Neighbors hadn’t seen 2 girls for weeks before grim discovery in small Maine town

Neighbors hadn’t seen two young girls for weeks before the discovery of three dead bodies in Mechanic Falls over the weekend.

The bodies were discovered Saturday afternoon inside a Highland Avenue apartment, according to Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

They have been taken to the Maine medical examiner’s office in Augusta, where autopsies will determine the cause and manner of death as well as positively identify the victims.

Moss said Sunday that no additional information is being released at this time.

Neighbors told the Sun Journal that a mother and her two daughters, believed to be 8 and 11 years old, lived in a second-floor apartment there with two dogs.

But the girls, who frequently jumped on a trampoline in the front yard and attended summer school, hadn’t been seen in weeks. Neither had neighbors seen the family’s dogs, the Sun Journal reported.

A U-Haul truck also appeared outside the Highland Avenue home, where it sat for weeks, raising questions among neighbors.

One neighbor told the newspaper that the mother “kept to herself” and he also kept distance from her, which he added “we absolutely now regret.”

Regional School Unit 16 — which serves Poland, Mechanic Falls and Minot — is offering crisis teams to help students and staff after the “believed passing of two students Elm Street School” in Mechanic Falls, according to the Sun Journal.