Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Tina Stadig (Maine)

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

In the spring of 2017, the phone calls came almost every day. Tina Stadig always stayed in touch with her twin sister, no matter where life had taken her. The last time they spoke, Tina talked about what was next in her life. She mentioned finding a new place to land, possibly with her sister, like old times.They never made a plan. And then, one day, the calls stopped. Days passed. Then weeks. And the silence that followed was louder than any conversation they’d ever had. It would take months before anyone realized just how long Tina had been gone… and by then, the search for answers had already become something much more complicated.At the time of her disappearance in 2017, Tina was described as white with brown hair and hazel eyes, about 5-foot-2 and 140 pounds. She might be carrying a backpack and trash bag with her personal belongings inside, and was known to frequent Skowhegan, Waterville and Bangor. If you have any information that could help determine Tina Stadig's whereabouts, please call the Skowhegan Police Department at [phone].If you or someone you love is struggling with substance use or mental health challenges, you’re not alone and help is available.The National Alliance on Mental Illness offers free support and education for individuals and families. You can call the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, that’s 1-800-950-6264, or visit nami.org to chat online.You can also visit shatterproof.org, a U.S. nonprofit dedicated to ending addiction stigma and helping families find treatment and recovery resources.View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/tinastadig 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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the spring of 2017, the phone calls came almost every day. Tina Stodig always stayed in touch with her twin sister, no matter where life had taken her. The last time they spoke, Tina talked about what was next in her life. She mentioned finding a new place to land, possibly with her sister, like old times. They never made a plan, and then one day the calls stopped. Days passed, then weeks, and the silence that followed was louder than any conversation they'd ever had. It would take months before anyone realized just how long Tina had been gone. And by then, the search for answers had already become something much more complicated.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Tina Stoddick on Dark Down East. It was spring of 2017 when Tammy Stoddick's phone started ringing with a familiar number on the caller ID. Her twin sister, 40-year-old Tina Stoddig, was calling again. She'd been incarcerated for a few months at that point, but she called all the time. Through all the highs and lows in her life, no matter where she was or the reality she faced, Tina always stayed in touch with her twid. Tina's release date was coming up, so this conversation was different. This time, Tina had a question for her sister.

She asked if she could move in with Tammy once she was released. Tammy wondered why Tina wanted to move. She lived in Southern Maine, over an hour and 45 minutes away from where Tina typically stayed, but whatever the reason, Tammy never got a real explanation during that call, and they didn't make any official plans for Tina to move in. A little while later, in late May of the same year, Tina was released as planned. Tammy got another phone call from another familiar number that day. It belonged to a man Tammy described as Tina's ex-boyfriend,

and Tina still stayed with him on occasion. We'll call him Adam, but that's not his real name. Now, Tammy isn't sure who was calling from that number, whether it was Adam or her sister using Adam's phone, but she didn't answer and she didn't think anything of it. Tammy expected Tina to check in again soon, but she didn't realize just how long had passed without a phone call from her twin

until about a month later when Adam's number popped up on her phone screen once again. This time she answered. It was Adam asking if she'd heard from Tina. Anya, that's when we figured out something was wrong. Tammy and their mother, Donna Carter, and other family members called around to places where Tina was known to stay. The circumstances of her life made it difficult to figure out where she might be,

but they knew if Tina wasn't at Adams, she might be at another guy friend's house, or possibly seeking a bed at area shelters. No matter who they spoke to, everyone said they hadn't seen Tina for weeks. She'd missed a scheduled check-in with her probation officer, and her last contact with law enforcement was May 25, 2017. The people Tina usually stayed with said they'd last seen Tina on May 28th. Exhausting every other option, Tina's family went to the police.

On July 4, 2017, her sister filed a missing persons report with the Scowhegan Police Department. The officers were familiar with Tina. They knew about the struggles in her life and had picked her up a few times on various charges. Although Scowhegan PD agreed that Tina being MIA for over a month was, unusual, Tina's family got the sense that police assumed Tina was just hiding out because she had warrants for her arrest. For families like Tina's, those assumptions sting. A person's record can sometimes overshadow their reality, and missing people who've struggled with substance use disorder are too often written off before the search even begins. The warrants

wouldn't have been enough to make Tina go no contact. Tina's sister and mother were sure she would have called by now regardless. What the family learned next solidified their worry that something was seriously wrong. Tina hadn't touched her social security disability insurance accounts, money she depended on for survival. She hadn't accessed any benefits since she was last seen. On July 11, 2017, Scowhegan Police Department posted a missing persons alert on its official Facebook page. The post has since been shared over 1,500 times, and the comment thread is flooded with concern, and rumors and possible sightings. Finding Tina would not be simple. The rhythms of her life were marked by instability, substance use disorder, and stretches of housing

insecurity, which made it easy for her to slip through the cracks, even for those who cared deeply about her. There are a few important things you need to know about Tina Stodig to truly understand her story and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance in 2017. But before we talk about those, I want you to know the version of Tina underneath it all. Those who know Tina best remember not just the hardships she faced, but her gift of making a good time out of any situation and her stubborn streak that so often reflected her inner strength. They remember a woman who loved her family fiercely and who was loved right back.

Tina has always been a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a soul full of potential, long before life's heavier burdens began to take hold. Tina's mother, Donna, had three daughters close in age, including Tina and her twin sister Tammy. Tammy and Tina were close and connected on a deep level. They didn't have twin-to-twin telepathy or anything like that, but there was a close bond between them that showed up in unique ways. Remember when you were riding bikes and one of years went into the tree? Me. And the other, and it was... And Tina started crying. I didn't cry. I broke my nose and blackened my eyes.

But Tina bawled and cried like she was the one that got her. It was as if Tina could feel the pain her twin had just experienced and was taking the brunt of it for her. That was Tina. She was always looking out for her. That was Tina. She was always looking out for the people she loved, and had a kindness that extended to strangers, too. In 1987, when she was just 11 years old, Tina and Tammy were photographed for the newspaper, posing with two residents at Maplecrest Manor Nursing Home. The caption explains that every day after school, Tina and Tammy and a friend went to visit and volunteer their time with the elderly residents, no doubt bringing a smile to their faces. Donna can't remember what exactly pushed Tina to experiment with

drugs and alcohol a few short years later, but her struggles with substance use disorder surfaced at an early age. She was around 13 or 14 when she started using, and Donna and Tammy told me they struggled to remember a time when Tina wasn't wrapped up in that lifestyle. Donna was able to get Tina into an adolescent treatment program at one point, but she wasn't ready to maintain sobriety after exiting the treatment. Tina also struggled with her mental health. In some reporting, a family member said that Tina was diagnosed with schizophrenia, as well as bipolar depression and post-dramatic stress disorder. However, Donna isn't sure what formal diagnoses, if any, Tina received. Both Donna and Tammy acknowledged that Tina's mental health challenges were compounded by substance

use, and they did their best to help her navigate those challenges, but she was typically not accepting of that help. Still, Tammy did what she could to monitor her sister when she could. When they were younger, she'd go to parties with Tina to keep an eye on her because she could get herself into trouble when she was intoxicated. Tammy had her own challenges, though, and sometimes being around each other wasn't the best thing for either sister. Tina has children, but she was unable to maintain a consistent relationship with them. But Tammy told me there were good moments, when they'd get their families together to go camping and make memories. Even in her most challenging times, one thing remained true for Tina.

She loved her family, you know, I know that, and the little kids, you know, she really loved them a lot. She used to always be around Tammy's daughter a lot. Maine's public health system has long struggled to meet the needs of people experiencing struggles like Tina's. In some counties, there just aren't enough detox beds for those waiting. families become the safety net and when that net phrase people fall through only to be caught up in another complicated system, the criminal justice system. Throughout her life, Tina had many run-ins with the law and was arrested on numerous charges as an adult. Behind those charges, though, was a more complicated reality, one that many people living with mental illness and substance use

disorder face. Substance use can blur judgment and fuel survival-based decisions, while untreated mental health struggles make it harder to find stability, creating a cycle that's difficult to break, and often lands people in jail instead of care. Tina's life reflected that painful overlap. She had a very hard life. Very hard life. During the spring of 2017, Tina was in jail following a conviction for domestic violence criminal threatening. Per court records, she was arrested in February of that year, convicted, and sentenced to 364 days in jail all but 30 suspended with one-year probation. She was arrested in April on a probation hold. And as we know, Tina last had contact with law enforcement on May 25, 2017. Three days later, May 28th was the last time the people

Tina was staying with reported seeing her. Tina was suddenly gone, and the days that followed would draw her family and police into a search that revealed just how fragile the line between being seen and disappearing can be. Soon after Tina's family reported her missing, police received a tip that she might have been heading to Bangor, a little over 50 miles away. from Scowhegan. Tammy told me that Tina had ties to Bangor because she'd followed Tammy up there when she entered a substance use treatment facility. So it wasn't out of left field that Tina might go there. Police spoke with a case manager in Bangor who said that Tina might have been seen at the

Bangor area homeless shelter on July 10th or 12th around the time police went public with information about her disappearance. The case manager said the woman she believed to be Tina was using the alias Jen. This Jen was waiting for space to open up at the shelter and believed to still be in the area. Despite the hope that came from the lead, police were unable to substantiate the sighting. Tina did not turn up at the shelter by her legal or any other name. Months passed without any updates, and Tina's family members stayed active on social media, calling friends, and urging anyone who saw Tina or even someone who looked a little bit like her to report the sightings. They promised to pick Tina up wherever she was, no matter the circumstances. They just

wanted to bring her home. In November, police made another push for information about Tina's disappearance, and Tina's family received a tremendous amount of support from the community. People reached out from all over the state, and especially from Skowhegan and the small town of Madison, where Tina and her siblings had lived for a few years as kids. Unfortunately, Tina's family member said that some of the local support was actually ill-intentioned. A woman who said she grew up with Tina and Madison held a fundraiser to have missing persons posters printed. The fundraiser also went to support the remembrance of Amy Drake, a woman killed in Scowhegan in 2006, whose case remains unsolved. The woman and other participants sold homemade, baked goods, soups,

chowder, sandwiches, and drinks on the side of the road near the Madison-Skowhegan town line, hoping to spread awareness of both cases. In news articles, the organizer of the fundraiser said she survived similar circumstances in her life and took it personally that she came from the same area of Maine as Tina and Amy. However, Tina's family said this woman didn't know their family, and they weren't friends as she claimed to be. In posts on social media, they suggested that the woman wasn't being honest about where the funds were going.

I've been unable to substantiate this or reach the woman for her. a conversation myself. However, I learned that the same individual filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit, yeah, billion with a B, against multiple local state and federal agencies as well as churches and newspapers for various civil rights claims. She represented herself in those suits, and from what I can tell, many were dismissed. In subsequent years, and as recently as 2025, she filed additional lawsuits in other states against hospitals and entire towns. Some of those are still pending. Needless to say, it was a strange and unfortunate twist in an already painful search. The incident became one more example of how public attention in missing persons cases

can lure the line between help and harm. While some people offered sincere support, others seemed to seek attention or personal gain, leaving Tina's family to navigate both heartbreak and unwanted chaos. While the family tried to separate genuine support from the distractions that came their way, police kept working the case. their search would soon take them to a rural property that had surfaced in tips and community rumors, a place some believed might finally hold answers, or at least clues about what might have happened to Tina. Over a two-day span beginning in early December of 2017,

the main state police evidence response team assisted Scowhegan police in a search at a property on North Avenue, also referred to as Route 150. The search centered on two structures, an abandoned house close to the roadside and a mobile home set further back, along with a three to five acre stretch of woods surrounding the residence. The abandoned house was barely standing, its windows and doors were gone, the floors stripped out, and the space had become little more than a storage site. Piles of wood, bags of clothes, and other discarded items filled the interior. Outside, the yard was littered with old appliances and debris.

The dirt driveway leading to the main residence had once been blocked by fallen branches and tree limbs. Local reporter Doug Harlow noted that a no trespassing sign had previously hung there, along with another handwritten sign warning visitors about the guy with the pit bulls. By the time police arrived, the no trespassing sign had been removed. Investigators believed Tina knew the man who lived there and had sometimes stayed at the home. They were careful not to say whether they suspected for, foul play. Still, the presence of evidence technicians and members of the main state police major crimes unit on the property suggested suspicious circumstances in her case. Over those two days,

investigators collected several items of interest, but they didn't disclose what those items were or whether they held any real significance to the case. Then, for months, the investigation went quiet. About six months later, the silence broke. Police returned to the same property, this time bringing heavy equipment. An excavator from the Department of Transportation sat on site and Cadverdogs joined the search. Officers said only that they were working to, quote, clear the property, which was the last place anyone could confirm Tina had been seen. Other possible sightings, including the one reported at a shelter in Bangor, still had never been verified. For a while, it seemed the search had

turned up more questions than answers. The property eventually went quiet again, its sagging structures and scattered debris left behind as police moved on. But months later, the same property would draw attention again. This time, not because of what investigators found, but because of what was lost. At 5.15 a.m. on December 1, 2018, a passerby called in a report of a fire in Scowhegan. According to reporting by Amy Calder for the Morning Sentinel, when firefighters arrived, they found an abandoned house located on North Avenue engulfed in flames. Because the property sat outside the town's hydrant zone, tanker trucks had to haul in water.

At least 20 firefighters worked quickly to knock down the blaze, and although they were able to get it under control, the structure was a total loss. The house had no electricity, no source of heat, and no one living inside. Those facts left investigators with few explanations other than that someone had started the fire. However, the investigation didn't immediately determine whether it had been set intentionally or by accident. Scowhagen Police Chief David Bucknum said he didn't believe the fire was connected to Tina's disappearance, even though Maine State Police had searched that same house and surrounding property several times over the previous year. He said investigators had conducted, quote,

a very thorough search and hadn't found anything relevant to Tina's case. In the wake of the fire, attention on the property and on Tina's case began to wane. As of June 2019, no one had been charged in connection with the fire. Months had passed without new developments, and interestingly, the investigation quietly shifted from state police back to local authorities. Scowhegan Police Chief David Bucknum said at the time that Tina's case remained open and active, though information came in only sporadically, and all known leads had been exhausted. With few answers from law enforcement and time stretching on, Tina's family

was left to confront the same haunting questions that had followed them from the start. Her mother and sisters have kept revisiting the final pieces of her story, the people, the places, and the choices that might hold clues to what happened. The name of two individuals have surfaced again and again, the guy who lived on the property at the center of the searches and the fire, and a man Tina often turned to in the months before she vanished. Donna and Tammy have done their own form of investigation from the very beginning. They couldn't sit around and wait for answers that police might not ever give them. In the earliest days after they realized Tina hadn't been in touch, Donna decided to go straight to the source. The media

alert about Tina's disappearance mentioned only vague details about her last known whereabouts, stating that she was last seen by the people she was staying with on May 28, 2017. But Donna knew exactly who that referred to, or at least she had a hunch. Since Tammy had received a phone call that she didn't answer from a number belonging to the man were calling Adam soon after Tina's release from jail, and it was Adams later call that first alerted the family that something might be wrong. Donna decided to reach out to him directly. If Tina had been staying with him in those final days, maybe he could fill in the blanks. I called him and I asked him if Tina was there And he said, no, that she had been gone for two, well, he said two weeks.

And I said, well, do you know where she went? And he said, I kicked her out. We were fighting, and I kicked her out. He told me it was two in the morning. And then he told me that she left and went up to this other guy's house, Wade. And his stories were not right. So, according to Adam, he kicked Tina out and she'd gone to Wade's house. Public records and contemporaneous news reporting showed that the property searched by police,

the same one where the abandoned house later was destroyed by fire, was owned by a woman whose son lived there. His name was Wade. That's in the public record. Now, Adam's house was also in Scowhegan, about 1.7 miles from Wade's house. home. It's a distance Tina could have walked in 30 or 40 minutes, but according to Adam, it was two in the morning and it would have been dark. That detail alone troubled Donna, but there was more to be concerned about if Tina actually reached her supposed destination.

Donna knew the history between Tina and Wade and how unstable things could get between them. Tina had met Wade years earlier when she was living in Scowhegan with her sister. Wade's mother was Tammy's neighbor, so the two crossed paths often. Tammy recalled that Tina started using Crystal Meth around the time she began spending time with Wade. It wasn't necessarily cause and effect, but in Tammy's memory, that period marked a sharp turning point in her sister's behavior and her overall health. Their relationship, if you could call it that, was volatile. Donna and Tammy both told me that Tina and Wade used to fight constantly, their dynamic swinging

between closeness and confrontation. In fact, the arrest and conviction that landed Tina in jail in early 2017, the same sentence that ended just days before she disappeared, that involved Wade. According to a Scowhegan police report from February 6th, 2017, dispatch received a 911 call from Wade's address. The line stayed open just long enough for the dispatcher to hear voices and a plea for someone to, quote, come get her. When officers arrived, Wade was waiting at the end of the driveway. The officer who responded noted that he was familiar with both Wade and Tina. They were known to live together. Wade told police that Tina was inside the house destroying property and threatening him with a knife. When officers entered the home, they found Tina in the midst

of what appeared to be a mental health crisis and possibly under the influence of an unknown substance. She was arrested for domestic violence criminal threatening and taken to Somerset County Jail after being cleared at the hospital. A month later, she was convicted on that charge. If Adam's account was accurate, if Tina truly left his home that night and walked to Wades, that realization carried a quiet, unshakable fear for her family. They knew how fraught that relationship could be, how quickly their arguments escalated. The thought of Tina showing up there in the middle of the night, maybe, still upset or unstable from whatever transpired with Adam, was haunting.

For Donna and her daughters, it is impossible not to wonder whether something terrible had happened in those early morning hours. Not because of rumor or accusation, but because that was simply where the trail supposedly ended. Wade's name appears in local court and police logs over the years. Records show arrests for assault in 1985 and for escape after a police chase. in 1988, when he reportedly fled custody and was apprehended hours later. Outside of that early assault charge, which would have been more than 30 years before Tina disappeared, nothing in available records suggests a continued pattern of violent behavior. As for the person we're calling Adam, court records and archived reporting note charges including theft and drug trafficking,

but again, nothing violent. Both names have come up repeatedly in conversation about Tina's disappearance. Several individuals familiar with both Adam and Wade echoed what the family has long believed. Adam has pointed the finger at Wade in private conversations, and neither man's story has ever quite aligned with the others. Nearly everyone I spoke to mentioned that neither Adam or Wade are trustworthy, and they didn't know what to believe when it came to their accounts of the last time they saw Tina. For what it's worth, in the months after Tina was first reported missing, Adam commented on Facebook photos of Tina, posted by her family and friends, remarking that he missed the woman he fell in love with.

For a while, and at least on posts that are publicly viewable, he seemed concerned and frequently asked for updates on her whereabouts. On one photo that Tammy posted in September of 2017, Adam asked if it was a recent photo because he wanted to know if Tina was all right. Tammy responded that it was a picture from three years earlier. Tina was still missing. To this day, no one has been charged with any crimes connected to the disappearance of Tina Stoddick. Police have not said for sure whether they believe foul play was involved.

Donna oscillates between two scenarios of Tina's disappearance that end the same way. She believes that Tina is deceased. I'd like to see them find out who did it. So in your mind, someone ended her life? Yep. I think somebody did. Some days she thinks it's possible that someone caused her death and moved her body to a place where it has yet to be found.

Other days, she considers the possibility that Tina really did leave Adam's house that night and faced danger along the way. That goes through my mind. Was she walking up the street? He says it was two in the morning that's late at night. Did somebody come along and grab her? There's another possibility that,

doesn't involve homicide or an intentional act of harm. It's a scenario Tina's family has quietly considered, that something may have happened by accident, that she may have suffered a medical emergency, and that someone, frightened or unsure of what to do, made a terrible decision to cover it up instead of calling for help. If that's what happened, it doesn't make the loss any less real. It doesn't make the silence any easier to bear.

Tina's family still deserves the truth. They deserve to bring her home. Somebody out there knows what happened. Maybe not everything, but something. And after all these years, even the smallest piece of information could be the one that finally brings Tina back to her family. In Maine alone, dozens of women are listed as long-term missing. Each one has a family like Tina still waiting, still hoping,

and oftentimes the burden is on their shoulders to keep attention. on their missing loved ones case. Donna, Tammy, and the rest of the family have done everything they can to keep Tina's name and story alive, including giving interviews like the one they did with me, even if it reopens wounds that never got a chance to fully heal. Over the years and across multiple interviews,

people have asked Donna different versions of the same question. What are some of your best memories of Tina? It has never been easy to answer. For a long time, the chaos of Tina's final years seemed to drown out the laughter and the love and the moments when the true Tina shone through. In the thick of Donna's grief and uncertainty, when so much of her life with Tina had been overshadowed by struggle,

it was hard for Donna to reach back through the pain and remember the good. You can hear it in her voice that this realization broke her. I couldn't even think of anything good to say. You know, it was just a lot of the drugging and stuff. But then I was telling Tammy in the car, I remember how when I used to go to church up in Madison, she would go to church with me. And she used to get right up on the altar and sing. Yeah, she loved to sing in church.

She loved it. That resurfaced memory was a piece of her daughter she hadn't been able to share before. For Tammy, there's one night that sticks out as the best memory. with her twin, just two main girls getting up to Innocent Fun together. One night, when me and her lived in Waterville, it was the ice storm we had really, really bad. Like, long time ago. Like, 98? Yeah.

We went out in it, falling on our butts and everything, but it was fun. We was actually sober. But, yeah, I always remember that night. We walked around town falling on the ice and everything. It was fun. To Tina's other sister, talked. if Tina is gone from this earth, it means she is finally free from the turmoil that marked so much of her life. Tina's struggles with substance use disorder and mental health

had left her vulnerable, often in danger, and frequently entangled with the law. Because of that reality, Tanya told the Morning Sentinel in 2019, quote, I feel like I will see her again and that she's safer and happier than she has ever been in her lifetime, that she is not hurting, suffering, or in jail, or drugged out of her mind, and that's what I have always wanted for her. So I am content in knowing that if she has passed away, that she's much better off now than she would have been, end quote. For Tanya, the priority is peace for her sister. Quote, yes, she is in heaven. She would be in heaven.

God doesn't punish those who have no mind of their own. And that's what my sister was like, she said. All she wants now, all anyone wants, is to be in heaven. to bring Tina home so she can be laid to rest. At the time of her disappearance in 2017, Tina was described as white with brown hair and hazel eyes, about 5'2 and 140 pounds. She might be carrying a backpack and trash bag with her personal belongings inside, and was known to frequent Scowhegan, Waterville, and Bangor. If you have information that could help determine Tina Stodig's whereabouts, please call the Scowhegan Police Department at 207-474-6908. If you are someone you

love is struggling with substance use or mental health challenges, you're not alone, and help is available. The National Alliance on Mental Illness offers free support and education for individuals and families. You can call the NAMI Helpline at 1-800-950 NAMI. That's 1-800-950 6264 or visit nami.org to chat online. You can also visit shatterproof.org, a U.S. non-profit dedicated to ending addiction stigma and helping families find treatment and recovery resources. If you see yourself in Tina's story, there are people ready to listen and to help. Thank you for listening to Dark Downeast. 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 Audio Check. I think Chuck would approve.