Teen bowler, and sign language interpreter among Maine shooting victims

The 18 people killed in two mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, included a 14-year-old bowler, a shipbuilder who loved playing the game of corn hole and a sign language interpreter.

According to Maine State Police, seven people died Wednesday night (local time) at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley. Six were male and one was female. Eight more people, all male, died at Schemengees Bar and Grille.

Three others died after being taken to hospitals.

William Brackett, who went by Billy, didn’t let being deaf interfere with anything he wanted to do, including playing multiple sports, said his father, also named William Brackett.

Basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, he loved them all. As a teenager, he served as a bat boy for a high school baseball team and would stand in the dugout teaching the players sign language. As an adult, he taught children how to play basketball in a summer recreation program.

“He was just a gentle person. He was big and rugged and I guess maybe that’s why all the little kids loved him,” his father said. “They swarmed to a bigger person. Maybe they thought, ‘He’ll be our protector.’”

More recently, Billy, 48, was teaching his young daughter how to fish.

“The attention span of a Two-and-a-half-year-old isn’t great, and if she got a fish, she didn’t want to touch it. But he was teaching her, and she was paying attention,” his father said.

“That’s the way he was,” he said. “If it was your kid, he’d be doing the same thing.”

Bill Young, 44, of Winthrop, had taken his 14-year-old son, Aaron, to play in a youth bowling league at Just-in-Time Recreation. Both died.

“Bill was a man dedicated to his family,” his cousin, Kim McConville, told The Associated Press via social media. “He was a master auto mechanic. Always trying to be a funny guy.”

Aaron was an avid bowler who had received recognition from the youth league.

In a statement, the superintendent of Winthrop Public Schools confirmed that a high school freshman and his dad were among those killed.

Jim Hodgkin’s statement said an uncle of another high school student was also killed.

“This is tremendous tragedy for our area, our town, our students, and everyone. This is uncharted territory,” Hodgkin said.

Peyton Brewer-Ross was a dedicated pipe fitter at Bath Iron Works who left behind a partner, young daughter and friends, members of his union said.

Brewer-Ross, of Bath, was doing something he loved — playing corn hole and enjoying friends — when he was shot to death, his brother said.

“He was a character. He didn’t meet anyone he didn’t like,” Wellman Brewer said of his younger brother.

Brewer-Ross loved the game of corn hole so much that he brought out the angled boards and beanbags at family gatherings, his brother said.

He said his fun-loving brother, a shipbuilder at Bath Iron Works, was the life of the party.

“He has a Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage Slim Jim jacket that he wore,” Brewer said, noting the apparel choice that originated with a flamboyant professional wrestler. “Not too many people could pull that off.”

Brewer-Ross and his fiancé, Rachael, had just celebrated the second birthday of their daughter, Elle, two weeks earlier.

“There’s a hole in our family now where he used to be. And it’s going to hurt for a while,” Wellman Brewer said.

Joshua Seal, a sign language interpreter, was shot and killed while playing in a corn hole tournament at Schemengees Bar with other members of the deaf community.

His wife, Elizabeth Seal, said in a Facebook post that he was “a wonderful husband, my best friend, and my soulmate. He was also a wonderful boss, an incredible interpreter, a great friend, a loving son, brother, uncle, and grandson.”

“It is with a heavy heart that I share with you all that Joshua Seal has passed away… no, he was murdered in the 25/10 shooting in Lewiston. It still feels surreal,” she wrote.