Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Daniel K. Wood Jr. (Maine)

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

MAINE COLD CASE, 1954: On July 22nd, 1954, Daniel K. Wood Jr. grabbed his fishing pole and set off on foot down Portland Road in Gray, Maine.Just ten minutes later, the phone rang at the Wood home. It was Danny. He told his mother he got a job with a door-to-door salesman. She warned him not to go off with strangers, but Danny simply replied, "I'll be home by dark." 12-year old Danny did not return.The search for answers in this enduring cold case continues nearly 70 years later. When a strange letter appeared in the mailboxes of two hundred Mainers in 2003, would it lead to answers, or only more questions?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/danielkwoodjrFollow @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.

On July 22, 1954, Daniel Wood Jr. grabbed his fishing pole and let the screen door slap shut behind him as he set off on foot down Portland Road in Gray. His best friend lived just a mile down the road. It wasn't a long walk or an unusual trip for him to make. His mother believed him when he said he was just headed off to go fishing with a pal. The Wood family home is still there today. It sits within view of Route 100, and though it is slightly obscured by trees, it's not far back from the street. There's just a short driveway between the house and the road that Danny was assumed to walk down, fishing gear in hand, headed towards the nearest body of water with fish willing to bite. Danny's mother was inside the house as he left, tending to her other children. She heard a car door slam and a car

drive off outside. It was a little odd maybe for that location, but she was quickly pulled from the thought and back to mothering. Ten minutes later, the phone on the wall of the Wood family home rang. It was Danny. I've got a job with a magazine salesman, he told her. I'm going to get 50 cents an hour. Danny excitedly explained that he'd met a door-to-door salesman, and he was going with him to Lewiston to make house calls. Lillian Wood paused and considered her son's announcement. He'd only left the house a few minutes ago, and now he was calling from a phone at a store all the way in Gray Center, about three miles away. He couldn't have made it there on foot that fast.

She thought back to that car door she heard slamming. Someone must have driven him there. Danny couldn't wait to get a job. It was all he talked about that summer. He was always pestering his mother and father for permission to earn his own spending money. At 12 years old, the employment opportunities weren't exactly plentiful. But bowing to their son's unrelenting requests, they told Danny that he could sign up for a job picking beans at a farm nearby in late August. It was early July. Patience for a 12-year-old boy was hard to come by. Daniel was such an ambitious boy, she thought to herself almost chuckling,

it must be some daydream of his that he found a job with a traveling salesman. But whether real or imagined, Lillian extended a warning to her son. The exact words change from source to source. But in effect, the mother told her young son, don't go out with strangers. You may not come back alive. To which Daniel replied before swiftly hanging up the call, I'll be back by dark. This is the main cold case of Daniel K. Wood Jr. There are many moments of Daniel K. Wood Jr.'s story that might make you gasp in disbelief,

or at the very least, furrow your brow in confusion. That phone call is just the first. I'm not a parent, but I was once the ambitious, enterprising 12-year-old kid of a mom in central Maine, and if I ever called her with my plans to begin selling magazines door-to-door in Lewiston with a man I didn't know, she'd probably have the FBI, game wardens, Detective Olivia Benson, literally everyone on my case before I ever crossed the Androscoggin River.

The 1950s were just a different time. The stranger danger phrase wasn't coined until the 1960s. And the true widespread panic due to the increase of kidnappings and murders of children didn't occur until the 80s. I'll save you the small-town cliches, but truly, Maine likely had that innocence of the era. Because who would hurt a kid? The 1950s were also known for permissive parenting, as it's called. Kids were given a great deal of trust. Trust in their judgment, their decision-making. 1950s parents also trusted that their children would follow any strict rules in place, and if they did, they were free to do whatever, whenever, with whoever they wished. But break those rules, like not making it home by curfew? Kids of the 50s could trust that punishment would be swift. That's why,

when 12-year-old Daniel K. Wood Jr. didn't return home by dark, when he didn't call to check in, he didn't walk through that same screen door at all that evening, the Wood family knew that something was off. Danny's mom called Gray Police to report her son missing. The search for Danny began almost immediately and turned into a town-wide endeavor. According to an article printed in the New York Daily News on July 26, 1954, over 100 people banded together, searching the farmland, fields, and forests surrounding the Wood family home and the friend's house where Danny said he was going that day. They were looking for a 110-pound, 4-foot, 6-inches-tall, blonde-haired boy with glasses,

last seen wearing faded dungarees, a battered felt hat, and a sweatshirt. It had been four days since Danny called his mother, telling her of his new job selling magazines. As police began to develop theories in search for leads, they wondered if Danny maybe ran away. But that storyline didn't fit the kid they knew. Danny was a very level-headed boy, his father told the Daily News. Quote, I know he wouldn't run away, and he'd be sure to let us know if he could. End quote. The best lead they had to go on at the beginning stages of the investigation was that telephone call made by Danny to his mother. There wasn't much in the way of investigative technology back in that time

period, but police were able to trace that phone call. It was made from Wilkinson's store in Gray Center. According to the employees working at Wilkinson's that day, July 22, 1954, Danny did come into the store. However, they told investigators that he wasn't carrying a fishing pole or any gear. More importantly, but somewhat frustratingly, they also said he wasn't with anyone. If he did get a ride to the store that afternoon, as suspected, his mystery chauffeur must have stayed in the car. The next and possibly last confirmed sighting, and you'll see why I have to emphasize confirmed in this case, was at a drugstore in the same area of town as Wilkinson's. A cashier working that day told police Danny came in and bought a newspaper. When his father heard this

detail, he was surprised and confused. Where would Danny get the money to buy a newspaper? Investigators interviewed family and friends and neighbors about Danny's disappearance. The little details pulled from each statement began to paint a darker picture of what might have happened to Danny Wood. A neighbor living near the Wood home named Ernest Verrill said he remembered seeing a man lurking near the house the same afternoon Danny went missing. The guy was about 50 years old with gray hair, 160 pounds, and dressed flashily, as Ernest said. He told the Daily News, quote, he didn't seem to be going any place special. When I walked past him, he gave me a dirty look and turned his head, end quote. Then the flashily dressed stranger got in his car and drove off. To Ernest's memory,

it was about noon-ish, the same time Daniel left to go fishing. Despite the massive support of the community, the literal boots-on-the-ground effort searching farmland and waterways and backyards, abandoned camps and densely wooded areas scoping every route from Gray to Lewiston, following the path that Danny might have taken both on foot or by car if he was truly on his way to Lewiston to sell magazines? Investigators had nothing. Cumberland County Sheriff Alan H. Jones told the Bangor Daily News, quote, we're still at a standstill. The ground might just as well have opened up and swallowed him, end quote. Mr. Wood told the Boston Globe, quote, one minute we think he may be lost and the next minute we feel he's been kidnapped.

One thing is certain, he must have been given a ride to the store. He couldn't have gotten there in any other way in 10 minutes. I wish that we could find the person who drove him to the store. End quote. Was it the same man that Ernest said he saw lurking near Danny's house? Was the car that drove him to the store the same one whose door slammed and sped off as Danny's mother turned back to her other children? The local police department, as well as the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department, handled the investigation in the beginning, and they were truly working every angle, interviewing anyone who might have information, even 12-year-old Donna Aberle. Donna was a classmate of Danny's. She told police she

saw him the day he went missing that Thursday, July 22nd. She said he was in a car with a man with a dark complexion, as well as a woman and two other children. They were parked near Dry Mill Schoolhouse. Police were wary of this sighting. She was just a kid herself. But Donna was confident. She even spoke to Danny. According to a Bangor Daily News article, Donna said that he hollered from the car window, hello Donna. When she asked where he was going, Danny didn't respond. Donna recalled seeing the man at the wheel fold up a map, start the car, and pull off down Poland Spring Road towards Poland Spring or Little Sebago Lake. The car, in Donna's recollection, was a maroon sedan with yellow plates. In 1954, main registration plates were white with raised black numbers,

though a dusty, dirty plate might have appeared yellow. So I did some digging on this. If it was truly a yellow plate, it could have been from Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, or Wisconsin, but that's only if the car was registered in 1954, and only if the car was registered in the U.S. Some state plates changed color from year to year, and as far as I can tell, main license plates were not yellow in the few years prior to 1954. But then there's Canada. Quebec's plates were not yellow in the few years prior to 1954. But then there's Canada. Quebec's plates were yellow in 1954.

If Donna knew exactly who and what she was seeing with total confidence, it's possible Danny had gotten into a car owned by someone from out of state, or even out of the country. Word of the case was spreading. The local search for Daniel K. Wood Jr. became an interstate hunt. Danny's mother waited by the phone, willing it to ring with good news, hoping that the next call would be from her son. Instead, it rang with questions from friends and family wondering if Danny had made it home yet. It rang with offers from neighbors and total strangers offering their

support, volunteering to search. Mrs. Wood was exhausted, but still she answered the next call. And this time, the caller had news. Your boy is alive and well, the voice said. According to an article published July 27, 1954 in the Bangor Daily News, the caller was a woman named Mrs. Elsie Bishop. She told Danny's mom that she saw him that very day, in Worcester, Massachusetts, with another boy. Immediately, Worcester-based detectives followed up with the reported sighting. But the boy was not Danny. It was another Maine preteen named Frederick Warren from Booth Bay Harbor, who happened to be their visiting family.

The following day, another reported sighting. This one, police told the Bangor Daily News, was promising. Three individuals living on Wood Street in Lewiston said they definitely saw Daniel Wood in their neighborhood trying to sell needles a few days prior, possibly the day or the day after he went missing. This reported sighting had two convincing aspects. Lewiston is where Danny claimed he was heading when he called his mother that day. And then there's the salesman detail. Although Danny mentioned magazines and the report was of a boy selling needles, it still fit his story of going door to door to earn some spending money. However, whatever confidence those Lewiston residents had in their own memories,

they did not bring any clarity to what happened next, where this young man who matched Danny's description might be heading after he peddled his wares in their homes, or who he might have been with at the time. And then another sighting, this time in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford Times had run a photo of Daniel Wood Jr. in the evening paper. A woman named Elvira Prosutti registered the boy's face in her mind as the same young man who had walked through her front door and tried to sell her magazines.

The boy she saw was wearing a very new-looking brown suit and was acting older than she assumed him to be. The boy also claimed to be from New York, but Alvira noted that he didn't have a New York accent. The boy left without making a sale. On Saturday, July 31st, 1954, nine days after he left home with a fishing pole in hand, nine days after the phone call to his mother, the search for Daniel K. Wood Jr. came to a heartbreaking close. Donald Hoyt and Earl Morse, two fishermen from Freeport, floated down the slow-moving waters of Little Androscoggin River.

Just ahead in the water was a strange and yet familiar shape. They directed their vessel closer, and there in the water was a strange and yet familiar shape. They directed their vessel closer, and there in the water, they realized with shock, was the badly decomposed, unclothed, and beaten body of a young boy. They swiftly motored to the banks of the river and maneuvered on foot to the nearest transmitting station. Gladstone Sawyer, the engineer inside, called the Auburn police. Investigators asked Danny's father to ID the body. He told them, quote, that's him. I can tell by the forehead and the haircut, end quote. Due to the nature and severity of the boy's wounds, identification was confirmed based on the boy's dental work. It was Daniel K. Wood Jr. A shoelace was knotted on one

wrist, and Danny's head was badly beaten. The county medical examiner, Dr. Paul R. Chevalier, discovered two fractures in Danny's skull, along with five other lacerations, indicating he was struck multiple times with a blunt object. With the shoelace and cuts on his wrists, it's assumed his hands were bound together at one point. His death was the result of what the medical examiner called a, quote, fiendish beating, end quote. The murder weapon was assumed to be a heavy stick with a knot at the end. The fact that he was found nude led officials to believe he may have been sexually assaulted. Based on the state of decomposition, his body was likely in the water for several days. Dr. Chevalier determined Daniel Wood Jr.'s date of death was July 23, 1954, just one day after he went missing.

Now, detectives, family, friends, the Gray and Auburn and almost the entire state of Maine community had a new search. They needed to find who did this to Danny. News of Danny's murder reached the farthest corners of the nation. Lima News in Ohio reported, Boy found slain, victim of maniac. An article in the Boston Globe written by Frank Mahoney published August 2nd. It begins, Auburn, Maine, fear that the sex maniac believed to have brutally murdered little Danny Wood,

12, of nearby Gray, might strike again, spurred a 60-man posse into action here today. Police Chief Alton E. Savage told the group of both civilian and law enforcement searchers, quote, this psychotic murderer must be captured before he can strike again. He then described Danny's killing as the most vicious murder ever committed in this state. End quote. Given the date of death determined by the autopsy, the supposed sightings of Danny were likely a case of mistaken identity. However, according to a Boston Globe article, a package of needles sold to a Lewiston resident by a boy matching Danny's description were sent to the state crime lab for testing. That lead dissolved on August 3, 1954, when the Bangor Daily News reported that the young needle salesman who had made his way from door to door in the Wood Street area of Lewiston was actually a boy named Raymond Turcotte,

not Danny. The riverbanks near where Daniel's body was discovered were roped off and searched for his clothes and glasses and other belongings. About 500 feet from the riverbanks, the search party discovered a pair of argyle socks. Danny's mom believed that they possibly belonged to her son, but she couldn't be sure. Also recovered at the scene was a handkerchief and four pairs of dungarees, but all of them were too big to be the ones that Danny wore on the day he disappeared. No other items belonging to Danny were found at the scene, at least not yet. One of the most significant discoveries of the initial search came from a nearby landowner who scoured his property near the river. The Bancor Daily News

reported that he found a two-and-a-half-foot-long stick, possibly the handle of a sledgehammer. It was lying in a field only 150 feet from the riverbank from where Danny's body was found. A sledgehammer would have been consistent with Danny's skull injuries. The handle was submitted to the state crime lab for testing, but as the newspaper reported, rain in the area made it difficult to determine if there was any blood, hair, or other evidence on that wooden handle. Investigators followed up on that possible sexual assault and conducted check-ins with known sex offenders. As reported by the Boston Globe on August 2, 1954, quote, a roundup of these former inmates of mental institutions and the state

prison will begin in the morning, end quote. Daniel Jr.'s family scheduled his funeral at the Wilson Funeral Home in Gray for the next day. However, the attorney general called for the immediate and indefinite postponement of that funeral. They needed to conduct further tests and studies, this time with the help of out-of-state experts. The Bangor Daily News reported on August 3, 1954, that those experts included a Harvard University medico-legal expert named Michael A. Luongo. After his examination and review of the autopsy report, he determined that there was, quote, nothing on the body to show that there was any sexual attack, end quote. It makes me wonder if today, if evidence, swabs, samples, if anything from Danny was cataloged or stored or archived, if we might be able to test it. I had to keep

swapping from research for the case to a deep dive search into crime scene and forensic practices of the era. It doesn't seem like incredibly long ago, but at the time of Danny's disappearance and murder, DNA was a brand new scientific concept. DNA was identified in the late 1800s, but it wasn't considered discovered, as in labeled and studied and defined, until 1953. If they happened to take samples that might contain DNA of the killer from Danny's body in hopes of future testing, testing that didn't exist at the time because DNA was only just discovered a year prior, I certainly didn't encounter any reports of it. As of 1954, DNA profiling would need 32 more years to advance to the point of using it to solve a crime.

By August 4th, with no significant headway made in the search for the monster who beat and killed a 12-year-old boy in this small Maine community? Attorney General Alexander A. LaFleur announced that Governor Burton M. Cross and the Executive Council authorized a $1,000 reward for, quote, any person or persons furnishing to the state of Maine information that will lead to the detection, arrest, apprehension, and conviction of the person or persons involved in the murder of Daniel Kenneth Wood Jr. End quote. A $1,000 reward in 1954 is just under $10,000 today. The search and survey of the area around Little Androscoggin continued until finally, neatly folded and buried beneath some rocks about three-quarters of a mile from where his body was found, investigators uncovered

most of Danny's clothes. And then, during a second search of the same area, the team found his glasses and belt tossed high up into a tree. Given the glasses and belt weren't discovered until the second search detectives hypothesized that the culprit returned to the scene and then tossed them into the trees. Was the suspect a local who knew the area? It was just the beginning of many working theories in the years following Daniel

Wood Jr.'s murder. 1,600 miles west of Auburn, in Sioux City, Iowa, Detective Chief Harry Gibbons had just detained the primary suspect in the sexual assault, beating, and decapitation of an eight-year-old local boy named Jimmy Bremmer. The chief recalled a news article that had made its way through Iowa papers just two months before, the story of a young boy in Maine disappearing with a supposed traveling salesman turning up dead a week later. His suspect in the Jimmy Bremmer case was a traveling salesman of sheet music. The similarities were too much to ignore. He called Auburn Police Chief Alton Savage. According to a piece in the Boston Globe published September 30, 1954, Savage gave Gibbons a list of questions to ask the suspect, and under polygraph, he answered. While the report was vague,

it did say that the suspect did not tell the truth or the entirety of what he knew about the killing of Jimmy Brummer. The suspect had been apprehended after he voluntarily checked himself into the Cherokee State Mental Health Institute requesting psychiatric treatment. Without traveling too deep into the case of Jimmy Bremer, and believe me I had to exercise considerable restraint in telling his whole story after I uncovered the full scope of the case, I'll tell you that the suspect was later identified as a man named Ernest J. Triplett. Ernest's neighbor reported him to police for suspicious activity that she remembered from the night Jimmy Bremmer disappeared. It turned out, according to the case summary via ForJustice.org, the suspicious activity was that he wasn't wearing any socks.

Ernest denied any connection to the case. He was held and interrogated for 34 days without access to a lawyer until, finally, he confessed. Ernest was convicted and sentenced based on that confession alone. No physical or circumstantial evidence or witness reports tied him to the murder of 8-year-old Jimmy Bremer. The most incriminating piece of evidence was Ernest's lack of socks. He served over 18 years in prison until it was revealed through multiple appeals and further investigation that Ernest was drugged with LSD stimulants and depressants in order to coerce a confession. He was ultimately exonerated and released from custody in 1972.

Although Ernest Triplett told police that he was in Rhode Island during the summer of 1954, close enough to drive to Maine, I find the theory of Ernest as a suspect in Daniel Wood Jr.'s death highly unlikely. If you're wondering, no other suspects have been named in Jimmy Brummer's case. One theory alleges that serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards might be responsible for Jimmy's murder. Three years later, in 1957, Auburn police questioned another out-of-state suspect. His name was Herman Barmore, but he was also known by his alias, Charles Fitcher. In the book Shattered Sense of Innocence by Richard C. Lindbergh and Gloria Jean Sykes, the authors describe Herman Barmore as a, quote, career criminal and child molester who spent 21 of his 44 years locked up in various New York state prisons, end quote.

In 1957, Herman was arrested and then tried and convicted of the murder of a 12-year-old Boy Scout named Peter Gorham from Evanston, Illinois. Peter had been raped and then shot. His skeletal remains were discovered in a field over a month later. I had a really hard time connecting anything between Daniel Wood Jr.'s case and the murder of Peter Gorham. There's nothing that sticks out to me as glaringly similar. They were the same age, their clothing was found scattered around the crime scene, but that's where the parallels stop for me. Danny was beaten. Peter was shot. Barmore was a nurse and a handyman,

not a traveling salesman. I couldn't uncover a single report of Herman Barmore or Charles Fitcher saying that he was in Maine or even nearby during the summer of 1954. Auburn Police Chief Alton Savage told the Lewiston Daily Sun, quote, but we know he was, end quote. Whether knowing was a matter of fact or a very strong, intuited feeling, I can't be sure by that statement. I'm just not seeing anything that

would have made him an obvious suspect, but at the time, police saw or knew something I certainly don't see now. Before he died of cancer in a Michigan prison in 1966, Herman Barmore told Savage, quote, anything that I know is going to the and New England, as well as nationally and internationally, I noticed something very strange. On August 1st, 1954, the date of many newspaper articles from Oregon to Nevada to California and beyond covering the discovery of Danny Wood's body in Little Androscoggin River, those articles about Danny were flanked by the report of another missing boy whose dismembered body was found in Montreal the very same day. Six-year-old Raymond Trudeau was

lured into the basement of 43-year-old Lucien Picard on July 27, 1954. Lucien was known about town as a strange man, often booze-soaked, who watched children on the playground. He had a very distinctive appearance, just 4'11 and a Charlie Chaplin mustache. Lucien strangled Raymond and dismembered his body before dropping boxes of his remains at a waterfront location in Montreal. He later told detectives he didn't remember any of it due to his drunken state. Lucien Picard was convicted and hanged on February 11, 1955. Remember what 12-year-old Donna saw the day that Danny disappeared? He was in that maroon car with a man, woman, and two other children.

And that maroon car had a yellow license plate. Quebec license plates, at the time, were yellow. The drive between Montreal and Grey, Maine is just about 4 hours and 45 minutes, so the timeline of Danny's murder really isn't too tight to completely exclude Lucien as a suspect. But then we have to consider that Lucien was a miserable drunk. Is it possible that he was coherent and able to drive from Maine after kidnapping and killing Daniel Wood on July 23rd back to his native Montreal to repeat the process with another young boy on July 27th? I mean, I guess it's not impossible, but whether it's likely is another

thing entirely. And then there's his recognizable stature. The man lurking near Danny's house on the day he disappeared was described by neighbors as about 160 pounds, but no one mentioned his height. Then again, we can't know for sure if the man the neighbor saw that day was even connected to Danny's case. And when Danny's schoolmate Donna saw him in the car with that man and woman and children that day, she would not have been able to tell how tall the driver might have been. Still, I found the details worth noting. Whether they're a coincidence or true connection, I could talk myself into either conclusion. In 1992, the Longstalled case received a jumpstart on the heels of an arrest of a prominent local restaurateur. Warren Cole was described by a piece in the LA Times as a pillar of the community. He was the founder of Cole Farms, a community favorite spot for

burgers and milkshakes. He was a friend of local law enforcement, and he was even apparently awarded an honorary sheriff's badge. No one knew that for decades, he was using that badge to keep his young victims quiet after molesting them at a cabin on his private island on Notched Pond. He wasn't arrested or charged until 1992, though his victimization of young boys occurred for decades before that. He admitted to molesting boys from Gray and Raymond and surrounding areas. Police pressed the details of Warren's crimes against Danny Wood's case, but they found no connection that would indicate Warren Cole was responsible for his murder. In the first few years immediately following Daniel's murder, police conducted over 900 interviews, followed up on dozens of leads, and zeroed in on possible suspects across the country, from Maine to California and everywhere in between.

But it would be nearly four decades before the ice-cold case of Daniel Kenneth Wood Jr. suddenly, shockingly, experienced a thaw. In the winter of 2003, nearly 200 Maine lawmakers, residents of Gray, Maine, and the Wood family opened their mailboxes to find a letter from a man named Ronald Ridge. It was written partially in rhyme. The strange letter called into question the competency of Maine police in their investigation of Daniel Wood Jr.'s murder, and then the letter pointed a finger at a suspect. A man who once lived and worked on Route 100, near the Wood home. A man who molested the author of the letter as a child. A man whose name was not made public. The letter read in part, quote, I know the experience I went through. I know exactly how scared Danny K. Wood was when

it happened. I just feel this guy should be brought in for questioning, end quote. The author was apparently unaware that the man he accused in the letter had died within the last decade. While the high-level details of the letter's contents were disclosed to the media, the full text was not released. The letter became the catalyst, though, for renewed attention on the investigation. As reported by the Portland Press-Herald, Maine State Police assigned a detective to review the decades-old case, and that was the first time the Maine State Police looked into it. If you can believe it, the case files remained with the Auburn Police Department for all those years. Because in the 50s, local departments did their own murder investigations. The state wasn't called in.

Despite the high-profile national coverage of the case in the 50s, Maine State Police Lieutenant Brian McDonough told the Press-Herald in 2003, quote, we didn't have any knowledge of this case until the letters started coming in, end quote. With a half a century of DNA advancement, maybe it was possible to test any evidence for DNA. Maybe what was invisible on that broken tool handle would be revealed through advanced forensic science. Maybe something on his clothes. Maybe some evidence recovered on the scene that hasn't been reported publicly. Maybe an answer in Danny's murder was possible, even after all this time. But whatever came of that letter, if anything new was discovered as a result of the case reopening, I don't know at this point.

2003 was the last time any coverage of Daniel's case made it into news archives. Whether or not that letter from Ronald Ridge was even legitimate, I'm not sure. I have an email out to the last known detective on the case. If and when I'm able to update you on this story, I will. There's one detail of this case that deserves mention, although I'm not even really sure where it fits into the timeline and circumstances of Danny Wood's murder. It almost seemed like a throwaway detail, but I can't stop mulling it over in my brain. In a 2003 article by the Portland Press-Herald, the same one that reported on the strange, rhyming letter from Ronald Ridge,

there are several quotes pulled from conversations with Danny's surviving siblings. The author spoke with Carol Wood Durgan, Danny's sister. Carol was just 14 when he disappeared. Pulling directly from that piece written by David Hench, it said, At one point during the investigation, authorities confiscated her mother's dress for testing, and her parents were given a lie detector test on a new polygraph machine that Auburn police had acquired just for this investigation. The mother's dress was tested, but what for? The parents took a polygraph, but what were the results? Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just routine. And maybe nothing came of either of the dress or the test.

No other report or archived article I encountered mentioned these components of the investigation. In the newspaper coverage of this case from 1954, in Maine publications and across the country, Daniel K. Wood Jr.'s parents are described a few ways. Grief-stricken, quite shaken up, but Carol painted the full scope of the impact that Daniel's murder had on their family. She told the Press Herald, quote, my parents aged so much, you could almost see the life drain out of their bodies, end quote. They didn't speak about Daniel's death very often. Mrs. Lillian Wood died nine years after her son was murdered. Daniel Sr. died in 1996,

before the letters were mailed, before the cases reopened, before knowing what happened to his namesake son. Daniel K. Wood Jr. remains on the Maine State Police unsolved homicide list. Just three sentences summarize the details of his murder. The listings in this database are typically accompanied by a photo, but Danny's page is empty. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. All sources for this case and others are listed in the show notes at darkdowneast.com so you can dig into the research and learn more.

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