Copyright Bangor
Publishing Company Nov
18, 2000
BANGOR - Every
year on May 26, the
smiling face of Alice
Ann Hawkes appears on
the obituary page of
this newspaper.
An
annual message from her
family vows "never to
forget."
The 23-year-old brunette
who loved holidays and
her family bled to death
in her Westbrook
apartment after someone
slit her throat in 1987.
Her killer has never
been caught.
She is one of 72 people
on the state's list of
unsolved homicide
victims.
Her family believes they
know who killed her.
Each year, the memoriam
in the Bangor Daily News
serves not only as a
token of respect for
Hawkes, but also as a
reminder to the killer
that they have not
forgotten.
The detective who spent
years investigating
Hawkes' murder has long
since retired. It's
difficult to know how
many times the case has
been passed from one
detective to another.
"That's one of our
problems," Paul Gauvreau,
head of the criminal
division for the State
Attorney General's
Office said. "Detectives
change jobs, they retire
or get reassigned to new
duties and these old
cases keep getting
transferred to new
detectives who already
have full caseloads that
demand immediate
attention. It's
difficult for them to
really spend the
necessary time on these
cases, and there is no
continuity."
That problem, along with
extraordinary advances
in forensic science, has
prompted the Attorney
General's Office and the
Maine State Police to
team up in an effort to
form the state's first
cold case squad.
"This has been done in
other states and has
proved to be very
successful," Gauvreau
said.
The proposed squad would
consist of a team of
three or four detectives
and a prosecutor to work
solely on old homicide
cases.
"We've included the
special prosecutor in
our budget request,
which right now is on
the governor's desk,"
Gauvreau said. The cost
of the prosecutor is
estimated at $62,000.
The cost of the four
Maine State Police
detectives is estimated
just under $500,000,
according to Col.
Michael Sperry of the
Maine State Police. He
said, however, that the
positions are not in the
state police budget as
it now stands.
Though time is a
detective's biggest
enemy when trying to
solve a homicide,
Gauvreau said that with
time and sufficient
attention, "I think it's
possible to solve at
least two to four of
these cases a year."
The state's unsolved
homicide list involves
cases throughout Maine.
The following is a
county by county
breakdown revealing the
numbers of cases on the
list: Cumberland County,
19; York, 13; Penobscot,
8; Androscoggin, 4;
Hancock, 4; Kennebec, 4;
Somerset, 4; Aroostook,
3; Lincoln, 3; Waldo, 3;
Washington, 3; Oxford,
2; Franklin, 1.
Though the recent
confessions of serial
killer James Hicks have
solved two homicides,
ironically neither of
his victims, Jerilyn
Towers or Lynn Willette,
ever made it onto the
unsolved homicide list
because their bodies
were not found until
Hicks confessed earlier
this fall.
Until their remains were
unearthed at sites in
Etna and Forkstown
Township, the women were
listed as missing.
Just under 10 percent of
Maine's homicides go
unsolved each year -
about 22 each decade for
the past thirty years.
The list begins in 1965
with the mysterious
murder of Effie
MacDonald, a 54-year-old
chamber maid at the
Bangor House in downtown
Bangor.
Her murder by
strangulation in a
third- floor hotel room
sent a wave of terror
through the community
and prompted speculation
that she was killed by
the Boston Strangler,
whose activity in Boston
was just hitting a peak
in 1965.
Thirty-five years later,
Effie MacDonald's murder
is still legendary in
Bangor.
Hope is dim that
MacDonald's killer will
ever be identified, but
the chances that some of
the other 71cases may be
solved is not so bleak,
according to Gauvreau.
"We're making a lot of
progress now on two or
three cases, and I would
suspect there may be
some interesting news on
those cases within the
next few months,"
Gauvreau said, though
not disclosing the cases
in question.
Some of the names on the
list have become
familiar over the years,
such as Joyce McLain, a
16-year-old girl from
East Millinocket who was
killed behind Schenck
High School in 1980.
Others are less well
known, such as Baby Doe,
whose body was brought
home by a dog in
Frenchville in 1985. It
is thought that Baby Doe
was born in a gravel pit
in Frenchville and left
there to die.
There's the murder of
Peter Bassett, a Bangor
mail carrier who was
shot and killed outside
of a State Street bar
and Aisha Dickson, a 10-
month-old baby who was
beaten to death inside
her family's apartment
in the Capehart housing
development in Bangor.
Proof that today's
technology combined with
old-fashioned police
work can make a
difference is the case
of 62-year-old Albert
Cochran.
Last year, Cochran was
convicted of killing an
Oakland woman 23 years
earlier.
Prior to 1997, when the
case was handed over to
the seventh detective to
investigate the matter,
the Janet Baxter murder
was thought unsolvable.
Cochran had long been a
prime suspect in the
death of the nurse, who
was abducted from a
shopping center parking
lot in Waterville,
raped, shot and stuffed
into the trunk of a car
found later teetering on
the banks of the
Kennebec River in
Norridgewock.
While digging through
boxes of evidence 21
years later, state
police Detective Mike
Mitchell found hair and
semen samples - samples
taken long before DNA
testing was available.
The samples were tested
and came up with a
positive match to
Cochran. Cochran was
arrested shortly
thereafter in Florida
where he was living.
But the Cochran case was
unusual.
Gauvreau is hoping that
a cold case squad could
maintain continuity and
provide the families of
murder victims with new
hope that the killer may
be caught and held
responsible.
At
the same time, State
Police Sgt. Scott
Nichols is gathering
data on the state's
unsolved homicides to be
put on the Maine State
Police web site.
"I'm currently compiling
information on all the
old unsolved homicides,
and we'll be putting
that information out on
each case, hoping that
it will jog someone's
memory or get somebody
to come forth with
information," the
sergeant said.
The information will
include pictures of the
victims when they are
available, as well as
general information
about the case.
"It will have the name
of the victim, the age,
date it occurred, where
it occurred. Not
specific investigative
information, but vague
details that are already
known to the public," he
said.
The public would have a
direct link from the
site that would allow
them to e-mail the state
police with any
information they may
have.
"We are hoping that with
this site and the
possible formation of a
cold case squad, we can
go back to the old
evidence and review
what's there and see if
we can bring anything to
the crime lab," Nichols
said. "The hope is that
either technology or
just sometimes a little
piece of information
that someone has that
they may have thought
unimportant, can help
shake some things loose.
"Sometimes someone has
one little bit of
information that can
make all the difference.
... There are people out
there with information
that for some reason or
another are not coming
forth," he said.
Maine's unsolved
homicides
.
Joseph Albert, 4/17/72,
Saco
.
Baby Doe, 12/7/85,
Frenchville
.
Joseph Baillargeon,
2/7/68, Biddeford
.
Shirley Baldwin, 4/4/76,
Lisbon Falls
.
Peter Bassett, 8/13/88,
Bangor
.
Ludger Belanger,
11/25/75, Somerville
.
Maxine Bitomski,
1/16/93, Kittery
.
Louise Boccuzo, 6/12/94,
Kennebunkport
.
Edna Bouffard, 11/14/74,
Calais
.
White; Brackett,
11/18/91, Waterville
.
Jeffrey Bradbury,
3/31/95, Lewiston
.
Dorothea Burke, 6/28/84,
Stockton Springs
.
Pamela Campbell,
11/20/82, Holden
.
Charles Carruthers,
5/30/81, Harrison
.
James Cassidy, 4/8/76,
Amherst
.
Henry Champagne,
2/14/91, Portland
.
Ellen Choate, 6/26/77,
Newport
.
Scott Clement, 11/26/91,
Maine
.
Michael Cochran,
2/18/81, Lucerne
.
Rose Consalvi, 7/25/79,
Berwick
.
Sean Conway, 1/23/91,
Newfield
.
Jenna Crabtree, 8/23/96,
Windham
.
Mary Ann Deragon,
9/12/85, Portland
.
Aisha Dickson, 1/6/95,
Bangor
.
Tammy Dickson, 2/17/94,
Portland
.
Lila Drew, 3/18/77,
Masardis
.
Donald Dunlap, 5/6/88,
Lewiston
.
Jesse Eddins; Patricia
Oakes; Donald Morrill,
2/16/81, Bangor
.
Danny Ellsworth,
4/14/84, Augusta
.
Judy Flagg, 1/10/83,
Fayette
.
William Greenwood,
4/30/95, Portland
.
Mervin Grotten,
12/23/83, Belfast
.
Judith Hand, 9/10/71,
Farmington
.
Susan Hannah, 4/19/92,
Old Orchard
.
Alice Hawkes, 10/4/87,
Westbrook
.
Malcolm Hobbs, 10/16/97,
North Berwick
.
Maude Holden, 10/28/94,
Portland
.
William Holt, 7/16/91,
Skowhegan
.
Robert Joyal, 4/14/98,
Portland
.
Mary Kelly, 4/26/86,
Portland
.
Brian Kowalsczyk,
11/7/86, Winthrop
.
Kenneth Kramer,
11/20/82, Cherryfield
.
Florence Lauze, 8/16/75,
Newcastle
.
Vincent Lavopa, 12/7/85,
Arundel
.
Raynold Levesque,
4/6/94, Madison
.
Alice Lothrop, 2/12/72,
Cape Elizabeth
.
Effie MacDonald,
3/18/65, Bangor
.
Charles Mace, 9/23/74,
Kittery
.
David Mair, 7/15/92,
Fryeburg
.
Linda Maxwell, 9/28/84,
Robbinston
.
Shirley McAvory, 8/8/90,
Pittsfield
.
Robert McKee, 6/20/75,
Newport
.
Joyce McLain, 8/10/80,
East Millinocket
.
Dorothy Milliken,
11/6/76, Lewiston
.
Freda Morrill, 7/7/77,
Portland
.
Steven O'Neil, 11/3/89,
South Paris
.
Mary Olenchuk, 8/9/70,
Ogunquit
.
Ashley Ouellette,
2/10/99, Scarborough
.
Douglas Parent, 10/3/83,
Waldoboro
.
Crystal Perry, 5/12/94,
Bridgton
.
Beverly Polchies,
10/14/84, Penobscot
.
Arthur Robinson,
11/3/80/ Searsmont
.
Michael Sanborn,
9/16/85, Sanford
.
Rita Sark, 9/27/72,
Blaine
.
Raoul Schwartz,
11/12/76, Bridgton
.
Bessie Selek, 4/20/99,
Waterboro/Lyman
.
Leslie Spellman,
6/19/77, Northeast
Harbor
.
Rita St. Peter, 7/15/80,
Anson
.
Mary Ellen Tanner,
7/9/78, Lyman
.
Joyce Tannerillo,
8/25/74, South Portland
.
Angela Thomas, 9/28/90,
Brunswick
.
Sarina Towle,
3/25/94/Portland
