Investigators say the defendant described an accident on the phone, but the autopsy and scene evidence pushed the case toward a homicide charge.
FARMINGTON, Maine — The clearest timeline in the shooting death of 23-year-old Makayla Rose DeSantis begins not at a courtroom or crime scene, but on two 911 calls in which her boyfriend repeatedly said the gun fired by accident as she bled in the car.
By the end of the first night, DeSantis was dead at a Portland hospital, Austin Doucette was in custody after a traffic stop in Kingfield and Maine State Police had opened a murder investigation. The state later charged Doucette, 24, with murder in the Carrabassett Valley shooting, saying an autopsy found multiple gunshot wounds and evidence inside the condo pointed to far more than a single accidental discharge.
Detectives said the first call came in at 7:31 p.m. March 8. The male caller said, “I have a gunshot go off,” then told dispatchers he was driving to Farmington for treatment. Investigators said he sounded frantic and at one point said, “I can’t believe I did this” and “I’m sorry babe.” Four minutes later, according to the affidavit, he called again and said, “My girlfriend has a gunshot wound.” He described the wound as being in the stomach or abdomen area, repeated that the gun had gone off by accident, identified her as Makayla and added, “I would never do this” and “I don’t want to go to jail.”
That call sequence set off a moving rescue response. Dispatchers coordinated with an ambulance to meet the car on Route 27 rather than at the condo itself. A paramedic later told detectives the woman was pulled from the second row of the vehicle and that the boyfriend on scene said a .45-caliber gun had gone off. She was first taken to Franklin Hospital in Farmington, then flown by helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland. At 11:01 p.m., hospital staff pronounced her dead, investigators wrote. What had sounded on the phone like a race to save her life became, within hours, the backbone of a homicide case.
Only after the roadside response did investigators begin filling in what happened at the condo. Police traced the shooting to 1215 Left Bank in Carrabassett Valley. Doucette told detectives the residence was his and said the gun involved was still on the couch inside. He said the shooting was an accident, identified DeSantis as his girlfriend and then stopped answering questions until he could speak with a lawyer. At the same time, officers looking into the Hyundai Elantra he had been driving reported reddish-brown stains in the back seat, a stained receipt and a cellphone that Doucette said likely belonged to DeSantis.
The affidavit says the physical scene inside the condo gave investigators a different picture from the simple accident narrative. Officers found a Smith & Wesson M&P .45 on the couch, its slide locked back, with the magazine next to it. Three spent Blazer .45 casings were on the floor, along with an unfired round. Investigators mapped three bullet defects near the couch area, including one that damaged a coffee table, passed through the floor and damaged the ceiling in the apartment below. Two other projectiles were recovered from the couch and nearby floor. Later, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner concluded that DeSantis died from multiple gunshot wounds and classified the manner of death as homicide.
A separate call at 8:06 p.m. added one more layer to the evening’s sequence. Jamie Rollins told dispatchers she was calling about her boyfriend’s son, Doucette, and said he had told his father that something happened to his girlfriend, that police were chasing him and that he was going to kill himself. The affidavit presents that call as part of the timeline, not as proof of motive. It also does not resolve a key gap that remains in public records: what exactly happened inside the condo in the moments before the shots were fired.
DeSantis and Doucette both worked at Sugarloaf and both were from Connecticut, according to local reporting cited in the charging documents. A fundraiser started by DeSantis’ brother described her as creative, kind and close to her family, and said the couple had been together for nearly eight years. Doucette’s lawyer, Verne E. Paradie, has publicly called the shooting a “terrible accident.” That divide between the defense description and the state’s evidence is likely to define the next phase of the case.
For now, the timeline remains the strongest public account: two calls, a drive down Route 27, a hospital transfer, a traffic stop, a search warrant and, by the next day, a murder charge backed by an autopsy and scene reconstruction.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.