Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Attiin Rachmawati Shaw (Maine)

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

In early 2023, pleas for help reached the small Aroostook County town of Washburn, Maine from across the world in Indonesia. Family members and friends of Attiin Rachmawati Shaw hadn’t heard from her in over a year and the stories they were told about her suspicious disappearance didn’t make any sense.If you look at your feed right now, you’ll see two episodes released on the same day. Both of the Maine missing persons cases I’m covering are in need of some major attention because the investigations are active and ongoing. Getting these names and photos circulating in the public could bring in the leads that investigators need to make progress. According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, Attiin was 33-years old when she disappeared. She is 4-foot-7 inches tall and 110 pounds with Black hair and a noticeable birthmark on the top center of her nose. If you have any information relating to the disappearance of Attiin Shaw, please contact Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit North at [phone] or submit a tip online. View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/attiinrachmawatishawDark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In early 2023, please for help reached the small Arrista County town of Washburn, Maine from across the world in Indonesia. Family members and friends of a teen Rakmawadi Shah hadn't heard from her in over a year, and the stories they were told about her suspicious disappearance didn't make any sense. If you look at your feed right now, you'll see two episodes released, on the same day. Both of the main missing persons cases I'm covering are in need of some major attention because the investigations are active and ongoing.

Getting these names and photos circulating in the public could bring in the leads that investigators need to make progress. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of a teen Rukmawadi Shah on Dark Down East. In early 2023, a message from worried loved ones in Indonesia began popping up in Facebook community groups across the world in Arristic County, Maine. Dear good people of Washburn, Maine, a message of concern from Papua, Indonesia. A teen Shah is still missing. She was last seen in your fine community and is the wife of Mike Shaw. She has family and has family and friends here that love and miss her, and children in Washburn that need her. Please, any information,

no matter how seemingly innocuous, share with us, or preferably the police in Washburn, who, my understanding is, are still actively investigating her mysterious disappearance. Her passport has expired and there is no record of her leaving the country, nor would she have the means. No activity on her social media, which she utilized often. No activity on her credit card. and no activity with her social security account, no record of her entry into Indonesia. She has just vanished, leaving young children who were the center of her life

and her parents and extended family distraught and desperate for answers. Anything you can do to find her would be deeply appreciated by many. Please ask friends and anyone in the area if they know something or have a detail to share. Please do not forget her, as we have not. Thanks to you all in advance. For almost a year and a half before they shared that appeal on social media, the family and friends of a teen Rakmawati Shah had been trying to track her down.

They reported a teen missing to the Indonesian embassy. They contacted the Consulate General in New York, which oversees the state of Maine to determine if a teen had ever applied for a travel permit. They contacted an attorney in the United States for advice. They even did interviews with Indian. Indonesian media outlets to get the word out. From almost 10,000 miles away, a teen's loved ones were doing everything in their power. The posts in local Facebook groups were their effort to generate new information and track a teen down after so many months without contact.

Yet a source told me that many of those posts were overlooked and some were even outright dismissed as spam. Not all of them, though. The growing public concern for a team, teen's well-being finally reached Washburn Police in March of 2023 and landed on the desk of Officer Hunter Balanco. Now, as the post from a teen's family indicates, Washburn police were already on the case long before that point. Records show that a teen's husband, Michael Shaw, filed a missing person's report in November of 2021. Whatever efforts Washburn PD made in the previous 16 months had not led to a teen, so Sergeant Chandler Cole assigned the case to Officer Balanco for a second look. The now former Officer Balancho posted a copy of her March

23 supplemental narrative to Facebook recently in August of 2025. I got to say in my experience, it is atypical for an officer to independently release a report by posting photos of it on social media, but Hunter says in her post accompanying the report that she did it because a teen's case keeps her up at night and she wants to see justice done. It details only a few of the early investigative steps, but it's also one of the only primary sources publicly available about a teen's case at this time.

So, according to that report, the last time a teen's family had any contact with her was in August and September of 2020. An article published in the Indonesian Lantern and translated to English gives more context to these last points of contact. A teen's sister Anita said that when she spoke to a teen in August, a teen told her she was planning to start looking for a job. She'd previously worked at a pizza place and she also did some cleaning, but the translated article indicates that a teen was bored and wanted to find something new. The following month, in early September of 2021, a teen talked to her mother and a sibling. It was a casual conversation, nothing out of the ordinary.

But that was the last known time a teen's family in Indonesia had any contact with her. Early September was also around the last time a teen posted on her private Facebook page. On September 7, 2021, a teen shared a link or a post that was unavailable by the time a friend took a screenshot of it? A loose translation of a teen's caption along with the post indicates that whatever the content was, it made her head hurt or it bothered her in some way. After that, a teen's family realized that her social media activity stopped, which was highly unusual. So they reached out to a teen's husband, Michael Shaw. According to a teen's family, Mike informed them he actually hadn't seen her for about a month at that point.

When they spoke to him again in October, he informed them that he'd reported her missing. However, when Officer Balancho checked this out, she saw that the missing person's report wasn't filed until a few weeks later in November of 2021. A teen's family and friends reached out to Mike several more times over the coming months for updates. According to certain family and friends, a teen's initial absence didn't seem to be all that concerning to Mike because it wasn't the first time she'd left home. A teen is originally from the Papua province of Indonesia,

and much of her family still lives in that region. According to a teen's own blog posts found on blogger, she met her future husband Michael Shaw in Indonesia around December of 2010 while Mike was on a work contract teaching math and science at an international school. A teen wrote in a blog post that it was love at first sight. They dated for just a few months, before Mike proposed, and they were married on March 23, 2011.

A teen had a son from a previous relationship when she met Mike, and he assumed a paternal role from the start. Over the next few years, a teen and Mike built a life and a family together. They welcomed their first child in 2012, with a second and third just a few years later. Public videos on a teen's Facebook page capture the first time Mike ever changed their son's diaper. A teen wrote in her blog, that Mike was a mature, responsible guy, a good teacher, and quote, a great papa for my son, end quote. When Mike's contract at the international school expired sometime around 2019, he, a teen, and the

children relocated out of the country to Myanmar. Although leaving Indonesia for the first time caused a teen some understandable anxiety, she took comfort in the fact that Myanmar was relatively close to Indonesia and had a similar culture. A teen's friend Beth told Nicholas Vignuela of Dateline NBC that a teen was simply grateful for the life she had, even if the change made her nervous. When COVID-19 struck Myanmar, the Shaw family decided to move to Maine. I've asked around, and I still haven't figured out why Mike and a teen chose Washburn Maine. Mike appears to be from New Jersey originally, and from what I can tell, none of his immediate family members live in Maine.

We know he got a job at a local school there for a short period of time, but whether that was a deciding factor to move to Maine or if they picked Maine first and the job came after, I can't be sure. Maybe it just sounded like a good place to ride out the pandemic. Mainers will be the first to tell you just how many folks from away flocked to the Pine Tree State in 2020. A teen's friend Beth said that before moving to Maine, a teen owned a salon that Mike helped build and she was proud to be a business owner. But after arriving in the United States, she struggled to find employment.

A source tells me that her visa status made things difficult. I have to imagine that moving to northern Maine at a time when everyone was stuck inside or at least six feet apart must have been incredibly isolating. The culture, the climate, everything is so different from what she knew. On top of that, family members have said in various media sources that a teen lived with known mental health challenges. A teen's cousin Zadia told Dateline NBC that a teen lived with bipolar disorder and sometimes she experienced mood shifts and angry outbursts. According to Zadia, it wasn't unusual for a teen to leave home after an outburst. Quote, she felt bad that she is always angry

with the boys, the kids, that she left home several times, end quote. But even when she left home in the past, she was still in contact and kept posting on social media, and she always came home when she was ready. Zadia said that Mike and a teen even had an agreement. If a teen was away from home for more than a month, Mike had to contact police because she had always come back after a month when she took some time away in the past. But this time was different. Here's what we know about the early investigative findings beyond the family's last contact. Officer Balancho states in her supplemental narrative that she spoke to Sergeant Chandler Cole, who was the first officer to look into the case, and according to Sergeant Cole,

Mike told him that a teen was working on a cruise ship, but Mike couldn't remember the name of the ship. A witness told investigators that in December of 2021, she showed up at a teen in Mike's home in Washburn to drop off some paperwork for an annual Christmas event in town. The witness said that she had already talked to Mike about dropping by, but he seemed confused as to why she was there when the kids let her in. According to the supplemental narrative, the house was messy with trash everywhere, and the flooring in the kitchen was just exposed plywood. She noticed a dark stain on the plywood. There is no further information about this stain or any follow-up that may have been done. During the course of the early investigation, the officer also learned that a teen's four

children attended elementary school in Washburn. The oldest child reportedly told his teacher that his mom went back to Indonesia. Two of the younger children apparently told teachers that their mother worked on a cruise ship, and that's why they can't talk to her. When asked about a teen possibly working on a cruise ship or being back in Indonesia, her family said that wasn't possible. Her passport hadn't left the United States as far as they were aware. There's a section of Hunter Balancho's report where she processes all the information she'd gathered up to that point. Quote, based on my training, education, and experience, I find this case to be odd, as if his wife were to be working on a cruise ship for almost three years now,

how could he not know the name of the ship? Is there a source of income to be provided? How does he keep in contact with her, end quote. In Maine, local police departments tend to handle their own missing persons investigations in most scenarios, unless there's a need for additional resources, or if the investigation points to foul play. Main State Police investigate all homicides in the state, except for those in Bangor and Portland. It had already been more than 16 months since a teen was last scene when Officer Balanso was assigned to the case, and the circumstances didn't sit right with her. So, she decided to call the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit. Main State Police Major Crimes Unit. Mainsstate Police Detective Chris Foxworthy confirmed with the Washburn

officer that Mike Shaw reported a teen missing in November of 2021 and said at the time that he hadn't seen his wife since September 8th of that year. Mike reported that a teen turned off her cell phone and also deactivated her social media accounts. Side note, that last bit doesn't seem to be entirely accurate. A quick check of Facebook today shows that a teen's profile is still searchable and several posts are public. Now, Officer Belial, Anso's report lists a few follow-up steps recommended by Detective Foxworthy, including calling Border Patrol and the Social Security Administration and contacting the Indonesian Embassy for an update on their investigation.

She writes, quote, Once we have more information, we will regroup and potentially interview Michael Shaw, end quote. According to an article published in the Bangor Daily News in February of 2025, Hunter tried to interview Mike Shaw. multiple times about a teen's disappearance, but she claims he repeatedly turned down her requests to talk. Meanwhile, Maine State Police quietly launched their own investigation of a teen's disappearance. Since then, they've said little about the efforts made to find her once Washburn PD called

them in. But whatever was happening behind the scenes in a teen's case led Maine State Police to finally search the Shaw home in early 2024. Several main state police troopers, evidence response technicians, and detectives rolled up to Mike's house in Washburn on February 13th and 14th, 2024 to conduct a search relative to the missing person's case. Police didn't release many new details about the case at the time of the search. However, they stated in a press release that the investigation so far did not indicate a teen was living somewhere else or that she had any alternate addresses. Maine State Police returned to the Shaw home in June of 2024 as a follow-up to the February search.

A state police spokesperson said they weren't searching for anything specific and there were no new updates to share with the public. There is considerable online discussion about this case for many reasons. There's outrage over such a delayed response in searching for a teen back in 2021 when her family first raised their concerns. There's frustration with the lack of transparency about what's happening in the case right now. And there's rumor and speculation that foul play is involved in her case and that someone close to a teen may have more information about her disappearance.

No one has been charged with any crimes relating to a teen's case at this point. Now, as far as I can tell, Mike Shaw has not given any public interviews since his wife disappeared. My attempts to reach him as part of my reporting for this episode were unsuccessful. He doesn't have a social media presence. And a source tells me his once active YouTube channel has since been deactivated or deleted. His side of the story comes from secondhand reports by people who say they reached out to him when they noticed something was up with a teen. When a teen's father contacted Mike early on,

Mike supposedly explained to his father-in-law that the night before, he less saw her, they had a conversation about a teen looking for work abroad. A translated excerpt from the Indonesian Lantern article reads, quote, however, Mike had prevented this, end quote. If the conversation became an argument or disagreement of any kind, it's not really clear from the existing source material, but the article states that Mike assured his father-in-law a teen was calm and in a better mood when she went to bed that night. Yet he also told a teen's father that she packed up some clothes in a suitcase. A teen's father said that Mike claimed he got home from shopping on September 8th, 2021, and a teen was gone. In July of 2023, a teen's father contacted Mike again

via WhatsApp. Mike responded in English, and there's a screenshot of a message in the Indonesian and Lantern article. There's nothing that conclusively identifies Mike as the person who sent the message, but a teen's father claims that's who wrote it. It says, quote, I'm sure she misses the boys. I know that when she goes away like this, it's partly because she doesn't want them to see her having her mental breakdown. She has said horrible things to them in her dark moments. Later, when she recovers from her anger, she remembers what she said to the boys and feels horribly guilty. She talked about how she wished they were old enough to understand, end quote. The Indonesian Lantern article reports that after that message, Mike allegedly told his father-in-law

that he suspected a teen was having an affair, and she was hiding the fact that she had children and a husband from this other person. I haven't encountered any sources, outside of Mike's own brother, who even hints at the possibility that a teen could have been involved with someone else. Like Mike himself, Mike's family members have stayed out of the public conversation, except for his brother Jeff. In April of 2024, a Facebook user named Jeff Shaw posted in the Where is a Teen Shaw Facebook group? Jeff wrote that he is a teen's brother-in-law, and he was extremely concerned about a teen. According to his post, he told Maine State Police that he heard a teen had an apartment in Bangor at one point. which is over 150 miles away from Washburn.

He also said he heard she supposedly had been active on one or more dating websites and that she might have gone horseback riding on the day her husband last saw her, but then adds that the horseback riding story might not be true. A concerned citizen named Kara took interest in a teen's case a few years ago, and she has led a strong, crowd-sourced investigation inside her Where is a Teen Shot Facebook group? She frequently posts in the group calling for information and encourages people to contact police with any details about a teen no matter how small.

She's in contact with some of a teen's family and friends and she has tried to suss out rumors she's heard on her own, including the detail about a teen having an apartment in Bangor. While no one has come forward with lease paperwork showing a teen did in fact rent an apartment there, it seems plausible that she did have somewhere to stay in that city at one point, because she was working at a pizza place there, and it was a considerable distance from home. On the topic of the Facebook group for a teen, I see citizen initiatives like this

happening again and again for New England cases, and specifically in Maine. If you've already listened to the other episode I released at the same time as this one, then you've heard about the team Stephanie group leading an awareness campaign for that missing person's case, too. an organized community effort might be one of the big reasons why a teen's case received renewed attention because as it eventually came to light, Washburn PD had some major issues within their ranks. In March of 2024, former Washburn Police Sergeant Chandler Cole was arrested for falsifying records in a separate missing person's case. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he was also the first officer to investigate

a teen's disappearance. Here's what went down in the other missing person's case that ultimately led to Chandler Cole's arrest. Brenda and Alan Foote last saw their son, 39-year-old Eric Foote, on January 29th, 2024. According to Paula Brewer's reporting for the Bangor Daily News, Eric suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression after serving with the U.S. Army in Korea and Iraq.

On January 30th, several 911 calls reported that Eric was walking down a road in Washburn in an apparent state of distress. Sergeant Chandler Cole responded to the 911 calls and picked Eric up. In his original report, Sergeant Cole wrote that he drove Eric to a convenience store several miles away in Preskeyele and dropped him off. Seven days later on February 6th, Brenda and Allen called Washburn PD concerned about their son. Eric wasn't answering any of their calls.

and his house was empty. Now, checking his records, Sergeant Cole informed the foots that he actually picked their son up on the night of January 30th and brought him to a hospital in Preskeyele. Eric's parents called the Presbyle Hospital trying to track their son down

only to find that Eric had never been admitted there. Brenda and Allen called Sergeant Cole back, and he doubled down and insisted he dropped Eric at the hospital. Meanwhile, Sergeant Cole was altering his original report about the night he encountered Eric to erase the part about the convenience store and instead reflect the story about the hospital. The changes to his report were tracked in an electronic reporting system used by Washburn PD. The interim police chief picked up on these discrepancies

and decided to launch an internal investigation with the help of a third-party private investigator. Court records show that someone using Sergeant Cole's credentials altered his original report of the night he picked Eric up. Security footage from the convenience store also confirmed that Sergeant Cole dropped Eric off there on the night he was last seen alive. Sergeant Cole did not cooperate with the investigation he refused to be interviewed, and just a few days later, he resigned from his position with Washburn PD. On March 29th, not long after his resignation, the Arristic County Sheriff's Office arrested Chandler Cole on charges of aggravated forgery, tampering with public records or information, falsifying physical evidence, and unsworn falsification. Just about a month after that arrest, on April 23, 2024, Eric's remains were found near the Euristic River in Caribou.

Caribou is about 15 miles away from Presbyle. An autopsy conducted by the medical examiner's office could not determine Eric's cause of death. There are still many unanswered questions in the case, but if you ask Eric's parents, their son would still be alive if he received the help he needed on the night Chandler Cole picked him up. In February of 2025, Chandler Cole pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of tampering with public records and unsworn falsification in exchange for dismissal of the aggravated forgery and falsifying physical evidence charges.

He was sentenced to 90 days suspended, plus a $500 fine for each charge, and $320 in surcharges, as well as a year of administrative release. Amidst all of that, the Washburn Police Department shut down in April of 2024. The closure reportedly had nothing to do with Chandler Cole's resignation and arrest, though staffing issues were cited as an issue after the chief stepped down. In June of 2024, the town voted to disband the department permanently, with law enforcement in the town now being handled by the Arrista County Sheriff's Office and Maine State Police.

There is no indication that Chandler Cole is under investigation as part of the Ateen Shaw missing person's case at this time, but his misconduct and crimes while wearing a badge certainly raises significant questions about his handling of the case early on. It might not have been out of character for a teen to leave home when she was struggling mentally and emotionally, and her family does not hold that against her. A teen's cousin Zadia told Dateline NBC, quote, I can understand if she leaves the house, not for herself, but maybe to save the kids away

from herself, end quote. But by all accounts, a teen. would not stay away this long. September 2025 marks four years since she was last seen. Her children were at the center of a teen's world, and her loved ones cannot fathom any scenario within a teen's control that would keep her from contacting the kids. Beyond Mike Shaw's reported comments about a teen packing a bag the night before he last saw her,

nothing points to a teen planning to leave for any extended period of time. In fact, there's a lot indicating a teen had every intention to stay in town. Screenshots of Facebook posts a teen made on her private page, shared with me by a source, show that on August 19th, 2021, just a few weeks before she disappeared, a teen was trying to find a gym with yoga or Zumba classes. The creator of the Where Is A Teen Shaw Facebook group learned through her own inquiries that a teen, in fact, purchased a punch card at a local. gym and used two or three of the ten classes before she disappeared.

It's at least one indication that a teen planned to stick around and be part of something in her new town for a while. But of course, it remains a possibility that if a teen was in crisis and left home like she had in the past, the decision could have been made quickly without a plan, forget the Zumba classes. Either way, a teen's loved ones are still certain that if she left on her own accord, and was living a new life somewhere, she would have contacted them by now. A teen's father passed away a few years ago after she disappeared. A teen never reached out. That alone is convincing enough for her family that something terrible could have happened to a teen. And they're still waiting for answers from half a world away.

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, a teen was 33 years old when she disappeared. She is four foot seven inches tall and 110 pounds with black hair and a noticeable birthmark at the top center of her nose. If you have any information relating to the disappearance of a teen shaw, please contact Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit North at 207-532-5400 or leave a tip via the form linked in the description of this episode. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at Darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Darkdowneast.

This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Darkdowne East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audio Check. I think Chuck would approve.