Family remembers Dennis Blasens as Navy veteran, mechanic, helper
Neighbors and family remembered Dennis Blasens as a Navy veteran and mechanic as the Brunswick murder case against Tanner Dostie stayed open.
Dennis Blasens was the kind of neighbor who fixed what was broken, and the murder case tied to his April 10 death in Brunswick remained active as family and friends remembered him as a mechanic, helper and Navy veteran.
At memorial services in Augusta and Lewiston on May 19, mourners focused on the life of the 61-year-old Brunswick man, not the violence that ended it. Dennis George Blasens, born Sept. 27, 1964, was described in his obituary as cherished by family and friends and as someone with a kind, loving heart. The obituary said his family planned a celebration of life in Lewiston followed by military service in Augusta, and asked for donations to Midcoast Humane Society in his honor.
Blasens received military honors at the Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Augusta, where the Kennebec County Veterans Honor Guard recognized his 25 years in the U.S. Navy. Maine veterans officials say military funeral honors are arranged through the appropriate branch Casualty Assistance Center, underscoring the formal recognition given to his service.
His Navy career also tied him to Brunswick Naval Air Station, a place that still shapes the region’s memory of the military. The last squadron left the base in November 2009, and it was officially decommissioned on May 31, 2011. Redevelopment officials later said the closure cost 714 civilian jobs when the shutdown was announced, adding a lasting economic strain to a community already adjusting to the loss of the installation.
In Brunswick, the killing remains the focus of an open investigation. State police said the case is being handled by the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit South with help from the Bath Police Department, Brunswick Police Department, the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and the Office of the State Fire Marshal. Tanner Dostie, 45, has been charged with murder and is being held without bail in Cumberland County Jail.
Blasens and Dostie lived across the street from one another for about a decade on Randall Circle, a quiet Brunswick neighborhood of mobile homes on wooded plots near the Durham town line. In that place, where neighbors knew one another and daily life moved at an ordinary pace, Blasens was remembered less as a case file name than as a man who lent a hand, kept things working and spent much of his life in service.
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