Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series investigating the Irving corporate presence in Maine and New Brunswick and its implications for the state’s future.

Jeremy Erving, 24, appeared in Skowhegan District Court on a murder charge after his uncle Randy Erving, 53, was found dead in his bed at his home in St Albans, Maine.

In 2011, J.D. Irving leased Maine Northern Railway from the state, at $1 a year for 30 years, shortly after the state paid $20 million to buy it from a company abandoning service on it.