Matthew Cushing

I have several cases that I have researched and are ready to be put together at this point. A few of them are pretty cut and dry it seems and so while I have the time I am going to try and push a few out.

On February 20, 2008 firefighters were called to the scene of a home in Old Orchard Beach Maine. The home belonged to Christopher and Carol Bolduc, owners of a local business called Blustery Day Flags. The only thing that I can determine is that the business fell under the category of “miscellaneous retail,” whatever that may mean. Inside first firefighters, and then investigators, would find the bodies of forty-two year old Chris, his wife, Carol, also forty-two, and their son Joshua who was fifteen. The three victims had not died in the fire, but had been stabbed to death multiple times. Also inside was the body of the family dog, Spike. He too had been stabbed.

The only surviving member of the immediate family was twenty-one year old Matthew Cushing, Carol's son. Matthew was a student at the University of Maine and lived in an apartment some two hours away from the family home. Very quickly Matthew became a suspect despite the fact that most of the people who had responded to the scene knew the family and not once had police been called to the home for any issue. It was not exactly clear what the investigators had that made them confident to arrest Matthew on February 22^nd, two days after the murders. Eventually it would be stated that Carol's car had been found in a park, instead of the driveway in which it should have been located, inside blood and DNA evidence linking Matthew to the crime was found.

Matthew would plead guilty to three counts of murder and one count of arson. He would be sentenced to life without parole for each of the murder charges and twenty years on the count of arson on March 25, 2009. At his sentencing Matthew would express extreme remorse but never fully revealed a motive. With the guilty plea it prevented a trial, but it also prevented getting specific details of what happened, or why. According to the Maine Department of Corrections website there is no release or parole date given. It seems that a life sentence in Maine, literally means life.

Investigators believed that Matthew had laid in wait inside the home armed with a stun gun and a knife. They alleged that as each member of the family returned home he used the stun gun to incapacitate them and then stabbed them to death. The first to die was Joshua. Most reports you find will say that Joshua was Matthew's step-brother, but by all accounts they were half-brothers, sharing a mother in Carol. Some information indicates that it is possible that when Joshua returned home he and Matthew engaged in an argument. It appears that Carol and Christopher were in the midst of a separation. It was said that it was due to the fact that Christopher had revealed that he was homosexual and had decided to divorce Carol and move to South Carolina. Most believe that Matthew was concerned for his mother and how she would survive financially and emotionally. Those who believe the “argument” theory believe that it was over the issues with their parents and when Joshua did not agree with Matthew's theory he was stabbed to death. Next to die was Carol who some believe occurred because she was going to report Joshua's death to the police. Last of course to die was Christopher, who most theories believe was the primary target to begin with. Regardless of why each of the victims were murdered, the fact that they were murdered nonetheless is the point.

There were other theories that the motive for the murders surrounded the fact that Matthew wanted to leave school and “backpack through Europe” and neither of his parents were supportive of that idea and it had caused several arguments. Despite this being brought up prosecutors did not believe this to be the motive. They felt that it was too “weak” of a motive compared to the brutality found at the scene.

As a side note, I visited the site Findagrave.com to possibly determine the parentage of Joshua and found a picture of the tombstone that not only the three human victims share, but includes Spike, the family dog. In fact, Spike is listed as a sibling to Joshua. To be fair the reason I questioned whether Joshua and Matthew were step or half brothers had to do with the fact that it was stated that most of his childhood Matthew believed that Christopher was his biological father.