8-year-old found dead in car after suspect called police and said he killed his wife

KITTERY, Maine (TCN) -- An 8-year-old boy was found dead in a car on a bridge connecting New Hampshire and Maine after police engaged in a shootout with a man suspected of killing a woman earlier that morning.

According to Maine State Police, on Thursday, Aug. 29, at 2:07 a.m., a man called the York Police Department and said he got into a fight with his wife at their home in Troy, New Hampshire, and that she was deceased. Law enforcement went to the address and found the female inside. About 20 minutes after he called, Kittery Police Department officers located the male caller's vehicle on the Piscataqua River Bridge at the border between Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Kittery, Maine.

State Police from Maine and New Hampshire arrived at the bridge and began attempting to negotiate with the suspect, who was not publicly identified. Maine State Police said in the statement that the negotiations became "ultimately unsuccessful" when the suspect got out his car with a gun. One Maine State Police trooper and two New Hampshire State Police troopers "responded with deadly force" and fired at him. The man was found deceased in the water below the bridge. Col. Bill Ross said in a news conference that the suspect fell from the bridge into the river.

Troopers at the scene located an 8-year-old boy who had been shot to death, but Maine State Police said the child's death "is not associated with the officers' use of deadly force."

Major Crimes units from both state police departments are investigating the deaths of the woman and her son.

Traffic on the bridge was shut down for several hours pending the investigation, but opened up later in the morning.

Ross said the troopers who fired the shots were placed on leave.

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