The public record in the case turned sharply after investigators compared the defendant’s accident claim with what they say they found inside the living room.
PORTLAND, Maine — The murder case against Austin Doucette now rests heavily on what investigators say they found after the shooting: multiple shell casings, bullet damage across a condo living room and an autopsy that ruled Makayla Rose DeSantis’ death a homicide.
Those findings matter because Doucette, 24, repeatedly told dispatchers and detectives that the March 8 shooting in Carrabassett Valley was an accident. But in the affidavit filed to support the charge, detectives laid out a scene they said showed several rounds fired from a Smith & Wesson .45-caliber handgun and a victim who suffered more than one gunshot wound before dying later that night.
Investigators executed a search warrant March 9 at 1215 Left Bank, the condo where Doucette said the shooting happened. Sgt. Lawrence Rose found a Smith & Wesson M&P .45 auto on the couch in the living room, with its slide locked to the rear and the magazine placed nearby, according to the affidavit. Police recovered three spent Blazer .45 casings on the floor and one unfired cartridge near the couch. They also documented three bullet defects in the same area. One round, investigators said, tore through a coffee table, continued through the floor and damaged the ceiling of the apartment below. Two other projectiles were recovered from the couch area after passing through pillows and furniture.
The medical findings deepened that picture. The Office of Chief Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy March 9 and ruled that DeSantis, 23, died from multiple gunshot wounds. The affidavit says the examiner observed two gunshot wounds in her chest, each entering on the right side and exiting on the left. Earlier that night, hospital staff had told detectives she appeared to have a gunshot wound to the chest and had lost a large amount of blood. She was pronounced dead at Maine Medical Center at 11:01 p.m. after first being taken to Franklin Hospital in Farmington and then flown to Portland.
Only after those findings were assembled does the affidavit revisit Doucette’s words. In two calls to 911, investigators said, he described the shooting as accidental. He allegedly told dispatchers, “I have a gunshot go off,” “My girlfriend has a gunshot wound,” “I would never do this” and “I don’t want to go to jail.” In a later conversation with detectives after his traffic stop in Kingfield, he again called the shooting an accident, identified DeSantis as his girlfriend and said the firearm was still on the couch inside the condo. He then declined to answer more questions until he had spoken with an attorney.
The state’s record also places physical evidence in the car used to move DeSantis from the condo. Detectives looking into a black 2014 Hyundai Elantra reported reddish-brown stains on the rear seat and on a receipt in the back, along with a cellphone. A paramedic told police DeSantis was removed from the second row of the car while crews worked to restore a pulse. That roadside evidence does not describe what happened inside the condo, but it does show the immediate aftermath as officers and medics encountered it.
Officials have released only limited background about the couple. State police said DeSantis was from Colchester, Connecticut, and local reports said both she and Doucette worked at Sugarloaf. A fundraiser organized by DeSantis’ brother remembered her as someone who loved baking, painting and crafts, and said the pair had been together for nearly eight years. The defense, through attorney Verne E. Paradie, has said the shooting appears to have been “a terrible accident.” Prosecutors, however, charged Doucette with murder, and a judge found probable cause and ordered no bail.
The central issue in the case is now plain in the public file: whether a jury will see the scene evidence and medical evidence as proof that the shooting could not have happened the way Doucette described it. Investigators have not yet publicly detailed a motive, and the affidavit leaves the moments before the gunfire largely undescribed.
As the case moves forward, the most consequential public facts remain the ones recorded after the shooting, not before it: the bullets, the room, the autopsy and the murder charge built around them.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.