Dark Downeast - ANNOUNCING: Dark Valley

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Jane Boroski was seven months pregnant when she was stabbed 27 times by an unknown man. Miraculously, she survived. But Jane later finds out she is the only survivor of a serial killer who prowled the Connecticut River Valley in the 1980s and killed at least 8 women before her. Now, she's here to speak for the dead.Dark Valley is an investigation into the Connecticut River Valley Killer (CRVK) and the 8 women who were brutally murdered. CRVK prowled the borderland of Vermont and New Hampshire in the 1980s. These cases remain unsolved to this day. Produced and hosted by Jennifer Amell. Narratively driven, Dark Valley centralizes the story of Jane Boroksi, considered to be the lone survivor of the Valley Killer as she and Jennifer investigate the cold cases of Catherine Millican, Elizabeth Betsy Critchley, Heidi Martin, Bernice Courtemanche, Ellen Fried, Eva Morse, Lynda Moore, and Barbara Agnew. Jane Boroski recounts her harrowing attack in 1988, when a stranger savagely stabbed her 27 times while she was pregnant. The investigation unfolds in real-time as Jennifer works to highlight the victims' voices and uncover new leads and suspects by talking with law enforcement, criminal profiler Dr. John Philpin, victims' families, and locals. Listen to Dark Valley now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or join the Crime Junkie Fan Club to enjoy Dark Valley ad-free PLUS gain access to exclusive case files. More details HERE.

Hey, Dark Downeasters, I know that if you're here, you are ready to hear the untold stories of New England. And if you've listened to Dark Down East for long, then you know how important it is to me to center these stories on the people at the heart of them. Their families, their communities, their lives. That's why I want to introduce you to another series I know you'll connect with as much as I have. It's called Dark Valley.

Like Dark Down East, Dark Valley takes place right in my home of New England. And for this series, the focus is on the borderland of Vermont and New Hampshire, where host Jennifer Amell takes you deep into a case that deserves to be heard. It's thoughtful, human-centered storytelling that never loses sight of the people behind the headlines.

I think that you'll enjoy this series so much that I want to share the first episode with you right here. But don't worry, the entire series is out for you to listen to now. So if you're ready for your next immersive true crime experience, listen to Dark Valley. Hi, I'm Jennifer Amell, host of Dark Valley. Thank you for joining me on this journey as we dig deeper into this case and into the stories of those most impacted.

If you're finding yourself drawn into the story and want the best listening experience, I invite you to join the Crime Junkie fan club for ad-free access to Dark Valley, plus early and ad-free episodes of Crime Junkie, the for ad-free access to Dark Valley, plus early and ad-free episodes of Crime Junkie, the number one true crime podcast, along with additional exclusive content from across the AudioChuck network. To learn more and to join, visit crimejunkiepodcast.com slash fan club.

Your support means the world. It's August 6, 1988, and this is the night it all ended. It's getting late, and all Jane Borowski wants is a cold drink, yet the vendors at the Cheshire Fairground had closed for the evening. Jane is only 22 years old, but seven months pregnant and uncomfortable in the sticky heat of late summer. She finds her car parked in a field, a white Pontiac Firebird. Her boyfriend Dennis had bought it for her. And Jane loves her car. She thinks it's the best present anyone's ever given her. As she drives from Keene toward Swansea in central New Hampshire,

Jane turns up the radio. Jane spots the fluorescent glow of Gomarlo's Market. The store's closed, but Jane knows there's a vending machine outside. So she pulls into the parking lot, digs around for some change, and purchases a soda. As she settles back into her Firebird and takes a sip,

Jane notices a pair of headlights cut through the night. An older model jeep-wagonier pulls into Gomarlo's parking lot and parks right next to Jane on her passenger side. She pays it little mind, but strangely, the man gets out of his truck and instead of walking toward the vending machine or the payphone, he crosses behind Jane's car and comes to her window and leans down. Is the payphone working? He asks. But before Jane can answer, he opens her car door.

He tries to pull her out. Jane struggles fiercely against him and somehow kicks upward as hard as she can. Her windshield shatters. The man leans into the car and presses a knife against her throat, its blade cool against her skin. Jane eases herself out of her car. You beat up my girlfriend, he says, bizarrely. Jane's confused.

She never beat up anyone's girlfriend and says as much. Aren't these Massachusetts plates? He asks. Jane shakes her head as she walks to the back of her car and looks at her New Hampshire plates. Then he turns around. It makes as if he's going back to his own car. Jane can't believe it.

Relief floods through her. But then she looks at her prized firebird. And here's the thing you need to know about Jane Borowski. She's a fighter. And she's not going to take anyone's bullshit. Hey asshole, she calls to him. What about my windshield? The man stalks back to Jane and threatens her with a knife again.

Miraculously, Jane sees another car coming down the road and sees her chants. She breaks away, running toward the road, screaming wildly for help. But the car doesn't stop. Doesn't see her. Doesn't hear her. And then Jane is hit like a truck from behind as the man takes her to the ground. He straddles Jane and her pregnant belly and sinks the knife into her body over and over and over again. And Jane fights not just for her own life, but for the life of her unborn baby. And just as suddenly as it all started, he stops.

The man calmly gets up and walks back to his truck. He pulls up to where Jane still lays on the ground, and from the driver's window, he stares down on the woman he had just stabbed 27 times. The blood begins to pool around her body. It's a long, cold stare. There's no expression, no feeling at all for what he'd just done. Then he guns the car out of the parking lot, leaving Jane Borowski to die alone, clutching her pregnant belly. My name is Jane Borowski.

I survived. And I remember everything. From AudioChuck, this is Dark Valley, an investigation into the Connecticut River Valley killer. I'm Jennifer Amell, and this is episode one. I had no idea what to expect from Jane Borowski. I knew that her story of survival was incredible. Miraculous even. Her survival made her powerful, somehow stronger than the rest of us, larger than life itself. Jane and I finally meet in a run-down motel in Keene, New Hampshire, just miles from Gamarlo's

store where she was almost murdered 34 years ago. It's summer in New England and the room is stuffy. All right, tell me your favorite joke. My favorite joke is we set up a microphone on an ironing board. We are in a beautiful Dazen. With BenchBreads that say, welcome sunshine. It's such a happy place. Okay, I mean, it seems to, the levels are good.

Jane is of course a survivor, but she's also warm and quick to laugh. She lives modestly and gives freely. She loves her family. And she's also a spitfire and sassy as hell. She smokes cigarettes with her arms crossed and blows smoke from the corner of her mouth. But more than anything, Jane is honest. She would say it took a lot to be so open, that she had to go through many dark years, overshadowed by that night in August of 1988. But here she is in this shitty motel room,

wearing a hot pink t-shirt and smiling so wide that it makes her eyes even bluer. You got that smile on your face. Oh, I'm smiling because I'm excited to ask this question because I want to know about your childhood. Oh, my childhood. Well, my parents divorced when I was very young. We lived in Massachusetts. My dad lived in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, where I live now. And I saw

my dad probably two or three times a year. We'd come out for school vacations and spend the week with him. And my mom moved us around a lot. When I turned 18, I decided to go to Hinsdale to visit my dad and spend more time with my dad. And I had some really good friends that lived in Hinsdale. So I stayed with one of my good friends that summer, and I ended up meeting Dennis. And so my visit turned into, I still live in Hinsdale 36 years later. I don't believe it. It's beautiful here.

Yeah, it is. A playground where steep mountains stand on end beside roads that are ideal for riding, where golf courses are surrounded by a countryside famed in song and story. If it weren't for the tragedies that happened here, I'd say the Connecticut River Valley is almost idyllic. We're technically in the Upper Valley, the borderland between New Hampshire and Vermont, which is bisected by the Connecticut River. The river is wide and blue and there's so many bridges that stretch across to connect

the small towns. In the summer, the valley is so lush that I have a hard time naming that many shades of green. In fact, this land is fertile. It's the northeast's most productive farmland. Jane's husband, Dennis, comes from a farming family himself. And now they live together on that land that they've worked for generations. Winters, on the other hand, are harsh.

But the people here take pride in weathering the cold. It kind of makes them who they are. The roads that weave through the valley are full of potholes from harsh winters, and sometimes unpaved the further you get from the interstate. Before the 1970s, country life moved at an expected pace, measured out by the growing seasons and the snow seasons, planting rye or tapping the maples to sugar. And before the construction of the Interstate Highways, the valley was isolated. By 1978, Interstate 91 was completed, and the Connecticut River Valley changed forever.

The highway made it easier to get to the valley, and it of course sparked the valley's tourism economy, but also brought new types of people, and with them, new types of crime. There's a definitive date you can point to when the valley became, and pardon the cheap illusion, darker. Kathy Millican was only 26 in 1978. She was an avid birder, meaning someone who enjoys nature by donning a pair of wellingtons and binoculars and going out to observe and catalog different species of birds. Kathy had long auburn hair, with pale skin and a thin face.

Kathy worked for a local publishing company in Wilmot, New Hampshire, which is about 45 minutes east of the Connecticut River. On October 24, 1978, Kathy ventured out into the Chandler-Brook Wetland Preserve in nearby New London. She had gone there to spot a particular kind of bird in the nature preserve. As Kathy was innocently scanning the skies and treetops, someone was also watching her. Kathy never made it home that evening. The next day her body was discovered only yards from the trail.

She had been stabbed over 20 times, with wounds to her upper chest and neck. It was a vicious attack. But sloppy. The assailant didn't take any pains to hide or remove the body. Kathy was left where she was killed. Around the time of Kathy's murder, there were also a rash of child murders in the upper valley. Around the time of Kathy's murder, there were also a rash of child murders in the Upper Valley. And this was right around the time that the FBI started their behavioral analysis unit

that ultimately gave birth to the field of criminal profiling. Enter Dr. John Philpin, a man I have come to deeply respect. John is a forensic psychologist, and he was instrumental in developing the profile of the man who had committed all these child murders. Law enforcement credits John with helping catch that serial killer, Gary Schaeffer. But John kind of disagrees with the whole approach that the FBI takes. As I got to know him, he's an old-school hippie kind of guy, he's got a long white beard, looks a little bit like Gandoff, and is just as wise. That said, John is very protective of Jane and deeply distrustful of true crime. All told, it took about a year for me to win his trust and actually get him on tape.

My name is John Philpin. First of all, I want to say that from day one, I have loathed the title of profiler. I don't think that's what I do at all. The FBI essentially took off from that concept and marketed the word. I was starting my work right about the same time they were. That was when I decided that I had to come up with my own approach. A game that I used to play with my office manager, she would be reading some newspaper article

of some atrocity. And I would tell her her if they catch this guy this is what he's going to be like but she would write down what I said and kind of tuck it away and then if the guy was caught she'd whip it back out would look at it and more often than not I was right on the money. Then, right about that time, we had a local murder. My office was in Springfield, Vermont. We had a local murder, Teresa Fenton.

It was a brutal homicide. But my office manager's reaction was, how can these things happen around here? And what my office manager's reaction was, how can these things happen around here? Which is a common enough reaction. Things like this can't happen here. Well, we've all learned the lesson that they can and they do, and often repeatedly.

That case John's talking about, that was a victim of Gary Schaeffer, the man John helped catch. Kathy's case was never tied to Schaeffer. At the time, it seemed as if Kathy Millican was kind of a one-off. They expected it was a personal kind of motive. In fact, they looked at Kathy's husband. Over the years, it was proven that he had an airtight alibi. He was at a work conference in the company of many other colleagues at the time of the murder. So who killed Kathy Millican? You might be wondering what all this has to do with Jane Borowski and her

attack in 1988. Here she is. I had just gotten out of the hospital. of course everybody around me was like, like when I was in the hospital they didn't want me to see the news because I was on the news, they didn't want the newspapers to be brought into my room. I happened to be reading the newspaper and I saw that it was an article about me. I think it was something like, the headline was something like, a stabbing victim released from hospital or whatever. I have to interrupt Jane here for a little sidebar story. One day, Jane and I ventured to the library to do some archival research together. I was released. That's the one I saw. Okay. Can you read the title?

It says, stabbing victim is released from Keen Hospital. I had said something about maybe connected to the Connecticut River Valley serial killer. And it's like Connecticut Connecticut Valley serial killer. And then I started reading and they had a brief description of each victim. I just, I couldn't believe my eyes. I was like, are you kidding me?

I had a hard time processing this. I'm reading in the paper, Ellen Fried, she went missing this date, and then they found her remains on this date. And then each one I read, it wasn't, and none of them were survivors. It was, they were all murdered. Jane's attacker didn't start with her.

Maybe he started with Kathy Milligan. Maybe he started elsewhere with some other unknown woman. But Jane is thought to be the only survivor of a serial killer who prowled the Connecticut River Valley between 1978 and 1988 and killed at least eight other women. He's known as the Connecticut River Valley Killer. And up until this point, the women he killed have only been known by their brutal deaths.

The Valley Killer has never been caught. And Jane's attack, along with the murders of these eight women, remain unsolved to this day. Since Jane's attack in August of 1988, no other murder or attack in this area has been linked to the same man. By the mid-80s, New Hampshire and Vermont had kind of caught on to the fact that they had yet another serial killer. They formed a task force. And then when Jane was attacked in 1988, the New Hampshire State Police decided to have Dr. Philpin clinically hypnotize her in hopes of recovering more details of her attack.

I was suspending my own senses of logic, morality, and bringing him into my mind, and being him as often as I needed to be. There was only one time that I confronted that. It was pretty terrifying, but I was aware of what had happened. I had been filled in on all the details because there was a feeling that Jane's case might be tied to some of the other cases that had been happening in the Valley. When Jane came in,

she was nervous, of course. It was something she agreed to do, but at the same time, it was a little scary, I assume. When she came to the office the first time, she's a very sweet person as you well know. She came in and was a little nervous and sat down and we just chatted at first. You know the main thing I wanted to do was a reassurance kind of thing so that she could feel like it was okay to be where she was and then I explained the process to her somewhere along the way in there. I noticed the scars on her throat and I remember thinking,

thinking, how did this nice young woman get those horrible scars on her throat? And what hit me was, I did it. The little bit that I had spent thinking about the case involved bringing the perp into my head. And I think by that time I'd already been down to the market one time and scared the crap out of somebody who was getting a soda at midnight. But that was what hit me, was, you know, I did it. And it was like I had to snap out of it, believing, you know, that I had done it. And that whole week until I saw her again, I had nightmares, disturbed sleep, headaches, which was probably the most profound

negative reaction that I had in all the years that I was doing this. And it was mainly because I was me and I wanted to help, but I was also the bad guy. And that was one of the liabilities that I learned at that time of bringing this fellow, whoever he happened to be, whatever case it happened to be, inside me, instead of pretending that I was inside, he said, it was a pretty horrible experience. So here's what we know. The Connecticut River Valley killer's victims are believed to be connected by a few salient characteristics.

The murders before Jane escalated in the 1980s and were relegated to the upper Connecticut River Valley along the I-91 corridor, with core cases situated near the town of Claremont, New Hampshire, off of Route 12. Each woman killed was in a vulnerable situation. Those whose remains were found early enough were killed by a frenzied and vicious attack. They were all stabbed with a small knife, usually in their upper chest, with their necks cut. Nearly all suffered a severed jugular vein in their necks. Whether or not there's only one valley killer, two or several valley killers,

is hotly debated among the authorities and the locals to the area and the victims' families alike. You know, the detectives absolutely believe that whoever attacked me is the one that killed them. It's hard to, yeah, I mean, it's hard to know what happens here, but yeah, definitely, yeah. Yeah, hers had blood strain. It sounded very like Jane's, you know, stabs,

but going for the throat. They were not forthcoming at all with us, the family. And like I said, the former police chief at the time, he believed that she had just taken off. Jane herself is not even wholly convinced that her attack is connected to those women in Claremont, a mere 40 miles up the road. She strongly believes that it is,

but it's important to say explicitly that it's not confirmed that all these cases were perpetrated by the same individual. So I began this project with all the gusto and enthusiasm of any true crime podcaster or investigative journalist. I wanted answers. I wanted to know who did it. I wanted justice for Jane and all the other women. But in getting to know Jane, I realized that this story is about something much more important. In fact, there's this like incredible moment in the library in Claremont, where Jane and I were reading through the archives. It's become something of a touchstone for me.

We were going on hour three in the stacks when the librarian came over to check on us. So if you solved the murder yet? Pretty much. Not doing it to solve it. You can probably hear my nervous laughter. And I think it's because I was just reminded of why we're doing all of this in the first place. It's not necessarily to punish someone or to seek vengeance. It's not even for some vague sense of justice. It's so that these women, these eight women,

are remembered beyond the facts of their horrific deaths. And that may sound trite, but it's my earnest conviction and I have Jane to thank for the constant reminders and bringing me back to center. So So will we solve a serial killer case? I don't know. Maybe we will. But maybe it's not the most important thing. I wanted to kind of start and record why you decided to do this prep. Like why now?

Like why did you say yes to me? Because you asked. Is it just because I asked? No. It's because nobody has really told the real story of the Connecticut River Valley murders. Nobody has told my story in a correct way. Jane, what's your mission with this? Nobody has told my story in a correct way. Jane, what's your mission with this?

You know, I was thinking about that the other night. And I was thinking, what do I expect to come from this, the fact of the matter is, maybe we'll find answers to some unanswered questions that I have. We may find more questions. And you know, I have a lot of questions. I wanna be a voice for those victims. If I could talk to them today, I would tell them how sorry I am. I'm sorry that they passed away so young.

I'm sorry that they had to experience such fear and terror before they passed. I'm sorry that monster's face is the last face they had to see before they passed away. And I'm sorry that their families had to and have to endure so much pain with their loss. But sometimes it's hard for me to think that, oh my God, you know, I survived what they also endured. And it's hard sometimes. It's, I ask myself all the time, why did I survive and they didn't? They call it survivor's guilt.

And it is a very real thing. I don't know who these women were, but I know that they were doing the exact same thing I was doing before they were murdered. They were just living their lives. And what compelled you to want to find out about these other women? I wanted to, I wanted, I, for myself personally, I wanted to know, okay, what was the connection between them and me? Their case and my case?

I just felt like I just needed to know more about what happened to them. And I needed to know, I just wanted to know, you know, how were they picked up? How were they abducted? Or when did they go missing? Or where did they go missing from? And where were they found?

And I just, for some reason, I just wanted to know what happened to them and how was it connected to what happened to me. I guess it was, I needed to confirm. I needed to confirm exactly, you know, the comparison between me and them, their case and my case. Do you think to better understand what happened to you? I don't know. I don't know.

I have so many questions still. I mean, it's been 33 years, and I still have so many questions still. Even, I mean, it's been 33 years and I still have so many questions, you know. I know that there are questions I probably will never get answered. You know, somebody had asked me one time, if they ever found out who did this to you, would you want to talk to them? Absolutely, Absolutely. I would love to sit down and ask

him so many questions. You know, why did you do this to me? Did you follow me? Was I just a victim of opportunity? What happened to you in your life where you would want to go out and kill a woman? Why? What happened to you in your life? Why you would want to stab, attack and stab a pregnant woman knowing she's pregnant? What did you do after? Did you drive home and eat supper? Did you drive home and take a shower? Because I know you had blood on you. You know, were you scared that you were going to get caught? No. Were you watching the news after my attack? And were you aware at that time

that I was still alive? Were you thinking about coming back and attacking me? Did you did you see me after that without me knowing? I mean, I have so many questions. So many questions. Stories are important. Stories can change minds, change culture and policy, can change lives. So I think what Jane is communicating is that through telling her own story

and the stories of those other women, she wants some kind of change to occur. But it's a jumbled, confusing story, a 40-plus year investigation that's carried on and fits and starts over time. These cases have been shuffled from generation to generation of investigators, from agency to agency. Memories have faded, people have died, and the wilderness has reclaimed these soiled sites along the Connecticut River,

like it would any other dead thing. These women were strangers in life, and who in death are connected in some kind of perverse galaxy. And here's Jane, speaking like a woman possessed, trying to strain her ear beyond the veil, and hear these women speaking. Kathy, Betsy, Bernice, Eva, Ellen, Linda, Heidi, and Barbara. Jane and I traveled the roads these women were taken from. We tripped and crawled through the dense wilds where their bodies were abandoned. Tried to see these places through these women's eyes. Tried to imagine the fear in the fight.

I've spoken to the families and friends of these women, and learned that there are more ways to grieve than I ever imagined. Where do we even start? If we did have to choose a beginning, it would be with Kathy Millican's 1978 murder. Her case had receded in public consciousness like a fading nightmare. That was until the late summer of 1981, when the body of a missing woman turned up in the woods of Unity, New Hampshire. Who was this woman? And who had killed her? Next time on Dark Valley, Jane and I venture into the woods to investigate the Valley killer's

second potential victim. And one small detail might break these cases wide open. If you have a tip for any of these cases, please call the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit at 603-271-2663 or the Vermont State Police Major Crimes Unit at 802-244-8781. Dark Valley was produced, written, and edited by me, Jennifer Mill, original theme song by Jennifer Pegg. Show art by Pamela Robinson. Want more Dark Valley?

Go ahead and subscribe to Crime Junkie Fan Club and get exclusive access to bonus content. The link's in the show notes. Dark Valley is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No!