Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Angel Torres, Part 2 (Maine)

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

Imagine your son, imagine any person you love, just disappears. No viable leads, no physical evidence, nothing to direct your search beyond unreliable or uncooperative witnesses with ever changing stories. That ambiguous loss is like a cloud over the lives of Ramona and Narciso Torres. Until they have closure and can bring their son, Angel Antonio Torres, home, that cloud follows them around.In Part 2, we’ll take a closer look at the night Angel Torres disappeared without a trace and the investigation into what happened in Biddeford, Maine on May 21, 1999, and why some people may be withholding the information about where Angel Torres is now.This is the story of Angel Torres: Part 2, told by his parents Ramona and Narciso Torres and his younger brother, Jamel Torres.If you have information regarding this case, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - South at [phone] x9 or toll free at 1-800-452-4664. You may also report information about this crime using the leave a tip form. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/angeltorres2Follow @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.

As of the original release date of this episode, no one has been charged with any crimes in connection to the disappearance of Angel Torres. For somebody knows, for sure. Somebody knows and somebody's holding to their life. Somebody knows. Imagine your son. Imagine any person you love just disappears.

No viable leads, no physical evidence, nothing to direct your search beyond unreliable or uncooperative witnesses with ever-changing stories. That ambiguous loss is like a cloud over the lives of Ramona and Narciso Torres. Until they have closure and can bring their son, Angel Antonio Torres, home, that cloud follows them around. In part one of this two-part series, we got to know Angel through the stories and memories of his parents. Now, we'll take a closer look at the night Angel Torres disappeared

without a trace, and the investigation into what happened in Biddeford, Maine on May 21st, 1999, and why some people may be withholding the information about where Angel Torres is now. I mean, maybe, maybe. Maybe somebody... Oh, there are people that know. Oh, people know. We know people know. And there are people that have been intimidated. Yeah.

The same thing can happen to Angel, can happen to you. Yeah. You know, things like that. Yeah. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the story of Angel Torres, Part 2. Told by his parents, Ramona and Narciso Torres, and his younger brother, Jamel Torres, on Dark Down East. Ramona and Narciso last saw Angel on Mother's Day weekend in 1999.

He traveled back to Maine from school at Framingham State to introduce his girlfriend to his parents. It was a big step because in the next week and a half, Angel and his girlfriend were planning to move in together at a new apartment. Ten days after the visit, Angel called to wish his parents a happy anniversary on May 19, 1999, and to let them know that he'd be staying with a friend for a few days until his new apartment was ready. He promised to call back with the number at his friend's house so his parents could reach him. Angel was good at staying in touch with his parents, but he didn't tell them everything, it seemed. Because when he made that call, he was already in Biddeford, Maine. He hadn't mentioned it. That was the last time anyone in his family heard from Angel. He was supposed to start a new job

waiting tables at a restaurant near his new apartment in Massachusetts on May 22nd. But he didn't show up. A friend called Ramona concerned. No one knew where Angel was. His parents officially reported Angel missing on May 24th, 1999. At least, that's when police took the report. They had tried to report him missing on that Sunday, May 21, 1999, but they were told to wait. Maybe he'd turn up. Maybe he was partying. He was 21 years old. Maybe he was doing what he wanted and didn't feel the need to check in with his parents.

But that wasn't Angel's way. We told him, he could have gone somewhere, but he would have called. He wouldn't call us, he would have called his brother. Or someone of us. No, he would have called us. He would not.

Even though we would be upset, I always told him, I don't care where you are. If you're drunk, I don't care. Just call. We'll deal with it later. But if I need to come and pick you up, you need to call. You know, so it wasn't like they were afraid of calling because, yeah, we'd be upset with them after. But we would definitely get up and go pick him up. From day one, Ramona and Narciso were adamant that something happened to Angel. When Father's Day rolled around in 1999, that's when their fears compounded. If Angel was okay, he would have called.

Ramona wrote in a Reader's Forum letter in the Biddeford Journal Tribune, quote, We in the state police suspect that foul play was involved in his disappearance. We also know that someone saw what happened to our son or knows someone who did. We believe that someone murdered him, unquote. The questions surrounding the circumstances remain. Until Angel is found, and until witnesses or those with knowledge of the disappearance come forward, state police and the Torres family don't know if any of their working theories are correct. Was Angel involved in a drug deal, and did that interaction go bad? According to reporting by David McQuarrie for the Boston Globe in 2016, who spoke to then-Main State Police Lieutenant

Walter Gribb, the investigation revealed that Angel Torres was possibly in Biddeford, Maine that night to sell drugs. Gribb clarified, though, that it wasn't a big thing. Quote, He was the typical guy who gets enough to make a little money. End quote. This possible drug deal story was introduced by a key witness, Jason Carney. I'll get to him in a little bit. I just want to remind and emphasize that the circumstances of his disappearance, if drugs were involved in one way or another, this does not make Angel and the

Torres family any less worthy of answers. Nothing warrants a family waiting over 22 years to know what happened to their son. I have a zero-tolerance, victim-blaming policy on this show. I contacted Walt Gribb for comment on this podcast. He respectfully declined, as is often the case for retired and former Maine State police detectives and other authorities who once worked on a still-unsolved case. As I learned at a recent meeting for the Maine Cold Case Alliance, commenting on an open case can jeopardize the retirement and pension of these former officials. Another possible theory his parents have considered, could their son have been a victim of a hate crime? Ramona and Narciso talked openly about the instances of discrimination they faced

moving to Maine. In part one of Angel's story, you'll remember Narciso talked about a time in school when they had to ask Angel to, in his words, tone down who he was. It's not impossible that Angel could have been targeted for his race. Was Angel in the wrong place at the wrong time? No, I said to myself, wow, 2 a.m. Biddeford? Not a good thing. Not a good thing. Yeah. I don't know what he was thinking. This is why we say he was naive, honestly. He put himself in situations that were dangerous. They were dangerous.

Angel thought that he could hang out with anybody, that he was safe with anybody because he was a nice guy. And I said, no, Angel, it's nothing like that. Like in any state, there are parts of Maine that are considered maybe more dangerous for one reason or another. Whether that reputation holds true beyond long-perpetuated stereotypes of towns that aren't Portland, well, that's a debate that many locals are all too familiar with. Here's what the numbers say about Biddeford, Maine in 1999. The 1999 Crime in Maine report issued by the State of Maine Department of Public Safety calculates crime rate with the estimated population of a city or town and the counts of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson within that town or city.

In 1999, Biddeford had a crime rate of 48.05, the third highest rate in York County, with nearby Old Orchard Beach and Agunquit above it. Both are tourist destinations, and the population swells in the summer. Portland, to the north in Cumberland County, had a crime rate of 47.66 in 1999. The highest in the state that year was Skowhegan, with a rate of 67.59. According to the 2019 Crime in Maine report by the State of Maine Department of Public Safety, the crime rate 10 years later in Biddeford dropped to 31.19. This is still among the higher crime rates in the state, but Maine as a whole improved its crime rates in the last 20 years.

So in my informal and unprofessional statistical analysis, the stats show that Biddeford might have been and might still be an area of higher crime in comparison to other areas of the state. If higher crime is translated as less safety, then being in Biddeford in the middle of the night could have put Angel in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is another scenario that is often discussed in Angel Torres' case. Did Angel have information about a teenage girl who was murdered just a few months before he disappeared? Was Angel considered a liability for that knowledge? Did someone make Angel disappear. In the early morning hours of February 10th, 1999, a passing driver found the body of a young girl lying in the middle of Pine Point Road in Scarborough, Maine.

Fifteen-year-old Ashley Ouellette had been strangled to death. Ashley's case is another that I've received endless emails about, and I do hope to cover her case in its entirety at some point. So for now, I will share the high-level facts of her case as they relate to the disappearance of Angel Torres. In an interview with Crime Watch Daily, published in 2016, Narciso Torres spoke of a conversation he had with his son before Angel disappeared. They were watching TV together when a news story about Ashley Ouellette came on the screen.

Angel told his father that he knew who was responsible for Ashley's murder. Narciso also said in that interview that he wishes he would have brought Angel to the police station to make a statement that very night. I didn't ask Narciso about this conversation with Angel during our meeting that afternoon. However, he did mention Ashley Ouellette. Our oldest, Louis, used to say, how do you know? He might be in witness protection program somewhere. He might have testified. Because there was that other girl, Ashley Willett, who was murdered.

And who knows? He might have cooperated in that case, and then they put him on witness. But they couldn't because they had a servant find whoever killed her. Yeah. Yeah, that's just Lewis hoping that's what happened. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Ashley Ouellette's case is still unsolved.

What Angel might have known about the night she was murdered disappeared with him. Maine State Police have not publicly confirmed a connection between the murder of Ashley Ouellette and the disappearance of Angel Torres. Not directly, anyway. In an interview with the Portland Press-Herald in 2019, Lt. Mark Holmquist, head of the Maine State Police's Southern Division Major Crimes Unit, said, quote, there were some individuals that crossed into both cases. You have a location that's similar. The span of time between them was only a couple of months, you could make some parallel connections based off that." Ashley Ouellette's mother, Lise Ouellette, has publicly shared that one of the people to last see Ashley on the night of her death was the same man who last saw Angel Torres before he disappeared. His name is Jason Carney.

On the night of Ashley Ouellette's murder, she was supposed to be staying the night with her friend Aaliyah. It was a school night, so her parents wavered for a moment before saying yes. Though they had some back and forth over rules and Ashley's rebelling against them in her teenage years, she was doing better recently and so her mother agreed to drop her off for a sleepover. Lise said in a 1999 Portland Press-Herald interview that two cars were in the driveway that night. She assumed her parents were there, but it was later discovered that wasn't the case. Ashley called home around 10 p.m. to say goodnight. What happened after that call isn't crystal clear. Unreliable or uncooperative witnesses have offered anything but consistent versions of events. However, the Portland Press-Herald reported, based on a police affidavit, that the sleepover had become a party. Ashley and Aaliyah were there, along with a few friends, Daniel Sanborn, Edwin Hernandez, and, it's assumed, Jason Carney.

Later on in the night, Ashley asked one of those friends to drive her to a boy's house. That boy was Stephen Sanborn. His brother Daniel was at the party, and Ashley had a crush on Stephen. The Sanborn brothers lived with their mother Muriel in Saco, and according to the brothers, Ashley asked to sleep over, so Muriel gave her blankets to sleep on a downstairs couch. But she moved upstairs at one point in the middle of the night. Daniel and Stephen Sanborn say that's the last time they saw her. Through my research, I've encountered very little information about Jason Carney as he relates

to Ashley's case, only that he was at the party that night. I've submitted Freedom of Access Act requests in hopes of learning more concrete details about what Jason Carney saw or knew about the night Ashley was killed. The information about Jason Carney as he relates to Angel Torres' disappearance is more widely known. His own witness statement placed him with Angel on the last night anyone saw him. The Torres family learned that Jason and Angel were together in Biddeford around 2 a.m. on May 21, 1999. Jason later told his friends that he dropped Angel off to catch a ride back home to Denmark, Maine, and he got into a red pickup truck driven by a heavyset male. Although Carney said Angel was hitching a ride back to Denmark to his childhood home where his parents still lived.

Detective Matthew Stewart said state police had reason to believe Angel was actually headed to North Conway, New Hampshire. North Conway is about 35 minutes from Denmark, but Denmark could be considered on the way to North Conway if leaving from Biddeford. All that to say, Angel could have been headed to either destination, or believed he was headed to either destination with the driver that night, and the route would have been the same. But as we know, Angel never returned home, and he never turned up in North Conway, or anywhere. Other witnesses who saw Angel the night of his disappearance said they remembered Jason Carney returning to a friend's house without Angel. They say Jason looked upset, disheveled, and there was something else too. So what we know is that Jason Carney went back to this woman's apartment where they all were and his feet were all soaking wet.

His pants were all rolled up. His pants were rolled up. Yeah, so we always wondered about that. So there was that and that was the last known whereabouts as to where he went from there. You know, nobody knows. Lieutenant Holmquist told the Portland Press-Herald that Jason Carney, quote, would have been somebody we would have approached from time to time to see if anything had changed. We think that Jason Carney had more information than what he chose to provide. And yes, that is frustrating, unquote. There won't be any follow-up or new information out of Jason Carney. According to the Press-Herald, he died of a suspected overdose in 2015.

I mean, all that we know is that, you know, whether he was involved in some drug deal. It was foul play. We know that for sure. It was foul play, regardless of the situation, whether it was because of drugs or because he was brown. No, he was murdered. Yeah, he was murdered. And we don't know whether it was drugs or because he was brown, and it was the perfect chance for them to do it. We don't know.

Everything is, unless they find his remains, and then they can find who did it, then we will know exactly what happened to Angel. Ramona and Narciso know that the Maine State Police have more information about Angel's disappearance than what they've released or even told the family. You've heard me say this before, to protect the integrity of the investigation, not every detail is made public because those details could be used to verify a story if someone were to come forward with information. That is the frustrating status of missing persons cases without any physical evidence to go on. The key to finding answers and bringing Angel and other missing sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and loved ones home lies with individuals who are either too scared or simply won't come forward.

The toll of losing their son in this way is far-reaching. Ramona and Narciso had two other sons to care for, and it affected all of them. At first, they feared the news coverage and impact on their youngest. Jamel was only 11, so I always was almost terrified of having so much publicity for his sake. But as he got older, I think we had gotten more. I think we had gotten more verbal about everything. Instead of trying to protect everybody else. I was only 11. I always remember him looking at me and saying,

Mama, you're going to leave us? So that was always in my mind mind that he didn't suffer. This is the heart of all of us as a family. Jamel reached out to me after part one of Angel's story was released, and I was grateful to hear from him. I asked if he was open to sharing his memories and stories of his brother and how their lives changed when Angel disappeared. He agreed, and we met on Zoom. So I remember the weekend pretty much, I remember vividly. So I was a big hiker as a kid. My dad and I hiked almost every weekend. And at that point in life, I had completed all of the 4,000 footers in the Northeast as an 11-year-old. I was the youngest to do it at the time. And when it all happened, actually, my dad

and I had a trip planned to go to the Adirondacks. And it was a celebration or a certificate celebration to say, yeah, you finished these mountains, the 4,000 footers and the Adirondacks. It's like a graduation kind of thing. So we had this trip planned and we actually went hiking in New York State, did this ceremony. Then we went to Vermont, did some hiking there. And then we stayed in Vermont and did a hike in New Hampshire. It was a three-day weekend.

And my dad knew at the time. And he was really, you know, it was a really special weekend for me, being the youngest. And he told me when I got home that weekend, that night. And I think my initial reaction was like, yeah, he's probably just, you know, he's just hanging out with friends. He'll call in a few days. He's probably on a vacation. Or, you know, I think as a 12 year old you really don't it's hard to understand how how something like that could happen to your older brother especially he was such a good guy it just it it was shocking and

I think I took off maybe the week from school or a few days or whatever. And after that, I think my brain sort of just blocks it off. It was, it was a really painful summer and my 12 year old mind, just, I don't think it could really comprehend what it was like to lose a brother, especially in this regard where we just had no idea what happened. You know, I think I honestly thought that he would come back one day and this was just going to be a weird short period in time and Angel would be back and life would go on. But, you know, as the years went on, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to come back from whatever happened. So, yeah, it really changed our lives forever. The depth of their loss hasn't changed.

That never goes away. But they've created ways to cope, to feel connected to Angel. So we have a garden in his memory, a memory garden right in front of where he used to play. It is a big rock den. It was a tree there that he would climb in the winter and slide down in the snow. So we figured that would be the right place.

So that's what we have. We have a little plaque with his name. We go there, and I can feel his presence sometimes. And we talk to him, and his brothers talk to him, and good things happen and bad things happen. We used to go share with him but that's all we have yeah you know a lot of his friends have donated a lot of flowers and so it's comforting for me it's my peaceful place my parents i mean they they they are the strongest people that I know.

Their strength, their everyday strength through this tragedy is amazing. They're such positive people. As you said, they're warm and they're fun. And they obviously love each other so much. And yeah, I mean, they're truly they're, they're truly inspiring the way that they have handled this and the way they continue to carry themselves through this nightmare. It's just incredible. I mean, my mom is such a special lady. She's so positive. She's so fun. You know, she, whenever she shows up somewhere, fun, fun, fun starts when she gets there.

And my dad's just such a great, you know, he's such a great guy. He's so well-spoken. He's so positive. And he's such a solid partner. They're both just such an inspirational couple. But I think it has brought us closer together, generally. There's definitely something that we share as a family and we certainly try to appreciate each other and we're really close never take family and close

friends for granted you never know what's going to happen and you know say I love you and kiss them and hug them whenever you can because you never know if it could be the last time. In September of 2021, Angel Torres' name was in the media again. In my experience, it's unusual to see a story about a long-standing unsolved case on a date that is not the anniversary of the murder or disappearance. That just seems to be how these cases get covered. But Angel was in the news for a beautiful reason. A community member came forward

to raise the reward for information to $20,000. We met this young lady. As soon as we walked in, her husband, who we know, I mean, Louis babysat him, I babysat him, so I know him for years. And he says, oh, I want you to meet my beautiful wife. That's how he said it, right? And I said, oh, we would love to. So we never got to walk into the restaurant really we

were like right there as they were walking out they were having lunch and we were going in and then when she minute she walked in you know we introduced and I said hi how are you and then she said she looked at me she looked at and she said it's never the right time right so I didn't know really what she was talking about but when she said, I figured it had to do with Angel. So I said, nope, maybe it's the right time. So she said, I want to raise the reward. I've been following the case, and I want to do it. And we looked at both of them and said, you're very young. This is one that you might need later.

And they said, nope, I want to do it. And one thing led to another and she did it so we are very grateful. Twenty thousand dollars that's a lot of money. The Torres family hopes it's a form of courage that someone needs to come forward. I'm sure that whoever knows or whoever has information is scared or hesitant to give up or provide the information that they may have. But just think about the impact it could have on our lives, just having some closure and knowing what happened to them exactly and where it happened and not even why, but just provide the information and just help us out. We're really, I'd like to say we're good people and we like to help other people. It's Maine.

I mean, this is the way it works here. You help your neighbors. And at some point, you know, I really hope that whoever or if it's more than one person, they can just wake up one morning and have the courage to really step forward and end this nightmare. You know, it's time for it to be over. We're all, we've dealt with it enough. It's time to move forward and have some closure.

When he was a high school senior, they asked him to write about someone important, and he wrote about me. So that is very special to me. Keep that very close to me. He wished he could have taken me to college, he says. So, a lot to me. That paper Angel wrote about his mother sat on the table in a plastic sheath as we talked. I asked them if they were comfortable sharing it with me and sharing it with you. If you want to know the kind of person Angel Torres was,

the love he put into the world, and what their family lost when he disappeared, this paper says it all. Here it is, in part. It's titled Angel Torres, September 8, 1995, English 2, a writing composition. For this particular assignment, I chose not a memory, but a person to write about. Ramona Torres, who is my mom, is the most important person in my life. She is there for me whenever I need to talk and that extra hug.

And also when I need money. That last part is just a bonus. I just like to hear people say that they hate their parents. I could not even think that about my mom. She gave birth to me. I'm thankful. I know my mom and I sometimes have our differences, but I can never get upset at her for long. She just wants what's best for me and my future. She thinks I should be a Spanish teacher. Angel writes about his mother's ideas for his future, how he thinks they're good ideas. I wish I could take her to college with me because she'd really make sure my work was done before the fun begins. She cares too much to see me waste my college years,

but also her money. Until this year, I've never been away from her at any long periods of time. This past spring, I moved to Florida and felt that a big part of my life was gone. I never realized how much I actually loved her until I couldn't see her. I couldn't look at her beautiful smile, which makes me smile. I can now be happy, and so can she, because I know she also suffered when I was away. I will not let that happen to her again. I can't wait for the day I can say that I paid her back. Not that I need to, I just want to. I have no problem showing my appreciation for someone who loves me.

She has tried her best to give me what she never had in her childhood. I wish I could have changed places with her just so she had. I'm getting blurry. I wish I could have changed places with her just so she had

the opportunity that I'm given. In conclusion, I can say that Ramona Torres is the sunshine of my life. She is a grandma now,

but I let her know that is still young. She doesn't feel though she is getting old. I know it is a little compared to what she does for me. I say it because I know it makes her feel good, especially since her birthday is coming up. I can show her how much I really love her. This is probably that last full year of school that I can spend with her. I plan on spending most of the time with her. I'm glad I have such a caring person in my life. It actually makes my life easier and I love her even more.

Maine State Police detectives are interested in talking to anyone who has more information about Angel's disappearance. I beg you to find the courage and bring this child home to his parents. Thanks to generous donations, the reward for information is now $20,000. Contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit South at 1-800-228-0857 for in-state calls or 207-624-7076 for out-of-state calls. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Source material for this case and others is all listed at darkdowneast.com. Thank you, Narciso, Ramona, and Jamel, for your trust.

Follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts, turn on automatic downloads, tune in on Spotify, wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts, hit follow on Dark Down East. It's the easiest way to support this case and all the cases I cover. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm 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.