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A Maine state trooper and two New Hampshire state troopers have been cleared in last August’s shooting on the Piscataqua River Bridge.
Investigators have concluded their review of the death of 37-year-old Trent Weston of Troy, New Hampshire. The Maine attorney general’s office released their report Friday.
Weston called 911 about 2 a.m. on Aug. 29, 2024, to tell dispatchers that he killed his wife, 37-year-old Brittany Weston, according to investigators. The call was made in the Kittery area, and police began searching for him.
Kittery Police Officer Daniel Cortois soon spotted a blue sedan parked on the far right side of Interstate 95’s southbound lanes on the Piscataqua River Bridge. As the officer approached, Weston stepped out of the vehicle with a handgun.
Cortois backed up his cruiser and took cover behind it, armed himself and ordered Weston to put down the gun and get on the ground, but he didn’t comply, investigators wrote.
During the ensuing standoff, Kittery, York, Portsmouth, Maine and New Hampshire state police descended on the Piscataqua River Bridge, which was closed to both north- and southbound traffic.
The Piscataqua River Bridge connects Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Kittery, Maine. Between 70,000 and 80,000 vehicles use the I-95 bridge daily, with higher traffic volumes during peak periods, according to the Maine Department of Transportation.
A negotiator, Kittery Police Officer Molly Bossi, asked if Weston, who had by that time sat down on a jersey barrier at the edge of the bridge, would put down the gun, but he was reluctant to do so, investigators wrote in their report.
Bossi eventually convinced Weston to put the gun down on the jersey barrier, but when asked to get down and put his hands on his head, Weston wouldn’t comply, according to the report.
While Bossi negotiated with Weston, officers learned that his wife was found dead at their Troy home and that their 8-year-old son, Benson Weston, was missing.
Then, about 4:50 a.m., police saw Trent Weston take a deep breath and reach for, raise and point the gun at officers on the New Hampshire side of the bridge. Maine State Trooper Craig Nilson and New Hampshire State Police Sgt. Nicholas Cyr and Trooper Sefan Wong-Wagner opened fire, according to investigators.
Weston fell from the bridge into the Piscataqua River, where the U.S. Coast Guard later recovered his body. His handgun was never found, the report says.
The Maine medical examiner’s office ruled that Weston died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Video from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation showed Weston shot himself just before police opened fire, investigators wrote.
The autopsy found he also had gunshot wounds to the chest, back, right arm, right thigh and right shoulder. Bullets recovered from his body came from New Hampshire State Police .223-caliber rifles, according to the report.
It’s unclear whether any shot from Nilson had hit Weston.
In the blue sedan, officers found 8-year-old Benson Weston dead in a car seat from close range gunshots. There was no evidence that any gunfire from police had hit the vehicle.
The shots that killed Travis, Brittany and Benson Weston had been fired from the same .40-caliber gun. Travis Weston had purchased a .40-caliber Beretta pistol on April 30, 2022, investigators found.
Brittany’s and Benson’s deaths were ruled homicides.
Investigators concluded that Nilson, Cyr and Wong-Wagner “reasonably believed” that Weston posed a threat to the lives of officers on the bridge. Further, Weston had admitted to killing his wife and had refused orders to surrender during two hours of negotiations with police.
“All the facts and circumstances point to the conclusion that the three officers reasonably believed they were acting in defense of themselves and other officers at the time they used deadly force,” investigators wrote.
