Brenda Hathaway and her husband Maxx shared a laugh as they considered a special name for their newest baby before she was born in December 2023.
Anna Mei Hathaway — Brenda suggested the name as a play on the word “anime,” the Japanese animation style that Maxx loved.
“It was a joke at first,” Brenda said. “(Maxx) was like, ‘No, we could never do that to her. She’d be made fun of ... After he thought about it a while, he actually really loved it.”
But Maxx would never meet Anna Mei.
Six weeks before she was born, he was killed in the deadliest mass shooting of 2023 in Lewiston, Maine.
Mass shooter kills 18 at bowling alley and restaurant
October 25, 2023, was supposed to be a day for celebration.
Maxx, a stay-at-home dad who cared for the couple’s toddler, Lilian, and his tween daughter, Zoey, from a previous relationship, had finally received his college diploma in the mail.
He had completed his business administration degree, with a specialty in finance. Brenda suggested they celebrate at Schemengees Bar and Grille, a local restaurant where Maxx often played pool.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we go have dinner?’” Brenda recalled.
The family had no way of knowing that a gunman would target the same restaurant and a nearby bowling alley later that evening.
“I think about all of the what-ifs,” said Brenda. “Like, what if that (diploma) hadn’t come in the mail? We probably wouldn’t have gone out that night.”
Brenda, then about eight months pregnant with Anna, left the restaurant early that evening when their toddler, Lilian, got fussy.
Maxx stayed to play pool.
A short while later, Robert Card, 40, stormed into Schemengees, firing 36 rounds from a .308 Ruger SFAR rifle, killing 10 people, including Maxx.
Minutes earlier, he also killed eight people at Just-In-Time Recreation Facility, a bowling alley located about four miles down the road.
A combined 13 other people survived gunshot wounds at both locations.
"He was my best friend"
Brenda and Maxx had been building a life together in Lewiston as they anticipated Anna’s arrival.
“He was a great dad,” Brenda said. “He was always toting Zoey around and Lilian around.”
In Brenda’s home videos, Maxx is shown playing video games, trying science experiments, and dancing with his daughters.
He even allowed his oldest child to joyfully smash his face into a frosted cake as a birthday tradition.
“He was just a person that loved life,” Brenda said. “He was my best friend... we laughed a lot. We were jokesters, and quite frequently, we were the only ones that found things funny. But that just made it funnier.”
Explaining death to her toddler
Spending time with Maxx was easy, but explaining his death to her toddler has been a challenge.
Maxx used to tuck Lilian into bed every night, and he would be there every morning when she woke up.
“She didn’t understand,” Brenda said. “I had to repeatedly take her on tours of the house to say, ‘This is the chair he’d rock you in, but he’s not here anymore. He’s gone. Yes, this is his side of the bed, but he’s not there, honey, he’s gone.’”
Brenda said there were times when the two would be slumped in a room crying.
“It was awful...It’s hard because she wasn’t even talking yet,” said Brenda. “She can’t tell me what’s wrong, but clearly, I know what’s wrong.”
Brenda said she took Lilian to counseling to help process the grief.
“It helped so much, and it helped me too. It helped me understand how to talk to her,” she said. One day, Brenda plans to talk to Anna about her father too.
“When she gets older, I will,” said Brenda.
For now, Brenda copes by remembering how Maxx made her feel when he was alive.
“I just feel like that’s what keeps me going,” she said. “I still feel how much he loved me, so that’s how I’m still going.”
Getting answers
Scripps News has spent the last year investigating why no one was able to stop the shooter before the attack.
Card, an Army reservist, had been hearing voices and became increasingly aggressive in months ahead of the shooting. He had also been treated at two New York hospitals, Keller Army Community Hospital and Four Winds Hospital, a psychiatric facility.
A Scripps News investigation found more than two dozen law enforcement officers in Maine and New York combined knew of his threats and access to weapons prior to the shooting, but no one was able to use legal tools to remove Card’s firearms.
“I do know that the ripple effect for my family has been significantly hard,” said Kelsay Hathaway, Maxx’s sister.
“Because nobody wanted to step out of that uncomfortable zone to say, ‘I feel like that this guy is very mentally unstable, and he’s going to do something, we need to do something about it,’ this is the repercussion,” Kelsay said.
The laws that were not used
According to a Maine commission that investigated the shooting, Card “is solely responsible” for the shooting, but the course of events might have changed if law enforcement officers and Card’s military colleagues had taken additional actions.
The commission said the military ignored recommendations from mental health providers to stay involved with Card’s mental health treatment and make sure weapons were removed from his home.
The state investigation also pointed a finger at the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and an SCSO deputy. The investigation found the deputy, Sgt. Aaron Skolfield, could have followed through with the state’s yellow flag law, a civil process that allows an officer to temporarily remove a threatening person’s firearms.
Skolfield disputed the findings.
Maine’s yellow flag law requires a person to be evaluated by a mental health provider before a law enforcement officer can remove their firearms, a step that is not required by similar red flag laws in other states.
Before the shooting, the law had only been utilized 81 times since it was enacted in July 2020, but in the months after the shooting, Maine law enforcement officers used it in 390 cases.
Card’s New York encounter
In the months prior to the shooting, Card also encountered police officers in New York.
His military colleagues called the New York State Police to report he had been acting strangely during military training in that state.
They also reported that he owned many firearms, but there was no indication that Card had any firearms with him in New York.
When New York State Police officers confronted Card about his colleagues’ concerns, he told officers those men were “scared ‘cause I’m going to frickin’ do something. ‘Cause I am capable.”
New York law allows for law enforcement officers to petition for an extreme risk protection order that would temporarily remove someone’s firearms under the red flag law, but no one used the legal tool.
A spokesperson for the New York State Police said the agency reviewed the incident and determined that the officers handled the situation appropriately.
Through an open records request, Scripps News obtained the internal review.
In it, police supervisors said they also believed Maine would not have enforced a New York red flag order had one been sought.
“The understanding is that Maine has a ‘yellow flag’ law, which requires a medical evaluation to be completed in order to certify a person ineligible to possess firearms,” the internal review said. “Because this is substantially different than New York’s (extreme risk protection order) process, it is not believed that a New York (red flag order)...would provide any authority to remove firearms from possession of a Maine resident.”
Mental health providers can also use red flag
In New York, mental health practitioners also have the authority to petition to have a potentially harmful person’s guns removed.
The New York medical providers who treated Card documented that he had homicidal ideations and admitted to having a hit list, according to the Maine state investigation into the shooting and a separate military investigation.
While they recommended that Card not have access to weapons up on his release from treatment, no one utilized the red flag law.
Four Winds Hospital did not respond to Scripps News’ questions about why no one used the law.
“I don’t think there’s much doubt that authorities at all levels should have used the tools available to prevent this person from having access to guns in New York. That means seeking a red flag order,” said Sen. Brian Kavanagh, a New York state legislator who helped draft the law.
“Although I don’t think a red flag order in New York would have altered the dynamics in Maine in this particular case, it is important that people seek red flag orders when the circumstances warrant it, and we need to continue to work to make sure that people are properly trained to do that,” he said.
Kavanagh, a Democrat, said the primary effect of using the red flag law in New York would have been to protect people in New York.
“Had (Card) decided to move to New York, a red flag law would have directly prevented him from getting access to guns in New York, and it should have been sought,” said Kavanagh.
The effect of a New York red flag in Maine, however, would have been to notify that state that they had a resident who was dangerous and had access to guns, Kavanagh said. “But in this particular case, it seems that the local Maine authorities had very substantial notice of that already.”
Kavanagh said Maine did not, at the time, have any formal process for enforcing New York’s red flag law.
The Maine state commission investigating the shooting agreed. It was “questionable whether (the law) could have been enforced in Maine,” the investigation found.
When Scripps News asked, the commissioners would not say whether they felt the mental health providers and police who encountered Card in New York should have pursued the law anyway.
“I don’t think that's really my call,” said Dan Wathen, the chair of the commission.
Extreme risk protection orders can be enforced across state lines
Spencer Cantrell, the co-lead of the nation’s ERPO Resource Center, told Scripps News extreme risk protection orders can be enforced across state lines.
“The FBI honors ERPOs or extreme risk protection orders across state lines,” she said.
The FBI’s 2022 National Instant Background Check System Operations Report listed New York and Maine among 20 states with extreme risk protection order laws that would honor extreme risk protection orders issued in other states.
That year, 28 states, the report said, did not have “ERPO/Red Flag laws” but would still honor an order.
Oklahoma and West Virginia had “anti-ERPO/Red Flag laws” and would not issue or honor orders from other states, according to the 2022 report.
“Every state statute is going to look a little bit different about what inter-jurisdictional enforcement is going to look like,” said Cantrell, “but generally speaking (orders) can be enforced across state lines under most state statutes.”
Since the shooting, Maine has clarified its law to indicate similar orders would be honored across state lines.
Another law in New York, the SAFE Act, also went unused
In New York, mental health providers are also able to use the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act to stop “the dangerously mentally ill from buying a gun.”
Under the law, mental health providers are required to report patients who are “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.” As a result, that patient may be required to relinquish his or her firearms.
While medical providers who treated Card considered this tool, it also went unused.
Maine state commissioners who investigated the shooting said a military hospital nurse practitioner who evaluated Card believed the law would not apply to non-residents of New York.
However, training materials indicate the law can be applied to visitors.
The commission also found providers at Four Winds, the second hospital where Card was treated, may have mistakenly believed the military hospital had already filed a SAFE Act report, so they did not do so.
Lewiston carries on
While the restaurant where Maxx was killed is now shuttered, the bowling alley where the shooting spree started is back open for business with 18 bowling pins on display, commemorating each life that was lost in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting.
The grieving process will likely never be over for the families of the victims, but many are focusing on the memories that bring them joy.
For Brenda, it’s remembering what it was like talking with her husband, Maxx.
“He was very empathetic, very interested in what you had to say. (He) actually cared,” she said. “He loved us. He loved me. He loved the girls.”
