On the morning of April 1, 1998, 23-year-old Sara Beth Raymond was fatally shot in her basement apartment on Market Square in South Paris, Maine. A former member of the Army National Guard and an employee at Copp Motors in Cumberland, she was a mother to two daughters, both under two years old. Her husband, 36-year-old James Raymond, a former deputy sheriff, called the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office and admitted he had just shot his wife.

Officers who arrived minutes later found Sara dead. James Raymond had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and was taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where he died two days later. The couple had been married four years and were reported to have been having marital difficulties; their two young children were found in another room unharmed and placed in the care of Sara’s family.

This killing was recorded as one of 26 homicides in Maine that year, several of them domestic. If anyone knew Sara, James, or the family’s situation in South Paris around that time, please share what you remember.