NORTH HAVEN – A weekend visit to this idyllic island ended tragically for a pair of brothers from Palmyra with one ending up dead and the other charged with his killing.

Michael Petrucelly, 24, was killed early Sunday and police say that his brother Enoch Petrucelly, 23, was responsible.

“Obviously, this will be considered as a domestic violence homicide,” Maine State Police Detective Lt. Gary Wright said Sunday evening shortly after stepping off the ferry Capt. Neal Burgess. “It’s still in the early phase of the investigation but we are considering it a case of homicide.”

Wright said police were alerted to the death when a 911 caller from a residence at 353 Crabtree Point Road contacted the Knox County Dispatch Center at 4:42 a.m. to report “an unresponsive male.” Wright described the brothers as “visitors” to the island who had arrived at the residence on Saturday.

Deputy Ron Porter is assigned to the island and when he and the island’s emergency medical personnel arrived at the residence a few minutes after the call they found Michael Petrucelly’s body.

Wright declined to reveal whether alcohol played a part in the altercation between the two brothers or what type of weapon was used. He also declined to respond to rumors that the weapon was a sword.

Wright and his team of detectives and evidence recovery technicians took the early morning ferry to the island and remained there until the last boat.

The body of Michael Petrucelly was taken to Augusta for an autopsy, which is scheduled to be conducted today. Enoch Petrucelly also was taken off the island and was expected to be booked at Knox County Jail on Sunday night. He is expected to make an initial appearance in Knox County Superior Court on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning, Wright said.

North Haven is in Penobscot Bay about nine nautical miles from Rockland. It has a year-round population of 400 that more than doubles in summer when part-time residents and vacationers arrive. It has a low crime rate and it is uncertain when the last homicide occurred, if ever.

Wright said the scene of the slaying was secured and a state trooper would remain there through the night. Detectives and technicians were scheduled to return to the island today to continue gathering and processing evidence, he said.

Michael Petrucelly is the state’s 23rd homicide victim this year.

If the homicide rate in Maine continues at this pace, there will be double the number of slayings compared with recent years, according to a story recently published in the Bangor Daily News. Maine averaged 19.8 homicides annually over the past five years, a number that has been surpassed in 2008 with 41/2 months yet to go.

Maine had 21 homicides last year and 23 in 2006.

Of the 23 homicides this year, 21 have included either the suicide or arrest of a suspect.

Fifteen of this year’s 23 slayings are connected to domestic violence, officials said, rather than stranger-on-stranger crime.

In Oxford County, Duane Waterman, 32, of Sumner has been charged with murder in the deaths of the 21st and 22nd homicide victims this year.

A motorist spotted the body of 50-year-old Timothy Mayberry beside a stone wall outside his home on July 26. Police who were called to the scene found the body of 43-year-old Todd Smith inside Mayberry’s house. Both men died of multiple gunshot wounds.