Police Investigate Coastal Maine Fire as a Homicide

The death of a Whitneyville man found dead inside his burned out mobile home early Saturday morning is now being investigated as a homicide.

The victim is 48-year-old Wayne Foss, a commercial fisherman who lived at the home with his wife and son.  Foss’ family was not home Friday night.

State Police Lt. Troy Gardner released the following information this afternoon in Whitneyville:

At approximately 0200 am Saturday morning the Washington County Regional Communications Center received 911 calls indicating that there was a residential fire at 54 Middle Street in Whitneyville.  The Machias, East Machias, Jonesboro, Machiasport, and Marshfield Fire Departments responded, extinguished the flames and followed standard protocol by contacting the Fire Marshal’s Office.

Investigators from the Fire Marshal’s Office responded to the residence to begin their examination of the structure as well as their investigation into the cause and origin of the fire.  Shortly after entering the structure, Investigators located human remains.  Based on their initial observations, they secured the residence and contacted the Maine State Police – Major Crimes Unit.

Maine State Police personnel responded to the residence and began working with the FMO Investigators.  We also began working with representatives from the Medical Examiner’s Office to make arrangements for the remains to be transported to Augusta for an autopsy.

An autopsy was conducted yesterday.  Obviously that process has not been completed as further testing is necessary, which is standard protocol for an autopsy.

Based on the information and evidence that we have at this point, we are treating this death as a homicide.  Detectives from the Major Crimes Unit and Investigators from the Fire Marshal’s Office spent the day yesterday at 54 Middle Street processing the residence.

Based on information we have obtained through our investigative efforts, as well as what we learned from the autopsy, we have identified the deceased is 48-year-old Wayne Foss (DOB: 12-18-68).  Mr. Foss lived at the residence located at 54 Middle Street.

At this point, we don’t have any specific information to suggest that anyone else is in danger but we do want to remind everyone to pay attention to what is happening around them.   We also want to remind everyone to secure their residences and vehicles during the course of their daily activities and movements.

We are asking for anyone who had any contact or interactions with Mr. Foss on Friday or Saturday to contact us.  We are interested in speaking to anyone who has information about where Mr. Foss may have been, or who he may have been with, during the day Friday, into Saturday morning.  We are also asking for people to contact us if they have any information about this homicide.  Obviously this is a small residential neighborhood and most people are familiar their neighbors. Anyone with information on the homicide or anyone who had contact with Mr. Foss is asked to contact State Police in Bangor at 973-3700.