Details of the 911 transcript reporting Freedom’s death

FREEDOM — A person who reported a propane leak at a home on Belfast Road last week two people died, two were taken to the hospital was a Boston-area caller who said his cousin was home at the time and called to alert him of the incident, according to transcripts of two 911 calls.

“Three are very sick and one is not even moving,” the caller said, asking if someone could come immediately.

The caller, whose name has been redacted in the transcript, said his cousin, who was calling him from a home on Belfast Road, did not speak English.

“He said he could smell (inaudible) what he thought was a propane leak,” the caller said.

Freedom firefighters and Waldo County Sheriff’s deputies responded to 555 Belfast Road after receiving a call just after 6 a.m. on Oct. 22 and found two men dead, a man and a woman sick and another man unharmed. Officials later said a pipe on top of the wall-mounted propane heater that was supposed to vent the propane to the outside had separated from the heater, causing the leak. The heater was located in the utility room of the house.

A week after the incident, sheriff’s officials are keeping the details of the investigation under wraps. They would not identify the names of the victims, both dead and alive, or anything about the condition of those who were taken to the hospital.

Waldo County Sheriff’s Sergeant Cody Leith said Tuesday he had no new information to provide.

“The investigation is ongoing,” Laite said. “In this regard, we are not releasing any additional details.”

Most of the information is around the death of two people and the hospitalization of two more came from Freedom fire chief Jim Waterman. Contacted Tuesday, he said he had no new information.

Late last week, Waterman said they were there are no carbon monoxide detectors at the home when officials arrived on the morning of Oct. 22. He said the concentration of carbon monoxide was 40 parts per million, which he called a high concentration.

According to Waterman, the vent pipe was disconnected at the top of the heating system and could not have disconnected on its own. It “had to be disconnected somehow,” Waterman said.

The person who called 911 to report the leak told the dispatcher that the people at the Freedom house did not speak English. When asked what language they were speaking, the caller told the dispatcher it was Cantonese or Mandarin.

When Freedom firefighters arrived at the scene, they found a man dead in the living room and another dead in a bedroom off the living room, Waterman said. The man and woman were taken to Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast.

The man, who was not injured, has a phone with a New York area code, he said. A message left at that number Tuesday was not returned.

Attempts to reach the number of the 911 caller were unsuccessful.

The property includes a home and several outbuildings that were searched by law enforcement in May as an illegal cannabis grow site, part of what authorities said was a network of illegal grow sites in rural Maine. Plots are usually located on residential buildings in rural areas.

The federal government said the sites are on the rise may be controlled by Chinese transnational crime groups.

There were no visible signs of marijuana growing on Freedom’s property after the death. Waterman confirmed that he found no evidence of marijuana there.

The house and about 10 acres of undeveloped property on Evergreen Lane, about 2.5 miles from the house, are owned by Austin Gene of Brooklyn, New York. Waterman said last week that he did not believe Zhen was at the house on Oct. 22.

Waterman also said the man, who was not injured, spoke some English but could not give him the identities of the dead. A sheriff’s press release last week said only four people lived in the home.

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