Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Amy St. Laurent (Maine)

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

PORTLAND, MAINE MURDER, 2001: Amy St. Laurent was a beautiful, driven woman entertaining a new friend in Portland's Old Port one Saturday night in October 2001, when she met a guy -- a predator.Amy never showed up for work the next week. She never returned home to feed her cat. Her friends and family distributed missing posters around the Old Port, hoping someone saw something that would lead them to Amy.On December 8, 2001, after months of searching and a focused investigation in the Scarborough woods, investigators came upon a shallow grave just 150 yards from the road. And buried beneath the dirt, still wearing the outfit she picked for her Old Port night out, was Amy St. Laurent. Read Finding Amy by Captain Joseph Loughlin and Kate Clark Flora for a complete look at the Amy St. Laurent story.View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/amystlaurentFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

The details of this case gave me a chilling sense of familiarity. It's my neighborhood. It's my downtown. I knew and I still know all the spots, the good ones, the divy, or just the plain bad. But nothing bad could happen to me when I'm in my own environment, right? What I'm learning more and more is that these familiar places, where the unsuspected evil few mingle with the good and the innocent, they can have a dark side. And awareness is the best way to shine a light and expose what and who hides in the dark. This is the case of Amy St. Laurent, missing in the Old Port.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. The beautiful, vibrant, and hardworking Amy St. Laurent was 25 years old and building herself a successful professional career. She'd worked her way up at Pratt & Whitney, where she started on the third shift assembly line, and she was quickly promoted to an administrative assistant position at the aircraft engine assembly plant. Amy loved her cat, and as many pet owners will understand, her days and nights were organized around her cat's mealtimes. At the end of September, Amy took a trip to Fort Myers, Florida to visit her friend Jason Colias. And while she was there, undoubtedly getting some sunshine and vitamin D that we

are so deprived of during the autumns and winters in Maine, and comforting her friend Jason who had just lost his wife, Amy's path crossed with one of Jason's friends, a guy named Eric Rubright. They apparently hit it off. There was a motorcycle ride, some sightseeing around the area, and Eric thought Amy was a cool girl and he wanted to see her again. Just three weeks later, after Amy returned to Portland, Eric booked a ticket to Portland to visit Amy. Now, it wasn't this out-of-the-blue thing or anything. He was planning to travel up the East Coast and to visit his grandmother in New York, and he said he'd visit Amy while he was in this corner of the country anyway.

Although she was a little hesitant at first, she told Eric he could stay at her apartment. He was an acquaintance, but they had mutual friends, so Amy took a little comfort in their reassurances that Eric was a good guy. She was still feeling slightly nervous about being alone with this guy that she didn't know very well, so they spent Friday night at her apartment, and her ex-boyfriend Richard Sparrow came over for a few drinks. Three's a crowd, as they say, and it could have been a little strange for Eric, who may have viewed his weekend in Maine as a chance to be one-on-one with Amy, to be hanging out with her ex-boyfriend, that would be a little odd. Amy's neighbor remembered Eric and Amy having a heated discussion bordering on an

argument or a fight out in their shared driveway. But however the argument ended, they must have cleared things up by Saturday morning, because that day, Amy and Eric drove to Boston to take in the exhibits at the Museum of Fine Art, and then they had dinner in Boston before heading back to Maine. Now, it's not really that far of a trip, around an hour and 45 minutes from Boston proper into Portland, but since they wanted to hit up the Old Port before the night was over, they drove right past Amy's house in South Berwick and headed straight into downtown Portland. They parked Eric's rental car in a parking garage and Amy grabbed her license and some cash from her wallet, putting it in her

pocket, and then she tossed the wallet in the back seat along with her purse and cell phone, jacket, and her backpack. Now it's really not uncommon because I remember many nights wanting to be hands-free and like turning my bra into some form of wearable wallet and braving the colder temperatures so I didn't have to keep track of a coat as I bar hopped like that's not really that strange for someone to leave behind at least a woman to leave behind her wallet and only take what she needs to get in a bar and get a drink. Eric and Amy made it to their first stop to 4Play Sports Bar around 10pm, prime time in the Old Port. Now I can't be sure what 4Play was like in the early 2000s, but I know it today as kind of a dingy but reliable spot for drinks and pool, just that super familiar

downtown hometown bar. On slow Sundays, there are football games on TV screens, and when a big pay-per-view fight airs, they've got the action broadcasting through the whole bar. On Friday and Saturday nights in recent years, pre-pandemic of course, there's loud music on the upper level, and it has more of a club feel, while the downstairs, the main floor, is the spot for clustering around a sticky section of bar and having loud conversations with friends punctuated by jello shots and conveniently positioning yourself near a pool table so you can claim the next game. My husband would have me mention that foreplay has the distinct aroma of bathrooms.

In the book Finding Amy by Joseph K. Laughlin and Kate Clark Flora, they paint a picture of how that night played out between Eric and Amy. Once at foreplay, Amy wanted to shoot pool, but Eric wasn't much of a pool player, so he hung back with a beer in his hand, watching Amy as she sunk each ball into the pockets, playing with two guys who appeared to be strangers to her. I shared a few photos of Amy on the Dark Down East Instagram. It's not really hard to imagine men being drawn to Amy's long, wavy hair with her blonde highlights and deep blue eyes.

She was 5'5 and 115 pounds, fit, slender, conventionally, objectively attractive. Yeah, guys flocked to her. As Amy played, two more men approached the table. By the end of the game, Amy had pocketed the phone number of one of those men. Eric watched the whole exchange. After foreplay, Amy and Eric continued on to grab a few slices of pizza before closing out their Old Port excursion at the Pavilion. The Pavilion nightclub at 188 Middle Street in Portland's Old Port was a hot spot in the early 2000s. Now, the same old bank building houses an Urban Outfitters,

but in the 2000s, it was a high-ceilinged, two-floor dance club and events center. Amy was ready to dance, but Eric wasn't much of a dancer, so once again he hung back and watched as Amy made her way to the floor, where she happened to encounter the two men she met playing pool earlier in the night. Eric recognized them even from across the dark and crowded space. One of the men had a distinctive hairstyle, lots of gel, dyed blonde tips, and dark roots. The second guy he described as simply chubbier than the other. Bars closed at 1am back in 2001. Well, actually, they still do now. And so just before last call, Eric went to the bathroom, waited in line for about 15 minutes, and when he

finally returned to find Amy and head back to South Berwick, she and the two men were gone. Eric scanned the room and did a lap as bouncers ushered everyone outside, but and head back to South Berwick, she and the two men were gone. Eric scanned the room and did a lap as bouncers ushered everyone outside, but there was still no sign of Amy. Then he posted up near the front door, waiting for Amy to come looking for him. After all, they had traveled to the old port together. She had to find him eventually.

But by 1.20 in the morning, he was shooed off the property and he returned to his rental car without Amy. As Eric's recollection of that night goes, he navigated by memory back to Amy's apartment in South Berwick. It was a 50-minute drive in the middle of the night to a place he wasn't super familiar with. And after a few beers, it couldn't have been a safe or easy ride. He said he stopped for gas and got on the turnpike, but in realizing he only had about 15 cents, not enough to pay the toll, he negotiated with the toll attendant to let him

through because it was the only way back he knew. Eric apparently was able to make his case and he was ushered on through the toll. Eric had a key to Amy's apartment. She had left it in his back seat, but he didn't feel right about going in knowing she wasn't there. He opted to sleep in his rental car that night. The next morning, he went into shower and he dropped Amy's things that she had left in his car. He scribbled a quick note thanking her for letting him stay and asking where she went and what happened last night. And then he closed the door behind him and left the key on her car tire and took off without ever hearing from Amy. By Sunday afternoon, when Amy's mother Diane Jenkins hadn't heard from her daughter, and her daughter hadn't made it home to feed her

beloved cat, she reported her missing. And after Amy didn't show up for work on Monday morning, her mother, sister, and ex-boyfriend printed missing posters and tacked them up on every corner of the Old Port. One of those posters was hanging behind the bar at Diggers when Jason Cook, Jeffrey Russ Gorman, and Kush Sharma walked in. Jason and Kush's eyes lingered long enough on the photo of Amy to recognize her as the woman Russ met at foreplay on Saturday night. It took some prodding by his friends, but Russ Gorman decided to call the number on Amy's missing flyer. Her stepfather answered, Don Jenkins, and Russ told Don he'd been with Amy that Sunday morning, the day she was reported missing. According to the Bangor Daily

News, 21-year-old Alabama native Jeffrey Russ Gorman, who went by Russ, had been living in the greater Portland area for a few years. He was not eager to speak with police, not with his lengthy criminal history. He was on a 12-month probation for a theft conviction the previous year after he broke into a car in Westbrook. He'd already violated his probation when he was arrested for driving with a suspended license, among other charges, in September 2001, and being interviewed by police for being with a missing woman the night she disappeared wasn't going to play well with his probation officer. Still, he agreed to go speak with detectives at the Middle Street Portland Police Headquarters with his two buddies. When Cush, Jason, and Russ

arrived at the police department, the three were separated and interviewed alone to eliminate any chance of agreeing on a fabricated or embellished story, if there was even a story to be told. Sergeant Joyce sat down with Russ Gorman and asked what he remembered from the previous Saturday night and early Sunday morning. From the book Finding Amy, the authors retell the version of events that Russ recounted during the initial police interview. Russ explained that he met Amy at foreplay, where they played pool, and Russ gave Amy his number. Then, by 11.45 p.m., they were at the pavilion, once again crossing paths with Amy St. Laurent. She approached Russ, he claimed, and told Russ that she couldn't find her friend Eric.

According to Russ, Amy explained that Eric drove her to the Old Port and still had her keys and all of her things, so with closing time approaching, she didn't have many options for getting back to her apartment if Eric was nowhere to be found. That's when Russ invited Amy back to his place, or rather, Jason Cook's place where he was staying, for an after party. Russ Gorman said Amy agreed and left with him, riding in his car to an apartment on Brighton Avenue. However, that promised party was not a party at all. No one else showed. Russ said he and Jason had some drinks, but he couldn't remember if Amy was drinking. Then Amy went to walk Jason's dog with Kush so he could have a cigarette. When she returned, she asked for a ride back to the pavilion so she could try

to find Eric again. Russ claimed he dropped Amy off out front of the pavilion on Middle Street around 2 a.m., and that was the last time he saw her before returning to the Brighton Avenue apartment. He was gone 20 minutes at most, he claimed. Meanwhile, Eric Rubright was also at the station, being interviewed in a fourth room by a fourth detective, as investigators tried to make sense of his highly specific and yet strange version of events. He had all of her things the night she went missing, he slept in her driveway, and he had flown all that way, possibly expecting some sort of romantic or sexual encounter with

Amy, only to be ditched at a club for two other guys on their night out with no explanation? It all sounded suspect, and maybe even lined up into motive, at least to me. The two men who both admitted to being with Amy the night she disappeared inched their way to the top of the suspect list. It was time for a closer look at Jeffrey Russ Gorman and Eric Rubright. What I found interesting in the first few weeks after Amy's disappearance is that Eric Rubright openly talked to the media, sharing his story of their night out in the Old Port, and being sure to protect his name in the process.

He told the Portland Press-Herald in a November 2, 2001 article, quote, whatever happened to her had nothing to do with me. It's a terrible, horrible situation. I feel so bad for her family. I feel terrible for Amy, end quote. But some marks on Eric's record had police raising an eyebrow at this public proclamation of innocence. According to the Finding Amy book, Eric Rubright had previously been served a restraining order by an ex-girlfriend after a domestic incident. Coincidentally, or maybe not, his ex-girlfriend's name was also Amy. And since he was from Florida and due to return there any day, police zeroed in on his story and called him back for more questioning. This time, his answers would be monitored by polygraph.

The polygraph test lasted hours, and Eric squirmed through even the initial conversation. When the official questions started, his body language shifted, his eyes lowered, and he lied, and then admitted to lying, and then lied again. His polygraph test turned out inconclusive and deceptive results. Detectives asked Eric for a hair sample while they had him in Portland, but Eric refused. Kind of strange, especially for someone who had been so cooperative up until that point. But it's not incriminating to refuse to give DNA. They couldn't detain him, not without conclusive evidence to tie him to the crime,

but there wasn't even a crime scene to match him to, not yet. No matter how good he looked for Amy's disappearance, they had more answers to uncover, another theory to explore, another witness to interview. Police called Russ Gorman in for a second interview, and this time, the previously forthcoming and agreeable witness revealed a different side. From the book Finding Amy, quote, the investigators weighed a number of suspects, testing the veracity of their often incredible stories until they fixed on a young man devoid

of empathy and self-discipline whose goal in life was to have sex with as many women as possible, who regarded women solely as objects for his satisfaction, believing he had a right to be satisfied no matter what the cost. A young man who would prove, even to experienced detectives, to be shockingly cold-blooded in the lengths he would go to hide his crime. End quote. What they'd learned since their first conversation with Russ is that he was on probation, and he should have disclosed that in the interview as is required for anyone on probation. Russ Gorman delivered his story once again, this time with a few added details.

People who saw him, timestamps for his movements, but just enough vagueness to maintain a believable story. He met Amy at foreplay, saw her again at the pavilion, invited her back to a party on Brighton Avenue, and then when she asked to submit to a polygraph, Russ Gorman refused. When asked if police could search his car, the one he claimed to be driving Amy in that night, he said it was an inconvenient time. Russ Gorman's story didn't add up to investigators. In a November 29, 2001 article published by the Bangor Daily News, Lt. Joseph Laughlin said, quote, We've substantiated Amy was last seen leaving a Brighton Avenue address with a male. There is no evidence to suggest she was dropped off at the pavilion. End quote. In case you're wondering about the third man in Amy's life at the time of her

disappearance, I have to tell you that Amy's ex-boyfriend, well, it was actually her ex-fiance, Richard Sparrow, he was rolled out early on in the investigation. His alibi checked out, he was in New Hampshire where he lived, and he didn't see Amy on Saturday or Sunday. Now police move to rule out or confirm either Eric Rebrite or Russ Gorman. Eric's story was strange, but gas station receipts, security footage, and witnesses, including that tollbooth worker he begged to let him through without paying the full toll, it all confirmed his version of events was accurate. The scorned potential lover theory was a strong one, but evidence didn't confirm it enough to make an arrest.

Eric returned to Florida, but not before finally agreeing to give DNA samples to aid police in the investigation. So then we have Jeffrey Russ Gorman. The day following his second interview with police, Wednesday, October 24th, Detective Young received a call. On the other end of that call was a new witness, and he wanted to tell police about Russ's car. Russ Gorman had previously worked at Bill Dodge detailing cars for resale, that is, until he was arrested for stealing stereo equipment from a car he was cleaning. Despite that, he had an apparent skill for cleaning cars. However, this witness said Russ's own car was always a mess. Dusty, trash-filled, not representative of the polished work he once delivered to clients. But the witness said, after the second interview

with police on that Tuesday, when he said it was an inconvenient time to search his car, Russ Gorman polished the interior and exterior of that car, not a speck of dust left on the dash or knobs. No evidence, Russ probably thought as he doused the seats in Armaral, that Amy was ever in his car. Another red flag for Russ Gorman, and the red flags kept coming. Witnesses described the troubled and strained relationship he had with his mother throughout childhood, the abuse he inflicted on a previous girlfriend while she was pregnant with Russ's child, his hatred of women, and yet his never-ending pursuit of them. Friends told police that Russ bragged about sleeping with over

90 women. Some wondered if his apparent success with women, if you want to call it that, could have been aided by his suspected habit of drugging them. GHB, rehypnol, and ketamine wouldn't have been out of reach for Russ Gorman. He was known to trade other illicit drugs like ecstasy for sexual favors, according to the Finding Amy book. All the red flags on Russ, and still no Amy. A month passed with no sign of Amy, no crime scene, no body, no evidence that she was more than a missing person, albeit under suspicious and endangered circumstances.

We've seen this in cases before, and actually I just covered one on Dark Down East, the Shirley Moon Atwood case. When investigating a murder, police may have a beginning and an end, and they're faced with filling in the middle to find out who's responsible. But in a missing person case like Amy St. Laurent's, police only had the beginning and a whole bunch of potential storylines to follow to a conclusion, to answers, and to, hopefully, a conviction. The search was broad, with no specific area to cover, family, friends, co-workers, Maine State Police and Portland Police, community officers, and concerned citizens.

Everyone was searching for Amy. Graveyards and junkyards, wooded areas and bodies of water around Amy's own apartment and the Old Port. It seemed like every inch of southern Maine was turned over. As the search continued and the Maine Warden Service joined the investigation, Russ Gorman was slipping away. In mid-November, Jeffrey Russ Gorman left Maine for his native Troy, Alabama. On the afternoon of December 8, 2001, an extensive search was underway in the area surrounding the home of Russ Gorman's mother in Scarborough. A cadaver dog named Reba alerted her handler that she found something.

As Detective Young started digging, carefully, about two feet down, he cleared the dirt off what appeared to be a sweatshirt. Amy was last seen wearing a Pratt & Whitney sweatshirt on her night out in the Old Port. They'd found Amy. Meanwhile, Russ Gorman's mother called her son in Alabama. She told Russ they were digging up her backyard. The autopsy later revealed that Amy St. Laurent died by one gunshot to the head. Her lip was cut, she had a freshly chipped tooth among other injuries, and they found GHB in her system, a commonly used date rape drug. Less than 10 days later, on December 13, 2001, police arrested Jeffrey Russ Gorman after a

four-hour standoff at the home he was staying in in Troy, Alabama. Throughout the standoff, Russ threatened to take his own life, but he eventually surrendered without further incident, according to the Bangor Daily News. But he wasn't arrested on a murder charge. Instead, police took him into custody on a fugitive warrant for violating his probation back in Maine. He had failed to tell his probation officer about his change of address, about his police questioning, among so many other things. Back in Maine, Gorman's defense attorney denied his client had anything to do with the murder of Amy St. Laurent. No charges were filed against him in the case, and attorney Clifford Strike told reporters at the Bangor Daily News that he wasn't pleased Russ's name was being, quote, bandied about as a suspect, end quote. Meanwhile, Russ Gorman was

held without bail, and the Bangor Daily News reports he was later sentenced to 90 days in jail for violating his probation. With their prime suspect off the streets. The case against Russ Gorman progressed, and details about his time in Alabama, what he did, what he said, became clear. Russ's mother Tammy called him frequently while he was in Alabama, giving him updates on the case. She was the one to tell him they found Amy's body. Now, Russ had an extremely negative relationship with his mother, and yet they were in almost constant contact as the investigation turned from missing person to homicide. Tammy challenged her son's version of events. Nothing made sense to her, and why were they digging up her backyard? Something cracked within Russ. As the story is told in the Finding Amy book,

Russ Gorman confessed the truth to his mother. Mom, I did it. I killed that girl. Russ then told his mom that Amy said something that got under his skin and triggered a violent attack. As he beat and fatally shot Amy St. Laurent, he was picturing Tammy's face, his own mother, he said. As Tammy remembers the call, Russ said she was lucky she wasn't the one he murdered. I don't want to give this monster, this sociopathic woman-hating vile killer, a single second more of airtime than he deserves.

But here's what you should know about the arrest, the trial, and conviction of Jeffrey Russ Gorman for the brutal murder of Amy St. Laurent. First, that confession to his mother would come back to seal his fate in court. Tammy Westbrook was ordered to testify at her son's trial, and though her attorney fought against it, she took the stand. During questioning, she repeatedly denied remembering giving previous grand jury testimony about that phone call confession from her son. Cooperative witness or not, remembered her previous testimony or not, she shared what she heard from her son during grand jury proceedings, and the judge allowed a recording of those proceedings with her past testimony to be played for jurors in his trial. That phone call was key in convicting Russ

Gorman for the killing of Amy St. Laurent, because it's during that conversation with his mother he says he shot her in the head. At the time of the phone call, police hadn't publicly released her cause of death. The other evidence was largely circumstantial. Russ was the last person with Amy before she disappeared. Her body was buried near his mother's home. He had a motive, he had opportunity. It all pointed to Russ, and not a single other suspect lined up in the way Russ did for this brutal crime. In January 2003, a year and a half later, Russ Gorman was found guilty for the murder of Amy St. Laurent.

And in July of the same year, Gorman was sentenced to 60 years in prison. The Bangor Daily News reported on July 1, 2003, Justice Mills addressed Gorman in the courtroom, saying, quote, you have shown absolutely no remorse for your conduct, end quote. Amy St. Laurent's mother founded Amy St. Laurent Foundation to remember and honor her daughter and prepare other women and children of all ages to defend themselves in dangerous, violent situations. From the

foundation's website, it says, the Amy St. Laurent Foundation was established as the legacy of Amy St. Laurent who lost her life in 2001, a homicide victim during a sexual assault. The self-defense program taught through Amy's foundation is the Rape Aggression Defense System, RAD for short. The program was brought to the Portland, Maine area in 2002 by Diane Jenkins, Amy's mother. Jenkins knew her daughter would have fought her assailant to the best of her ability, but also understood that women are at a disadvantage in most situations. RAD teaches techniques that are best suited to a woman's or child's abilities. Diane Jenkins told the Bangor Daily News a year after Amy's disappearance, quote,

Maybe it's a milestone if you can get past that first year. Maybe it means the second year will be easier, and the third. Maybe, psychologically, if you've made it this far, you're going to make it. End quote. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Finding Amy by Joseph Laughlin and Kate Clark Flora was an invaluable resource for composing this episode and telling Amy St. Laurent's story. It's an intriguing look at police work and what goes into missing persons investigations, and it provides way more context and information about Amy, as well as the extensive twists and turns the investigation took

as they inched closer to her killer. I'll link the book in the show notes and at darkdowneast.com. And thank you to my other sources, among them several articles published by the Bangor Daily News from October 2001 through July 2003, and a piece in the South Florida Sun Sentinel by Nancy L. Othamson and John Burstein. All of the newspaper clippings are linked at darkdowneast.com.

Thank you for supporting the show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm so honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.