartment with Cushing in August, but because they went to different colleges, didn’t know one another that well.

Cushing was a 2005 graduate of Old Orchard Beach High School and had been studying history and anthropology at UMaine before leaving school at the end of December.

In the “About Me” section of his online University of Maine Facebook page, Cushing wrote in lowercase letters: “i love to party and make people laugh. somebody once told i was a rageaholic, and i had to stop myself half way through objecting because i was standing there punching my cat.”

An article printed Monday in the university’s student paper, The Maine Campus, refers to an affidavit stating that Carol Bolduc had spotted her son’s vehicle at a dog park in Old Orchard Beach the day of the fire. According to the student paper, the affidavit said, Carol Bolduc then called her husband, Christopher, to tell him. When Christopher Bolduc called her later in the day, no one answered, and he told employees at the Bolduc family store that he was going home to check on his family.

The fire reportedly was called in by a neighbor about two hours later. Emergency responders found the bodies inside when they arrived.

Cushing’s friends Coulombe, Dave Hewitt and Matthew Shinberg said Cushing did not use drugs or show signs of depression. They also said he had not mentioned any family problems.

Shinberg said Cushing always told him he had a good relationship with his parents, and his friends said he recently had the name “Joshua” tattooed on his stomach as a tribute to his little brother.