The Wells man charged with murder in the fatal shooting of his niece Saturday had been thrown out of the house by his parents hours earlier after he and his brother had gotten in a fight over a T-shirt, court records show.
Andrew Huber Young, 19, returned to the house and began shooting, hitting Ethan Huber Young, his brother, and his father, Mark Evans Young, and his brother’s daughter, Octavia Huber-Young, Maine State Police Detective Conner Walton wrote in an affidavit. Octavia would have turned 2 in July.
State police have charged Andrew Huber Young with Octavia’s killing, saying he shot his family members with his father’s .22-caliber pistol, which he had taken without permission. It’s not immediately clear where the child was in the home when Andrew Huber Young fired the shots, as the accounts from the family and police differed.
Octavia Jean Huber-Young
In an interview with detectives, Andrew Huber Young admitted to pulling the trigger, Walton wrote.
“Andrew said that he aimed at Ethan’s chest before shooting, but he claimed he didn’t intend to kill Ethan,” Walton wrote. “He claimed he wanted Ethan’s respect. Andrew said he has an anger-control problem.”
His court-appointed attorney, David Bobrow, declined to discuss specifics of the case but offered a written statement calling the shooting an accident.
“Andrew, just a 19-year-old kid, is beyond despondent over this tragic accident,” Bobrow wrote via text message. He declined to elaborate on why he believed the shooting was accidental.
“No words can describe how he feels,” Bobrow said.
The shooting followed an argument that began Saturday morning at the Crediford Road home of Andrew’s parents, Candace Huber and Mark Evans Young. Andrew Huber Young lives at the home, as does his brother, Ethan, and Octavia.
CONFLICT OVER T-SHIRT
At some point in the morning, the brothers began to argue when Andrew noticed Ethan was wearing one of his Carhartt T-shirts, and the fight escalated when Ethan changed into a second T-shirt belonging to his brother, Andrew told police later. Candace Huber took Andrew’s cellphone from him, and she, her husband, Ethan and Octavia left the home briefly, leaving Andrew alone at home.
When they returned, Ethan found that Andrew had been inside Ethan’s bedroom and destroyed some of his belongings, Walton wrote. Ethan, in return, destroyed Andrew’s hamster cage.
The argument continued, and Young separated the siblings and walked Andrew out of the home, giving him back his cellphone but taking his son’s key to the house. When Young returned to the home, he locked the door behind him, Walton wrote.
Andrew Huber Young then met up with his girlfriend and they drove to Portland to attend a Sea Dogs game. The girlfriend told police that he was quiet during the car ride north and seemed to enjoy himself at the stadium. He told her about the argument and the fight, and said that Ethan had a knife during that morning’s encounter and that his father had held Ethan down, details not mentioned by others in the affidavit’s account.
The brothers continued to antagonize each other in text message exchanges while Andrew was at the baseball game – and when he returned to the Crediford Road house after the game, he was angry and armed with his father’s .22-caliber pistol, which he had stolen and kept in the trunk of his car, Walton wrote.
The girlfriend told police that when they returned to Wells, she saw Andrew open the trunk of his car and “mess around” with a gray backpack, and said she had never seen her boyfriend with a gun. Andrew Huber Young later told police that he had taken the loaded pistol and stored it in the trunk of his car.
DIFFERING ACCOUNTS
Family members’ accounts of the shooting differed.
Andrew Huber Young Photo courtesy of York County Sheriff’s Office
Andrew Huber Young told police that he approached the house from the deck and could see his mother inside holding Ethan back from engaging with him.
When he raised the pistol, he told police, he saw his mother duck before he fired through the door, Walton wrote.
Candace Huber said she spoke to her son through the locked glass door when he returned to the house and told him she would take care of his hamster, and that he then went back to his car and returned with the gun.
Then she heard gunshots, she told police.
After the shooting, “Candace saw Ethan with Octavia in his arms,” Walton wrote. “Ethan was screaming and telling her they needed to go. Candace, Mark, Ethan and Octavia got in her car and left. Andrew was standing in the driveway next to his car as they drove away.”
At the hospital, Young, 56, and Ethan Huber Young, 22, told police that Ethan had been holding the baby and tried to run into a first-floor bedroom when he saw the gun, but he and his daughter were both shot anyway.
Doctors treated Young for a non-life threatening wound to his face. Ethan Huber Young was shot through the shoulder and was treated and released.
Police wrote that Octavia was shot through her left arm and chest.
It’s unknown how many rounds were fired. At least one bullet hole shattered the glass of the home’s back door.
TURNING HIMSELF IN
After the shooting, Andrew Huber Young drove to the Wells police station at 4:28 p.m., walked into the lobby and used the lobby phone to tell a dispatcher: “I (expletive) up and accidentally shot at my (expletive) family.”
When the dispatcher asked where the gun was, he said it was in the car, Walton wrote in the affidavit. Police then executed a search warrant on the car he had driven to the police station and found the .22-caliber handgun in the trunk, Walton wrote. He said casings were later found at the family home.
A woman who identified herself as a friend of Octavia’s mother set up a GoFundMe campaign after the shooting. She said in the description of the fundraiser that Samantha Higgins had another daughter and “an additional one is on the way.”
“Enduring such a loss is going to be” an extremely emotional process, wrote Michelle Blasi, the fundraiser’s organizer, “and we would like to see that she gets help financially so that she can be with family during this time.”
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