(Copyright 2005
Bangor Daily News)
Even 25 years after the
unsolved murder of her
daughter, Pam McLain
can't bring herself to
look at much of the
belongings that she has
kept stowed out of
sight, but not out of
mind.
She read Joyce's
poignant poems and
pondered their meaning.
She even delved into her
daughter's innermost
thoughts, jotted down in
a notebook turned diary.
McLain laughed when she
read the youthful
innocence in her
daughter's words as she
wrote about her
frustration over a new
record she bought in
Bangor that warped after
it was left out in the
sun before she had a
chance to play it.
"Damn upset" is how
Joyce put it.
But when Pam McLain gets
to the last entry in the
journal, on Aug. 8,
1980, she has to stop
reading. The
three-quarters of a page
of musings were the last
words her daughter
wrote.
Independent but not
above the pressures of
wanting to fit in, the
16-year-old Schenck High
School sophomore was
looking to shed a few
pounds when she left
home for a jog, wearing
her pink terrycloth
running suit. She had
been out biking that day
but was seeking the
cooler temperatures of
the evening.
Although she didn't know
it, a violent storm was
brewing.
Joyce, who threw herself
into whatever she tried,
whether it was on the
basketball court, soccer
field or stage as a
musician and thespian,
never returned.
Her partially clad body
was found two days
later, left along a
power line clearing
about 200 feet from the
soccer fields where she
had played fullback for
the Schenck High School
Wolverines. Her head and
neck had been struck
repeatedly by a blunt
object.
While there was no sign
of sexual assault, that
may have been a motive
in the crime.
For years after the
murder, Pam McLain, the
divorced mom of two
daughters, felt
emotionally trapped in
the past, she said.
"That whole time, my
time was taken up with
the bitter, ugly, angry,
upset," McLain said
recently as she moved
about her East
Millinocket home, which
is filled with dolls,
pictures of family
members, and paintings
of children and angels.
Her daughters, Joyce and
her younger sister,
Wendy, now 40, had grown
up there, and it was
where Joyce had taught
piano lessons and
planned her wedding down
to the flowers and the
future groom, who didn't
know he had been
selected.
McLain lost a daughter
that weekend; the
closely knit town of
2,300 people lost its
innocence.
People in town began
locking the doors they
once left open. The
evening after Joyce's
body was found, the
streets in town -
normally filled with the
sounds of young people
trying to squeeze as
much as they could out
of the long summer days
- were quiet.
"It was just like a hush
fell over the town,"
remembered Frank Clukey,
the town's longtime
recreation director. "It
was something that this
town has never felt
before."
Parents kept a tighter
rein on their children,
and adults patrolled the
streets on Halloween,
with someone on every
street corner with a
flashlight, McLain said.
"It was a fearful time,"
recalled Judy Curtis,
56, of East Millinocket,
who kept her own
daughter, then 8 years
old, closer to home in
the wake of the murder.
"It still haunts," said
Curtis, who was
finishing up lunch at
The Diner with her
daughter, Tina Osgood,
now 32, and her
grandchildren,
Nathaniel, 6, and CJ, 7
months.
No
confession
Acknowledging the 25th
anniversary of the
unsolved murder of Joyce
McLain, the mother has
learned to live with the
past. McLain can't
forget it, but she is
coming to grips with it.
"I
have really taken myself
out of the past," McLain
said in her Spruce
Street home, where she
has kept Joyce's
belongings boxed up and
stored away in an
upstairs closet, much of
it untouched for years.
"I
carry the pain and the
hurt and the hope," she
said.
There's still something
missing for the mother.
There's no conclusion to
this story, no ending,
no sense of finality
that would come with an
arrest or conviction.
McLain, who has her own
suspicions about who
committed the crime,
said she would settle
for a private confession
by the killer, who has
never been identified
publicly.
She's not alone in
wanting a confession.
State police detectives
haven't given up on the
case, keeping it open
long after the national
attention faded.
"We're still plugging
away at it," Detective
David Preble, who took
over as lead
investigator for the
case 18 months ago, said
recently. He's the fifth
primary detective to be
assigned to the case,
although many others,
including Detective
Brian Strout, co-
primary investigator,
have assisted, from
troopers to police
officers and
prosecutors.
The case is still
active, just not moving
forward.
Sitting in the break
room recently at the
office of the Maine
State Police detectives
in Bangor, Preble paused
when asked about
suspects. There's a
"good dozen or so," he
said.
Suspects he has, but
Preble doesn't have the
evidence to bring
charges.
"Realistically, I cannot
go to sleep at night
saying, 'This is
definitely the guy,'" he
said.
And at this point,
investigators hope that
media attention will do
what they so far have
been unable to do: stir
memories and maybe some
guilt that will lead to
a break, Preble said.
After a segment of the
TV show "Unsolved
Mysteries" ran in
February 1989,
authorities received 49
tips that they followed
up.
The search for the
killer
Those involved in the
investigation over the
years have said it was a
difficult case from the
outset.
To
say it rained the night
Joyce went missing is an
understatement.
Torrential is how
investigators and
residents remember it.
Thunder and lightning
and heavy, heavy rain.
About 35 hours passed
between when it is
believed Joyce died on
Friday to when her body
was found about 7 a.m.
Sunday. Any fibers,
hairs or shoe prints
that could have been
left behind by the
perpetrator were washed
away.
Investigators also had a
larger than usual pool
of possible suspects, as
the town's population of
2,300 people surged over
that weekend with the
presence of 700
construction workers
finishing a $34 million
bark boiler at the Great
Northern Paper Co. mill.
Another 300 people were
attending a statewide
softball tournament in
town.
"Most of us worked 24
hours a day, around the
clock, interviewing
everybody involved,"
said state Rep. Rod
Carr, R-Lincoln, a
retired state police
sergeant who was the
first state police
official on the scene
Aug. 10 after the body
was found.
Days turned into weeks,
then months and years.
Reports that police had
hot leads and prime
suspects evaporated.
With DNA analysis still
a decade away from
regular use, clothing
and other evidence taken
at the scene were
forwarded to Canada to
what was then advanced
technology: Laser
equipment was used to
help lift fingerprints.
An
analysis for DNA
evidence performed in
the 1990s revealed
nothing useful.
A
few witnesses were
hypnotized to help them
remember details. The
FBI provided police with
a profile, and even a
psychic, unaided, led
police to where the
girl's body had been
found, but not to the
killer. An investigator
also spoke with
convicted serial killer
James Hicks but
determined he wasn't in
the area at the time of
the incident.
Investigators were
stymied.
The slow progress of the
case frustrated and
angered McLain, a force
to be reckoned with. She
once threw a detective
off her driveway, and in
1986 she wrote a letter
to the state Attorney
General's Office, asking
that agency to take over
the case from the state
police. The attorney
general refused.
Joe Zamboni, retired
Maine State Police
detective, has the
distinction of having
the case the longest,
from 1986 to when he
retired in 2004. At the
time, Zamboni, a former
Navy pilot who joined
the state police in
1982, was brought in as
a fresh set of eyes and
ears when the case had
gone stale.
The police and
detectives who preceded
him did an incredible
amount of work on the
case, Zamboni said, but
the case early on
focused on local people
as the suspect rather
than someone from
outside.
That was fueled, at
least in part, by rumors
that ran rampant when
just about anyone in
town was considered a
suspect by residents,
investigators and
residents recalled.
"You just didn't look at
people the same way if
you heard that they may
have been involved,"
Christine Merritt, 49,
of Medway said during a
recent late afternoon
walk in East
Millinocket.
"You kind of looked at
them and thought, 'Did
you really do it?'" said
Merritt, Joyce's second
cousin.
Zamboni said his
investigation took him
outside the town.
"When I looked at the
case in the early '80s,
the investigation looked
very seriously at people
in the local area,"
Zamboni said. "By the
time I retired, I felt
very comfortable that
the person responsible
was not a local person."
He
has a specific suspect
in mind.
"When you look at the
crime, when you look at
what happened, this is
not a crime that was
committed by a local
teenager," Zamboni said.
"This is a crime
committed by a very
serious sociopath."
Zamboni later added:
"The person I believe is
responsible for this is
in a position that he's
not going to be able to
do it again. I'm going
to leave it at that ...
He's no longer a threat
to society."
A
normal life
McLain has her own ideas
about who did it, but
she's leaving the
investigation to the
police, in whom she said
she has renewed
confidence.
She has turned the
corner on her pain and
grief, in part with help
from a little Sheltie
pup she bought for her
birthday in 1992. "That
dog, believe it or not,
gave me back my heart,"
McLain said.
A
return to a normal life
has meant that the
58-year-old grandmother
of three is keeping her
home and life filled.
She has adopted twin
10-year-old girls and is
adopting a 10-year-old
boy, all of whom she had
as foster care children.
McLain and longtime
partner Ivan Curtis a
month ago opened The
Diner restaurant on Main
Street, where her
granddaughter, named
Joyce, now works.
"You can't live with
hate and pain for too
long, not if you want to
live a normal life at
all," McLain said,
smoking a cigarette and
standing outside her
front porch, where she
keeps an electric "hope"
candle burning around
the clock. "I've chosen
a normal life."
Anyone with information
about the case may
contact Maine State
Police at (800)
432-7381.
Joyce McLainmurder
timeline
Aug. 8, 1980: Teenager
Joyce McLain left home
for an evening jog. She
last was seen shortly
after 8 p.m. by School
Street.
Aug. 10, 1980: The
partially clad body of
Joyce McLain was found
about 7 a.m. in a power
line clearing.
April 7, 1981: The
Committee for Joyce was
established to raise
money for a reward.
Feb. 20, 1986:
Frustrated at the lack
of progress, Joyces
mother, Pam McLain,
wrote a letter asking
the state attorney
general to take over the
investigation.
October 1988: The
Justice for Joyce
Committee was
established to increase
publicity.
February 1989: Unsolved
Mysteries TV program
featured the McLain
story, with a
Millinocket teenager
playing Joyce
1990: DNA begins to be
used widely across the
country, although
evidence has to be
processed by the FBI,
and results can take
months to years.
1997: The Maine State
Police Crime
Laboratory's new DNA lab
opened.
