Suspect in deaths of sex offenders linked to N. Idaho
PORTLAND, Maine – A man accused of gunning down two convicted sex offenders in Maine lived in North Idaho as a teenager, and a friend still living in the area said Stephen Marshall believed sexual predators were worthless – though the friend questioned what could have motivated him to kill.
Detectives are also trying to piece together what prompted Marshall, 20, recently of Nova Scotia, Canada, to target the men after accessing the online records of 34 people on Maine’s online sex offender registry.
He killed himself in Boston after police stopped him on a bus hours after the shootings Sunday in two towns about 25 miles apart in Maine.
When he lived with his father in Culdesac, Idaho, as a teenager, Marshall and his friends sometimes talked about sexual abusers when the subject came up in the news.
“We just said the people who were guilty of it were worthless. We all agreed it was heinous,” said Joe Reisdorph, 20, of Moscow, Idaho. “We thought sexual predators were worse than killers.”
Officials searching for clues into Marshall’s frame of mind have looked into a possible link between Marshall and a notorious sex abuser, Clark Gerwulf, 72, who lived in Culdesac at the same time as Marshall.
But there’s nothing to indicate Marshall was a victim of Gerwulf, who was sentenced last month to life in prison in Idaho, said Sandra Dickerson, who prosecuted Gerwulf for Nez Perce County.
Reisdorph said Marshall would have told him if he had been abused. “He was a real good friend of mine. I don’t know what would have caused him to do it,” he said. “I wish I knew.”
Marshall was born in Texas and his parents moved to Nova Scotia when he was young. After his parents divorced, he moved with his father, Ralph Marshall, to Culdesac, a town of fewer than 400 residents near Lewiston. Ralph Marshall was executive director of the Clearwater Economic Development Association and the mayor of Culdesac for nearly three years before moving to Arizona.
Stephen Marshall was a quiet and intelligent teenager who was close to his father, said Sharon Marcell, the Culdesac city clerk and treasurer.
“He had a love for guns,” Marcell said. “He and his dad went to gun shows all the time.”
Reisdorph, who first was quoted in the Lewiston Tribune, described Marshall as a popular classmate who occasionally made prank phone calls and had a liking for computers, video games, hunting and guns.
When he was 15, Marshall was charged with aggravated assault after he was accused of pointing an assault rifle at a neighborhood boy who was fighting with a friend in Marshall’s front yard, according to Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Department records.
When deputies arrived, Marshall told them the gun was unloaded and that he hadn’t pointed it in the other boy’s direction. Deputies arrested Marshall and confiscated a Colt Sport .223-caliber rifle with a 30-round magazine.
Maine detectives investigating Marshall’s background were not aware of any other arrests.