NORRIDGEWOCK (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- NEWS CENTER Maine returned to the property in Norridgewock, a short distance from the woods where just a day earlier, officials found and captured suspected deputy killer, John Williams.
Officials believe Williams had been hiding out for some time in an empty cabin in the woods behind Geoffrey Reynolds' home on Route 139.
"All of the guns out up the driveway," recalls Reynolds.
He had never seen anything like it before, so many armed police officers swarming his property Saturday afternoon.
“I started to head out back and there was a state police [trooper] right on my bumper, so I stopped," says Reynolds.
NEWS CENTER Maine took that same driver with Reynolds, on his four-wheeler out back behind his home Sunday, to a cabin no longer on his property.
Broken glass still lay on the step from the shattered window on the cabin door.
It’s here where officials believe Williams may have been hiding out for some time as the manhunt into his whereabouts ensued.
“I knew right away, before anybody," says Reynolds, of Williams' capture. “Before most of these people even showed up he already told me they had him. He said I’m going to know in two minutes. I started to tell him there’s an empty house next-door you can check, and he said, 'we already have him.'”
A day after Williams' capture, and it's a return to normalcy in the town of Norridgewock.
“There’s definitely a sense of relief over the entire neighborhood," says Tim Wade, the Reynolds family's neighbor. "It’s not something that happens all of the time in small-town Maine for sure.”
However, residents may choose to make some small changes in their daily lives in the wake of last week.
“Lock the door," says Reynolds. "We usually don’t even lock the door. I still left the keys in the vehicles. I figured, if he takes one, he’ll get caught quicker.”
“I’ve got a seven-year-old and an eleven-year-old boy and we recreate back there [in the woods] a lot, going on nature walks [and] hunting in the area," says Wade. "We’ve learned those trails pretty well over the last several years and look forward to getting back out there and enjoying them again.”
“We’re glad it’s over," says Reynolds, in a final remark on the events of the past week. "I think it’s a once in a lifetime thing. It’s not going to be something we’ve got to worry about again tomorrow or next year.”