Police find body of fourth murder victim
By Gregory D. Kesich, Portland Press Herald Staff Writer

Police returned to a wooded area in Upton today to retrieve what is believed to be the fourth victim in a multiple victim homicide.

The bodies of three women were found at the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast on Sunday River Road in Newry early Monday evening. The fourth body is believed to be a man’s.

Christian C. Nielsen, 31, of Farmington has been charged with four counts of murder. Police say that Nielsen was employed as a cook at the Sudbury Inn, a bed and breakfast in Bethel. He is scheduled to appear this afternoon in Oxford County Superior Court in South Paris.

Prosecutor allege that Nielsen killed James Whitehurst, 50, Julie Bullard, 65, Selby Bullard, 31, and Cynthia Beatson, 42.

“The police didn’t get involved until Monday,” said Deputy Attorney General William Stokes. “How it happened, when it happened and why it happened is still unclear.”

Stokes said investigators worked throughout the night and still have questions about the sequence of events.

Nielson was working at the Sudbury Inn in Bethel and rented a room at the Black Bear Bed and Breakfast, owned by Julie Bullard Police believe that Nielson killed James Whitehurst, 50, and left his body in Upton.

The owner of Sudbury Inn said he worked his shift in the kitchen Sunday, getting off work in the late evening. Sometime the same day, he killed Bullard, Stokes said.

Bullard’s daughter, Selby Bullard, 30, became concerned when she couldn’t reach her mother by cell phone.

She drove to Newry with her friend Cynthia Beatson, 42, on Monday, said Benita Sessions, who runs the Apple Tree Realty Office in Bethel, where the two women worked.

“Julie had bad asthma, she would get into these coughing fits,” Sessions said. “Selby couldn’t reach her by phone so she and Cindy drove out her to check on her.”

Stokes said Nielson killed Bullard and Beatson when they came to the Black Bear.

The state police crime scene evidence recovery team scoured the grounds by the white inn with maroon shutters off Monkey Brook Road, looking for evidence outside the house and behind an outdoor swimming pool.

Little is known about Whitehurst, Stokes said. Authorities have not been able too reach his next of kin late Tuesday morning. Julie and Selby Bullard had moved to Maine from San Francisco, sometime in the last two years, Sessions said.

Selby Bullard had two children and had been selling real estate for about a year.

Beatson grew up in the Bethel area and had worked as a waitress and a seemstress before she started selling real estate.

She was married to Dough Beatson, a local contractor, and they had one child.

Sessions said the two women were best friends and went everywhere together.

Nielson grew up in the Oxford County area, but lived in Farmington for several years. According to Farmington police, Nielsen had a record of mostly traffic-related violations, including a 1998 arrest and conviction for drunken driving.

“The name didn’t jump out as somebody that we knew,” said Police Chief Richard Caton III.

His last brush with Farmington police was in August 2005, when he was issued a summons for driving after suspension. At the time Nielsen listed his residence as a 5-unit apartment building in downtown Farmington, near the University of Maine campus.

Robin Zinchuk, director of the Bethel Chamber of commerce, said she supervised Nielsen in a church youth group in the mid-1980s but recalled little else about him.

Nancy White, proprietor of the Sudbury Inn, was stunned to hear about the allegations against Nielsen.

“He was a reliable employee, a competent cook and a soft spoken individual,” she said. “I’m shocked and stunned and appalled. It’s horrible.”

The four-victim homicide is believed to be Maine’s deadliest crime since December 1993, when four people were killed in an apartment fire in Portland, set by Virgil Smith.

Staff writers Tom Bell, David Hench and Trevor Maxwell contributed to this report.