Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Marilyn Lehan (Maine)

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

It wasn’t unusual for months or even years to pass without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family, but when her brother decided to make a spontaneous visit to Marilyn’s home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don’t make sense to her family, and at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive.Marilyn Lehan would be 70 years old today. If you have information relating to her disappearance, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - North at [phone] or toll free at 1-800-432-7381. You can also leave a tip by visiting the link here. View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/marilynlehan Dark 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

It wasn't unusual for months or even years to pass without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family. But when her brother decided to make a spontaneous trip to visit Marilyn's home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don't make sense to her family, and at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Marilyn Lehan on Dark Down East.

It was August 2012, and Pat Lehan had already put thousands of miles on his motorcycle as he crossed the border into Maine. He was on a long-haul international trip with a group of friends, starting in Colorado and reaching as far east as Newfoundland, Canada before looping back west again. But as Pat turned on to Route 1 in Calais, Maine and ventured south, he was solo. He'd split off from the larger group to pay his sister and her husband a surprise visit. The last Pat heard from his younger sister, Marilyn Lehan, she was living in the town

of Eastport, about as down east as you can get. Pat followed his map towards Clark Street and his sister's sprawling oceanfront property on Harris Cove. The house was set back from the road down a long gravel driveway. The tires on Pat's motorcycle kicked up some dust as he coasted towards the shingled cottage. He was looking forward to catching up with Marilyn. It had been years since they last talked. Pat rapped on the front door and waited. A few moments passed and he knocked again, but no one answered. Glancing back towards Clark Street, Pat decided to check in with the next door neighbors,

reasoning that they might have an idea when Marilyn would return. The conversation that came next was more than Pat had bargained for. You know, I wasn't expecting this, but I sat down and had a long, probably a two-hour conversation with them in their kitchen, and I was just astounded. According to the next-door neighbors, who will call by the fake surname the Marsden's, Marilyn wasn't going to answer the door at the house on Clark Street. She hadn't lived there for years. Her husband was gone too.

The house had new owners and where Marilyn went next, they really couldn't be sure. That was kind of a really tough experience because I thought I was going to be able to meet up with them and everything would be hunky-dory and things were okay, but they gave a lot of information that they thought was suspicious. It raised a red flag in our minds, or in my mind, you know, that something must be wrong. Marilyn Lehan was the youngest of four children. She and her three brothers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska in the 50s and 60s. She went to Catholic schools up through her senior year, except for a brief period when

she tried out public school. Pat remembered Marilyn getting overwhelmed with how big the school was, so she eventually returned to her former high school, where she graduated among the top of her class. She earned an academic scholarship to Seattle University in Washington. According to the 1977 commencement program for Seattle University, Marilyn graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. At some point during her years on campus, Marilyn started dating a fellow Seattle U student.

I'm going to call him by the fake name David. As of 1975, Marilyn and David were both sophomores at the university. But I don't see his name among the students Marilyn graduated with in 1977 or in the commencement program for the following year. In any event, Marilyn and David got married in August of 1977. At least one of the witnesses listed on their marriage certificate was also a student in Marilyn's class at Seattle U. Pat isn't sure if they had a big wedding or if it was just a small affair with a few friends, but they were fairly young, just 21 and 22,

and by his assessment, probably didn't have much money for a ceremony and reception. Marilyn and David's lifestyle could be described as somewhat nomadic. They left Seattle and moved to New York and then Pennsylvania. They lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Bodega Bay, California, spent some time in Marilyn's hometown of Omaha before returning to Seattle. They also lived in Montana for a time. In each new locale, David set up shop as a carpenter and ran his own construction business,

while Marilyn did the bookkeeping for him. As Pat explained, Marilyn and David really didn't keep in great contact with family. At one point, Pat and his wife relocated to Washington state and lived just across Puget Sound from where his sister and brother-in-law lived. It would have only been a short ferry ride away and yet they rarely saw each other, if ever. They were six years apart and their lives were on different paths, and going long stretches of time without hearing from Marilyn was just the norm. They'd send Christmas cards to each other around the holidays

and have the occasional visit, but they really lived separate lives. There was a time, though, that Marilyn turned to Pat and his wife when things with David were rocky. Sometime around 1988 or 1989, Marilyn and David separated, or at least they were spending some intentional time apart. At the time, Pat was traveling a lot for work and his wife was home with their three young children, so Marilyn moved into their home. Why Marilyn and David separated, Pat isn't sure, but they eventually reconciled and moved off to another state together. Pat's next memorable visit with his sister was in 2001, after their mother passed away.

Pat had plans to finish the basement at his house into a family room, somewhere the kids could turn up the stereo and not bother the grownups. So David offered his construction expertise for the job, and Marilyn came along too. Pat's wife and his kids were on a trip to Italy, so it was just Pat and his sister and brother-in-law plugging away on the basement project. We just had a great time. They were here for almost a month. And then right before they left and the kids came back and Marilyn, of course, during this time, the cat, her cat and her African gray parrot, Emmett, were here. And

so the kids were really entertained with that. One thing Pat can say about his sister with total confidence is that she loved her pets. She had dogs and cats throughout her life, but perhaps the most unique of her menagerie was her beloved African gray parrot named Emmett. You can see a photo of Emmett perched on Marilyn's shoulder at darkdowneast.com. It was taken in 1996. Emmett had been part of the family for years. The same year that Marilyn and David helped renovate Pat's basement, Marilyn bought the house on Clark Street in Eastport, Maine. She used part of the six-figure inheritance from her mother's estate to put $30,000

down. The Eastport property was and is a beautiful place right on the water. At the time Marilyn owned it, the parcel was around 14 acres with access rights to the beach along the bay. She seemed to embrace the saltwater lifestyle. In the summer of 2002, Pat's teenage son flew out to Maine to visit his aunt Marilyn and Uncle David. A blurry photo shows Marilyn and her nephew on a large sailboat. She's wearing a yellow rain jacket, not unlike the wet weather gear donned by lobster fishermen. The nephew had said that everything was normal and there was nothing remarkable about Marilyn and David during that trip.

That visit by Pat's son was the last time anyone in Marilyn's family saw her in person. They had other contact with Marilyn after that, at least one documented instance in 2003. According to Marilyn's family, David was experiencing some health struggles around that time. Maybe melanoma, maybe a burst appendix, their recollections vary. But it's believed that neither Marilyn nor David had health insurance, and so they started to get into some debt from medical bills and the financial strain grew from there. Marilyn borrowed some money from another one of her brothers, a little over $3,000 in February of 2003. The check was made out to both Marilyn and her husband, and it was deposited on March 5, 2003. Both Marilyn and her husband endorsed the check.

That's really the last time they can trace that Marilyn was alive and well and living in East Port, Maine. Pat fell into the rhythm of his own life and years went by without hearing from his sister. Again, it was just normal to go long stretches of time without talking to or seeing Marilyn. That was their dynamic. When the holidays rolled around in 2008 and 2009, the Lehans went about their annual tradition of sending family Christmas cards. Both years, they dropped one in the mail, stamped and addressed to Marilyn Lehan at her Clark Street address in Eastport, Maine. My wife sent them a Christmas card and never heard back from them. We did not receive one back and I

think that's what started it. And then the next year we sent the card, and it came back undeliverable. Yes, that's what kind of set off the alarm. Between the 2008 and 2009 Christmas cards, Marilyn's other brother tried to track her down. He called David's parents to see if they'd heard or seen Marilyn recently. David's mother said that as far as she knew, Marilyn left David several years ago. It was supposed to be a temporary split or so she thought, but Marilyn never came back and she had no idea where she was now.

David's mother didn't want to give out David's contact information, but Pat tried a few numbers and was able to track David down in California where he was caring for his ailing father. As Pat remembers it, David was very brief on the phone and not friendly. He mentioned he had a new girlfriend and hadn't heard from Marilyn since she left. Pat and his brothers were stuck, and yet time kept flying by. Then it was suddenly 2012, and Pat was in Maine, standing at what he thought was his sister's house, waiting for someone to answer the door only to learn from the neighbors that his sister didn't live there anymore. The Marsden's told Pat that they sold Marilyn the house on Clark Street, and they still

lived next door. They remembered both Marilyn and David being friendly neighbors, though there were a few instances where they sensed some conflict. The Marsden's explained how they'd asked David if he wouldn't mind cutting down a few instances where they sensed some conflict. The Marston's explained how they'd asked David if he wouldn't mind cutting down a few trees on his and Marilyn's property so that they might have a better view of the water. David apparently agreed, and Marilyn wasn't happy about it.

She liked to exercise outside, and those particular trees provided privacy. She didn't want her neighbors to be able to see into her yard. As the conversation continued, the Marston's recounted one night when they'd returned from a vacation and decided to go say hi to David and Marilyn. When they encountered David, they claimed that he was burning a lot of papers in the fireplace and he seemed stressed out and agitated. He wasn't his usual friendly self. The whole interaction stuck out in their minds, even years later.

And then one day, Marilyn was just gone. It never seemed right to the Marsden's. Although they didn't visit their neighbors too often, they knew Marilyn was devoted to her pets, especially Emmett the Parrot, and yet she apparently left him behind. They didn't see her again. One of the next times the Marsden's saw David, he was packing up their personal belongings. He gave Mrs. Marsden a quilt, one Pat believes was made by his mother, and told her that Marilyn wanted her to have it. Then he loaded up the car with the cat and the parrot and left. Pat's head was spinning with the information.

He left the Marsden's home and made one more stop but another house across the street. And while the neighbors remembered Marilyn and her husband, they didn't have any helpful information as to where his sister may have gone. That afternoon, Pat linked back up with his motorcycle group at a hotel. That's when I sat down, I borrowed a spiral notebook from the hotel manager and just sat down for the whole night and wrote down what I could remember of the conversation. All of the information I've shared, and there's more to come, is drawn directly from Pat's original notes of his conversation with the Marsden's that day in August of 2012.

I've tried calling the last known numbers for Maryland's former neighbors, but couldn't reach anyone to verify these details or ask any clarifying questions. The Marsden's would be in their late 80s or early 90s today, and as you'll hear, they haven't had anything new to add since their original conversation with Pat. Over the course of his conversation with the Marsden's, Pat learned that Marilyn had defaulted on the mortgage she took out to purchase the Clark Street house.

Washington County Registry of Deeds records show that she was also behind on property tax payments. The tax bill issued on July 16, 2003 was unpaid, and a tax lien was placed on the property as of May 2004. The bank started foreclosure proceedings in September of 2004. It eventually went to public auction in February of 2005. A couple we'll call the Bouchards bought it, so Pat called them to ask about his sister. The Bouchards told Pat that they had since sold Maryland's house, but when they took possession of

it in 2005, many of David and Maryland's personal belongings were still inside. According to the Bouchards, David had left and then returned some time later and sold some of the items to them for a few thousand dollars. One of the things the Bichards felt was worth mentioning was that there weren't any towels in the house when they took possession of it, and one wall looked like it had been repainted. They said that the deck was in disrepair, which seemed odd to them knowing that David was a carpenter. Not only that, I guess the Bichards lived nearby prior to buying Marilyn's house, and David had actually built them a brand new deck at

their other home free of labor costs. I can't decide if this deck thing has any meaning. If Marilyn and David were struggling financially, you'd think David would charge for his labor, sure, but it also makes sense that David wouldn't put any money into fixing up his own deck if money was tight. Again, it was just something the Bouchards thought was worth mentioning. But what really caught Pat's attention was what the Bouchards told him next. They said that when they asked David about Marilyn, he told him something about dropping her off

to catch the bus where Route 1 met 190, north of Eastport, for a retreat. That wasn't the only exchange David and the Bouchards had about Marilyn. Mrs. Bouchard corresponded with David via email just hours after they'd closed on the house. She forwarded it to Pat. In Mrs. Bichard's email to David in March of 2005, she wrote that she and her husband were officially the new owners of Marilyn's Clark Street house. She then went on to say she assumes that he and

Marilyn have reunited in California, where David had since moved. She wanted David to ask Marilyn if there was anything else left at the house she wanted because they still had many of her personal belongings and they were willing to mail them to her. Mrs. Bichard closed the email wishing David well and said she was hoping to hear that he and Marilyn were together once again. David responded to her email on March 11, 2005, and told her that he heard from Marilyn

and she was happy that the Bouchards got the house, but that she wouldn't be coming home. According to David, Marilyn had been secretly planning to leave him for weeks before she actually did, and her reasons were based on her belief that she was wrecking his life, even though he assured Marilyn that this was not the case. David asked for prayers, for Marilyn and for him. He signed it with both of their names. A bus stop, a retreat, a secret plan to leave, and she wasn't coming home? What in the world was going on with Marilyn Leigh-Han?

And where was she now? Pat's conversations with the Bouchards and the Marsden's bounced around his head as he made his way back to Colorado. He got his two brothers up to speed upon his return, sharing notes and emails and all the details he was able to gather, however nebulous. Marilyn's brothers spent the next few months trying to track their sister down and tried to get more information from their brother-in-law,

but they kept coming up empty-handed. By the summer of 2013, they turned to police for help and reported Marilyn missing. Pat and his brothers had compiled a summary of Marilyn and her husband's relationship to police for help and reported Marilyn missing. Pat and his brothers had compiled a summary of Marilyn and her husband's relationship, along with notes on everything they'd learned from neighbors and other family members and friends of Marilyn and David's, and sent it to Washington County Dispatch and Eastport Police Officer Thomas Fredette as early as May 20th, 2013. Now the Eastport Police Department is a

small operation, like single digits small, and Officer for Debt was reportedly a reserve officer so he didn't have a set schedule, but he called Maryland's brother back the same day. The officer said that he started trying to contact the people listed in the summary provided by the family but hadn't gotten through to anyone so he planned to pick it up the following day. At the same time, Marilyn's family had hired a private investigator to conduct their own search for Marilyn. On June 3, 2013, the PI followed up with Eastport PD on behalf of the Lehan family and learned

that Officer Ferdette recently left for a two and a half week military deployment. According to the other officer the PI spoke to, Officer Ferdette did not share any details about Marilyn's case with anyone before leaving, and the officer wasn't sure where the case stood. With the Eastport PD investigation at a standstill, Marilyn's brothers kept up their own efforts to learn more about the circumstances of their sister's disappearance. After a few days of phone tag, one of Maryland's brothers successfully got Maryland's husband on the phone.

On June 10, 2013, Maryland's brother spoke to David on the phone. After initial hellos and how-are-yous, David asked if he'd heard from Marilyn. Marilyn's brother said no, and that's why he was calling. When Marilyn's brother asked David about the last time he saw Marilyn, David said he thought it was around August of 2005. David explained that when he and Marilyn first parted, she was headed to Montana to check out a Pius X group there. He thought that she would eventually join him in California to help take care of his ailing parents, but that didn't happen. David said that he last

saw her when she came down to California to see his parents, and she told him then that she'd be staying in Montana with the Pius X Movement. She was with a woman whose name he didn't know. Marilyn's brother said he thought the last time David saw her was in Maine when she left for a retreat. David reiterated that the last time he saw her

was when Marilyn visited his parents in California around August of 2005. Before hanging up the call, David said that Marilyn's brother could call him anytime. Now they didn't get into it during the call, but the topic of the Pius X group or movement David referenced became a topic of discussion among Marilyn's brothers. They didn't know for sure, but it's believed that David was referencing

the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX. Depending on the source, SSPX is either a controversial offshoot of the Catholic Church named after an ultra-conservative pope from the early 1900s, or a misunderstood offshoot of the Catholic Church. According to the SSPX website, the Society was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970.

He was disappointed by changes at the Vatican and formed the Society of St. Pius X to maintain tradition. In the same vein as the Society's namesake, Archbishop Lefebvre strongly opposed several contemporary developments within the Catholic Church, including ecumenism, aka the view that all religions are beneficial and valid. He also rejected modernism, which is a movement that encouraged the interpretation of Catholic teachings through the lens of modern culture. Depending on where you look on the internet, SSPX has been referred to as a quote-unquote

cult. In a FAQ section on the official dot org website, SSPX addresses the question, is the SSPX a cult? The answer is, in part, quote, we are simply Roman Catholics who are continuing to follow the unchanging faith of two thousand years, as expressed in tradition, end quote. So to summarize, the Pius X group that David said Marilyn went to join in Montana is a conservative religious group not fully recognized by the Catholic Church,

but founded on some of its traditional beliefs. This didn't align with what Marilyn's brothers knew about their sister. Sure, she went to Catholic schools all the way up through university. Newspaper reports indicate that Marilyn was active at a church in Maine too. But it didn't make sense to Pat and his brothers that Marilyn was active at a church in Maine, too. But it didn't make sense to Pat and his brothers that Marilyn would have joined a group with

such conservative views. Then again, who knows? It had been so long since they had a close relationship with Marilyn. Maybe she did leave for Montana for religious exploration and never turned back. It was on the list of questions they wanted answered. A few weeks after the phone call with David, the PI hired by Maryland's brothers again followed up with eSport PD and encouraged the department

to run a search on Maryland's social security number, and the department indicated they'd do so. The PI then checked with a local bank in an attempt to learn the dates of the most recent activity on Maryland's account, but the security director of the bank wasn't able to provide that information. The PI also contacted three bus companies that had serviced the Eastport area in 2004, and he learned that they didn't keep any passenger records, so he wasn't going to be able to verify if Marilyn had taken a bus somewhere, as David said.

The private investigator talked to the Marsden's and the Bouchard's, too, but didn't learn anything new from what they'd already told Pat the summer before. The following month, August of 2013, Eastport Police Chief Mark Emery was assisting on Marilyn's case. A social security trace had been completed, but unfortunately it wasn't helpful. The last known activity on her social security number dated back decades to when she was a librarian in Montana. The Eastport PD had taken their investigation into Marilyn's disappearance as far as they could with the resources available to the small local department. The Eastport police chief reached out to Maine State Police, and by November of 2013, Maine

State Police Major Crimes Unit North stepped in. By spring the following year, state police troopers were putting boots on the ground in search of Marilyn. According to reporting by Laura Whelan for the Quoddy Tides newspaper. On May 21, 2014, officers from Eastport Police and Main State Police arrived at Maryland's former property in Eastport with canine units and members of the evidence response team. The team searched the 14-acre property that afternoon and again the following morning. After eight cumulative hours of searching with the canine units, the dogs were pulled from the scene and police packed up. They didn't find anything relating to Marilyn's disappearance, but didn't necessarily expect

to. Given it was her last known residence, Main State Police said it was just a logical place to start. Lieutenant Christopher Coleman said, quote, we need to rule it out as a possible location. It's one of several steps to take. It's still a very open, active missing person investigation." He continued, "...we really need the public's help. We don't have a lot of information about how she spent her days."

The next development wasn't until 2021. That's when one of Maryland's brothers submitted a DNA sample to be put on file with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons system. A 2022 follow-up with the detective assigned to Maryland's case at the time, Detective Jason Fowler, indicated that there were no hits in NamUs. However, Detective Fowler said there was a tentative plan to conduct an extensive search inside Maryland's former Eastport home and garage during the summer of 2022. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet.

Detective Fowler later cited numerous other active and cold cases, which had directed time and effort elsewhere. The interior of Maryland's home remains a question mark for the Lee-Han family. They have never seen inside the home themselves. The Bouchards, who bought Marilyn's house, had told Pat that one wall inside the house looked like it had been repainted, but that's about all the information the Lee-Han family has about the interior at this point. A victim advocate with the Maine Attorney General's Office contacted one of Maryland's

brothers in the spring of 2024 and said that she'd follow up with him when she had more information about the status of the case. The Lehans have not heard from the AG's office since. I reached out to Detective Fowler and Major Crimes Unit North in hopes of discussing Maryland's case but have not heard back as of this episode's original recording date. Marilyn's case is riddled with unknowns. The investigation began years after she was last seen, and so far, there isn't anything concrete to indicate the most likely scenario behind her disappearance.

What about Montana? Records indicate that Marilyn and David lived there at some point before moving to Maine, scenario behind her disappearance. What about Montana? Records indicate that Marilyn and David lived there at some point before moving to Maine. So did she go back to Montana and link up with the Society of St. Pius X? That's what David said happened, but is there any evidence of it?

I asked a private investigator contact of mine if Marilyn's name shows up in any database searches he has access to. The results were interesting. A person with the name Marilyn J. Lehan and the same birth date as the Marilyn we're talking about appears to have a last known address in Whitefish, Montana as of July, 2016.

The database also served up a few names of likely associates, primarily in Montana. Now these database results are notoriously imperfect, so I called a few of the numbers listed for likely associates. Most people didn't answer. Those who did hung up after I asked who I was speaking with. The SSPX website lists an associated chapel in Kalispell, Montana, which also happens to be a town

listed among Maryland's previous addresses. So I gave the church a call. The church coordinator picked up and I introduced myself and explained I was looking for a person named Marilyn Lehan who may have been a member of the church at one time, possibly in the early 2000s. He didn't recognize the name, but said that it was before his time, so he'd ask around.

As of this episode's original recording date, I haven't heard back from the church coordinator. Okay, so say Marilyn didn't really set off to Montana to join a religious organization. What if she never left Maine? During Pat's conversation with the Marsden's that day in August of 2012, Mr. Marsden made a comment that stuck out to Pat. When Mr. Marsden was a kid, his father died of accidental drowning off Chocolate Cove in Deer Island, New Brunswick, just across the bay from Eastport in Harris Cove, where Maryland's house was. The water between Maine's coast and Canada's has tides of 12 to 20 feet.

That means between high tide and low tide, the water level drops and rises between 12 and 20 feet. Water moves fast and things, people, can easily get swept out to sea. As Mr. Marsden said to Pat, nothing can be saved or found. Nothing indicates that Marilyn ended up in the water or anywhere else in Maine. It remains a possibility, one that cannot yet be ruled out. There's something else I can't stop thinking about, and it's a little wild, but just stay with me for a minute. Maryland's beloved bird, Emmett, was an African Grey Parrot.

According to the African Grey Parrot Handbook, these extremely intelligent birds are known for their legendary talking ability. The average lifespan for the breed when kept in captivity is anywhere from 30 to 80 years with proper care and diet. As the handbook describes it, it's like having a three-year-old living in your house forever. An African Grey Parrot made true-crime headlines in 2016 when officers responded to the scene of what first appeared to be a double murder. According to a Detroit news article by Francis X. Donnelly, in May of 2015, EMTs found 46-year-old Marty Durham and his wife, 48-year-old Glenna Durham, unresponsive in their West Michigan home, the victims of apparent gunshot wounds. When Michigan state police arrived an hour later, they thought Glenna might still be

alive. When an officer crouched down to check her pulse, her eyes opened. Glenna recovered. For almost a year, her husband's murder went unsolved. Throughout the investigation, friends and family of the Durhams insisted that police talk to Bud, Marty's African gray parrot. Family members said that Bud was incredibly smart and may be able to tell police what happened.

The parrot had since been rehomed with Marty's ex-wife who owned the parrot with Marty before they divorced. About a month after the murder, Bud started talking. It sounded like he was reenacting an argument between two people. Bud's new owner recorded a video of the bird's chatter. Shut up, the bird said. Quote, get your ass over here. Don't shoot, end quote. Bud changed his tone of voice between lines apparently reflecting two different people. It was unsettling,

but Bud's owner wasn't sure what to make of it. A year later, in May of 2016, she decided to share the video of Bud talking with a news reporter. The video aired on W-O-O-D TV and the story caught fire. People around the world were talking about the bird who supposedly witnessed a murder. Glenna was world were talking about the bird who supposedly witnessed a murder.

Glenna was arrested three weeks later. Police deny that the bird's words had clinched the case, but the prosecution actually considered calling Bud as a witness. Ultimately, that did not happen. Glenna was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Among the evidence against her were letters discovered in their home that suggested she shot her husband and then turned the gun on herself. In 2010, another parrot in South Carolina apparently mimicked an interaction between a 98-year-old woman and her daughter. According to Findlaw, the bird kept repeating the words,

Help me, help me, and then laughed. Police believed they were the mimicked pleas of a woman suffering abuse. The woman's daughter was later charged with abuse and neglect, resulting in the death of a vulnerable adult. I asked Pat if Emmett could talk. He could say, you know, short sentences like, where are you? Stuff like that. Marilyn and David had Emmett as early as 1996 and he was reportedly still alive sometime between 2002 and 2005 when the Marsden's last saw David load up a car and drive off with the parrot.

It's possible that Emmett is still alive today, though it's not clear where he ended up. Say he is still alive. Studies and anecdotal evidence show that African greys have impressive long-term memory. If Emmett saw something, would he still remember it? Would he be able to remember his owner Marilyn and any interactions that preceded her disappearance? Could he be an unlikely witness to whatever happened before Marilyn went missing? I know it's wild, but with a case like this being merely cold from the get go,

don't we need to ask every question, no matter how wild it may sound? I think a more obvious question to ask is whether Marilyn's husband might have more information than what he has previously disclosed to her family and former neighbors. It's interesting to note that David filed for divorce from Marilyn in 2016. According to court records, the summons on the dissolution of marriage petition was served by publication. What that means is Marilyn needed to respond to David's divorce filing, but she could

not be located to respond to the summons in person, so David was allowed to publish the notice in a newspaper that Marilyn was most likely to see, which would typically be a newspaper that circulates in the area of her last known address. Now I'm still waiting on documents from the courthouse, but I am so eager to see where exactly the notice was published. Was it Maine? Montana? California?

Wherever the notice was published, as of April 2017, Marilyn hadn't responded, so David filed a default or uncontested judgment. The first proposed judgment was rejected, and a new proposed judgment was filed in June of that year. The divorce was granted that same month, so as of 2017, Marilyn and David are officially divorced. And while we're speaking of court filings and service by publication, when Marilyn's eSport house was in foreclosure, the bank also used service by publication as they were

unable to locate Marilyn to serve her in person. Three separate notices of the foreclosure proceedings were published in the Bangor Daily News in July of 2004. A district court filing states that Marilyn did not plead, appear, or otherwise defend the foreclosure action and so the case moved forward. Interestingly, those same district court records give a P.O. box address for Marilyn in California. So if Marilyn had a post office box there, did she actually live in California in 2004? If that's the case, why didn't David say so?

Naturally, I don't know every or any detail David has disclosed to police since the investigation began. In the very limited previous reporting about Marilyn's case, it's noted that her husband was cooperative. At this point, David is not being called a suspect or a person of interest. My several attempts to reach Marilyn's now ex-husband were unsuccessful. Main State Police post Marilyn's photo on their Facebook page each year as a reminder of her unsolved disappearance, and the comment thread can be a little harsh.

For some, it's hard to fathom how a family could go so many years without realizing their sister was missing. I'm protective of the families I work with, and I just hope that everything you've heard about Marilyn and her family paints a more complete picture of the circumstances beyond what a few sentences on a social media post can do. When I asked Pat if he had any

frustrations with Marilyn's case right now, I was prepared to hear something about law enforcement's response. But Pat was candid that the frustrations may instead be with himself. We should have pursued this a lot sooner, but you know with kids and now grandkids you kind of lose track and time passes quickly. I think we might have been a little reticent in not pursuing, you know, keeping better contact. They never kept contact either and they had moved so much that sometimes it was hard to keep in touch or whatever. But a lot of things could have been done differently, I guess.

Marilyn Lehan would be 70 years old today. If you have information relating to her disappearance, please contact the Main State Police Major Crimes Unit North at 207-973-3750 or toll free at 1-800-432-7381. You can also leave a tip using 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 Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and AudioChuck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo