A Man Planned 1 Murder But Ended Up Committing 4

The Black Bear Bed & Breakfast Inn was a cozy resting spot near Newry, a tiny ski resort village roughly 71 miles north of Portland, Maine. The six-room lodge in a converted 1830s farmhouse was as quaint as its surroundings in the Mahoosuc Mountains of Western Maine. But over Labor Day weekend in 2006, the Black Bear turned into a gruesome crime scene.

On Monday, Charles Nielsen and his wife, Lee Graham, called police after coming across a trail of blood at the inn’s entrance and two dismembered bodies. The couple had driven to the Black Bear after a phone conversation with Charles’ son, Christian Nielsen, who told them he had killed four people. Police found chopped up human and canine remains on the property.

Christian, a then-31-year-old cook who rented a room at the Black Bear, confessed to killing the inn’s 50-year-old handyman, James Whitehurst; its 65-year-old owner, Julie Bullard; her 30-year-old daughter, Selby Bullard; and Cindy Beatson, a 43-year-old friend of Selby's. The quadruple murder was the state’s worst homicide in more than a decade, Maine authorities said at the time.

“It’s a crime of horrific proportions,” Col. Craig Poulin, Maine’s then-chief of police, told news outlets.

During his interview with detectives, Christian named Whitehurst as his first victim. On Friday, September 1, 2006, Christian bought a .38-caliber revolver that day with the intent of shooting the Black Bear’s handyman. Christian invited Whitehurst to go fishing in Upton, a town 25 miles away from Newry.

Christian executed Whitehurst with a shot to the back of the head and shot him twice more in the body to make sure he was deceased, according to a prosecutor’s sentencing memo by Andrew Benson, who was then Maine’s assistant attorney general. The following morning, Christian returned to the murder site and dismembered, burned and buried Whitehurst’s body.

Worried that Julie, Black Bear’s inn owner, would become suspicious about Whitehurst’s absence, Christian decided to kill her too. On Sunday, September 3, 2006, he broke into her room, shooting her in the head, chest and back. After dismembering Julie’s body, Christian dragged the parts into the nearby woods.

The following day, when Selby and Beatson showed up unexpectedly at the inn, Christian shot both women in the head (also shooting Beatson once in the torso) and dismembered their bodies. He then killed three dogs living on the property because he believed they would alert authorities to the human remains. The prosecutor’s memo stated that Christian was concerned Selby would become suspicious, and that with Julie and Selby both out of the way, he could take over the Black Bear.

Christian initially told Charles and his stepmother, Graham, that Julie went on a trip and had left him in charge of the inn. However, when Charles and Graham showed up at the inn, Christian admitted to the slayings.

Shortly after his son was arrested, Charles issued a statement offering condolences to the victims’ families: “We realize that the ripples of horror, disbelief and pain were instantaneous and far-reaching. The event tore a hole in the community. Our joys and our serenity came to an abrupt halt."

Christian grew up with his father and his sister in Dixfield, about a half-hour drive from Newry. Charles, a high school English teacher, won full custody of his two children in 1982. In court filings, Christian’s dad alleged that his ex-wife’s relationship with a man who served time in state prison on burglary and other charges created an unstable home life for their kids.

The judge who ruled in Charles’ favor noted “the behavior of the children has undergone changes not viewed as positive” in a court order, the Sun Journal reported. The children exhibited uncontrolled urination, excessive belligerence and unusual nervousness, the judge found. At the time, a family psychologist opined that Charles and his second wife “have a healthy, stable marriage,” but that relationship also ended in divorce in 1993 when Christian was in high school.

“The fact that his mom wasn't really around, was a source of an unstable environment and things like that in his past probably contributed to some of the feelings that he had about distrust and people wanting to do him harm,” Dr. AJ Marsden, a Beacon College associate psychology professor, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “If the people that you're supposed to rely on the most aren't actually there for you, it starts to change your entire opinion of the human race.”

While Christian had no criminal record prior to his murder spree, psychologists who testified at a competency hearing said that he suffered from schizoid personality disorder and possibly other mental health problems, including Asperger syndrome, then often described as a mild form of autism.

“It’s not unusual for those types of behaviors to pop up in late adolescence and early adulthood,” Marsden says. “He might have even had some moments of confusion where he couldn’t tell the difference between reality and what was going on in his head.”

However, Christian’s family background and conditions by themselves do not cause people to commit crimes.

Christian's lawyers were unsuccessful in suppressing his confession and having him declared incompetent to stand trial. He never revealed his motive for his Black Bear murder spree. He did admit to having thought about becoming a serial killer for five years before committing the crimes, according to Benson’s sentencing memo.

In an interview with a homicide detective, Christian said he would have killed again if he had not been apprehended, saying, “That’s what I do.”

In October 2007, Christian pleaded guilty to the murders. He was sentenced to four concurrent life sentences.