Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Virginia C. Douglas (Maine)

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

MAINE MISSING PERSON, 1988: A spontaneous Maine adventure turns dark when Virginia C. Douglas steps into Reny's in Belfast, Maine and is never seen again. Where did Virginia go?This decades-old missing persons cold case spans two New England states, and will have you questioning which story to believe and who is to blame for the peculiar disappearance of Virginia C. Douglas. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/virginiacdouglasFollow @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.

The disappearance of Virginia C. Douglas is labeled a cold case. Yes, and I know that sometimes a cold case story can leave you with an incredibly unsettling ending as a listener. I mean, a cold case really has no ending at all. But here's the thing about this case. I think the theory that would give us, and more importantly, Virginia C. Douglas' family some form of closure? It's painfully obvious. How a key suspect evaded charges for his entire life is baffling to me. And once you hear the details of the main adventure

that ended in the disappearance of one woman, you'll be just as fired up as I am. Where is Virginia C. Douglas? I'm Kylie Lowe, and you're listening to Dark Down East. On the evening of Thursday, September 1st, 1988, Virginia C. Douglas and her husband of 46 years, Frank Douglas, decided to do something spontaneous. The Douglas's were in their late 60s. Frank was a retired banker, and Virginia had raised their three children, Marilyn, Frank Jr., and Virginia, sometimes called Ginny, in their cute little Cape Cod-style home on Fallen Road in Lexington, Massachusetts, about 30 minutes from Boston and just over an hour to

the main border in Kittery. In his retirement, Frank had picked up a more serious dedication to the sport of tennis, and he was frequently at the courts staying active and social. He also played chess and loved to ski. It appeared Frank was thriving in his retirement. After her children were out of the house, Virginia dedicated her time to caring for the elderly. She was a sweet woman with a light yet lively personality. However, Frank's blossoming social life was a little challenging for Virginia. He wasn't home very often and she

wasn't part of his athletic endeavors, but still, their relationship seemed solid and typical. There was hand-holding and they went on brisk strolls around the neighborhood. They had the occasional tiff, but ultimately good. 46 years is a long time to be married. I feel like I don't hear of many couples coming even close to that five decade mark, that golden wedding anniversary anymore. Early September, as we know, it's a gorgeous time to visit the coast of Maine. And with Labor Day that Monday in 1988, it was an even more popular time to take off for a long weekend Maine adventure. That's exactly what Frank had planned for Virginia. He surprised her with a trip to Bar Harbor that night and told her to pack up quickly so they could start their trip as soon as possible. She might have protested a little. Their daughter Ginny was due home that possible. She might have protested a little.

Their daughter Ginny was due home that night, she was a flight attendant and moved in with them after her divorce, and Virginia liked being home to greet Ginny. If she protested, though, Frank was ultimately able to win her over to the idea because he loaded up their blue Oldsmobile Cutlass and set off north toward Maine. The drive from Lexington to Bar Harbor is over four and a half hours, so a pit stop or two is expected along the way. Frank first stopped in South Portland, where he got a room at South Portland Motor Inn for the night. After breakfast at Friendly's the next morning, the trip to Bar Harbor resumed. Around 5.30 p.m., Frank pulled off Route 1 in Belfast and parked

the Cutlass in front of Rennie's at 1 Belmont Ave, where Route 1 and Route 3 intersect. Belfast is only about an hour and a half away from Bar Harbor, but Frank said Virginia needed to use the bathroom, so he stopped. Her pocketbook was still in the front seat when Frank said he watched her walk into Rennie's while he stayed behind. 10, 15 minutes go by and Frank got a little antsy. Maybe there was a long line or maybe Virginia decided to do a little shopping because honestly, who can resist the bargains at Rennie's? It's a great place for stocking stuffers. I swear that's the only place my dad shops for our Christmas stockings. This isn't sponsored or anything. It's just real life. Rennie's is a great store. At the 15-minute mark, Frank decided to go into the store and take a look around. He also wanted

to pick up some paper cups, he said, maybe some soda. He left a note on the steering wheel in case Virginia returned in his absence. But when he returned another 15 minutes later, there was still no sign of his wife. A 30-minute bathroom break, even if she decided to do a little discount shopping, was a long time. He went back into the store and started weaving the aisles in search of Virginia. When his full sweep of the store turned up nothing, Frank Douglas called the police at 6.45 p.m. Belfast police began an intensive search of the store in surrounding areas. Boston Globe reporters spoke to Rennie's employees in the store at the time of Virginia's disappearance who say they remember a woman who may have matched her description in the store and they maybe saw her walking west on route

three but the sightings were challenging to verify. Belfast police sergeant Alan Weaver told the Globe in a September 5th article, quote, this lady has a very common appearance, end quote. Frank told the Globe in the same article, quote, I saw her step up on the walkway heading into the store and that's the last I've seen of her. I have no idea what's going on, end quote. Three full days of searching in the area surrounding the Belfast Rennies turned up nothing.

Heavy rain moved through the area that Sunday night, putting a pause on the search until the morning of Labor Day. the Belfast Rennies turned up nothing. Heavy rain moved through the area that Sunday night, putting a pause on the search until the morning of Labor Day. The Douglases would have been wrapping up their weekend away on the coast of Maine, but instead, Frank was hunkered down at the Belfast Motor Inn, awaiting his children who were en route to join the search. Frank appeared desperate and distraught. He told the Globe, quote, We are best friends. I give her breakfast in the morning. You couldn't imagine all the things that we do together, end quote. Frank hired his own team of dogs to search the wooded area behind the strip mall.

They left his car in the parking lot, in the same spot it was when Frank said Virginia left for that quick bathroom break. Someone stayed with the car for days on the chance that a disoriented and lost Virginia would find her way back to the store where she was last seen. Police continued the investigation, questioning store employees, local residents, showing her photo and hoping someone had seen her. Frank and his two children called shelters and hospitals, even calling a relative who lived in Casco, Maine, that's nearly two hours away, just on the off chance that Virginia ended up there with the

only person she knew in the state. But still, nothing. And nothing would continue to be the result. How far could a woman get on foot without her purse, without money or credit cards to fund a runaway plan? And that angle didn't even fit Virginia's personality, her family said. She'd also never had a case of disorientation or confusion. She was very with it, as they say. And besides, she was on a weekend away with her beloved husband, her best friend, as Frank put it. Why would she just disappear on her own free will, so close to the final destination of this fun weekend adventure? Maybe it wasn't on her own free will. Maybe someone took her. That's one of the theories Frank Jr. was clinging to.

Someone took his mother. But the other theories, they pointed to Virginia never being in Maine at all. Investigators recovered several items from the car, including a piece of carpet from the trunk lining. Then, a week after Virginia's disappearance, the Bangor Daily News reported that police in Lexington, Massachusetts searched the Douglas home and retrieved a few items as evidence, though they didn't say what that evidence was at the time. Whatever it was, it didn't lead to Virginia. A whole week without a confirmed sighting, no hard evidence to set investigators off on any specific path, police even struggled to conclusively determine that Virginia was ever in Belfast in the first place. While store employees claimed they might have seen Virginia in the store and walking down Route 3, they weren't confident in their ID of her from the license photo they were shown. It could have been any white-haired woman in her late 60s.

Something wasn't adding up. A week after this spontaneous trip to Bar Harbor that ended abruptly in Belfast, the dedicated husband, Frank, started giving interviews with the media. Maybe his motivation was to get the word out about his wife and have her photo circulated in the news as much as possible. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe Frank was trying to craft a narrative that he

wanted everyone to believe as the truth. Frank spoke with reporters Sally Jacobs and Denise Goodman at the Boston Globe for a September 8th, 1988 article. They pressed him for more information to paint a full picture of Virginia, and that day they set off for a mini getaway in down East Maine. What was the motivation for that trip anyway? Well, Frank admitted, there had been a fight the day before she went missing. They were out in the yard of their Lexington home,

watering the grass and doing other mundane chores when Frank stepped inside to use the bathroom. He accidentally locked the door behind him, he claims, and this instantly frustrated his wife. Apparently, it wasn't the first time he'd locked her outside. Although he protested that he didn't do it on purpose, she was convinced that he did. So they fought and they argued, but it didn't last long because the trip to Bar Harbor became that peace offering that Virginia needed to smooth over their fight. In this same article, Frank also claimed that Virginia was known for mood swings and bouts of depression. She could go from pleasant and happy to agitated and depressed at the drop of a hat.

Frank also told reporters that Virginia had disappeared before, over 25 years earlier. According to Frank's story in the Boston Globe, his wife got angry one day and took off without telling anyone. She apparently went down to New York where she stayed at the YWCA for a few days before returning home. I really don't know what prompted her, Frank said. He stopped short of tying any connections between that disappearance and this one from Belfast over two decades later. He didn't think she walked off, not without her purse or any money, not without the eye drops she needed to take four times a day, and not over a silly argument about a locked screen door. But I can picture you with one eyebrow raised right now because that's the exact look I had on my face when I read all these details. I'm not a professional statement analyzer by any means,

but Frank doesn't insist that Virginia must have ran away because she was mad at him for locking her out of the house. And he doesn't point to the fact that she'd done something like this before when she was angry. He just seems to toss those details out there, which to me sounds like a strategy to get investigators hot on the trail of one theory so they'd neglect any other theories that might cast a curious eye on Frank himself. Your eyebrow might get stuck in that raised position as this case goes on because the details of Mrs. Douglas's disappearance only get more peculiar and questionable. So remember when Frank said he left the car after 15 minutes to do some shopping of his own while his wife was in the bathroom,

cups and soda or something. Apparently, he wasn't picking up paper cups like early reports stated. According to an interview with Belfast Police Chief Alan Weaver from the Bangor Daily News, conducted by Walter Griffin, Frank actually searched the store for Virginia and then bought some lingerie, a few sets of slips and panties. Ugh, I hate that word. A few sets of slips and underwear. Frank told the Rennie's employee his wife was missing, and the lingerie was a good omen, whatever that means. Frank then returned to the store a second time and bought more lingerie before he called the police. When police later searched their vehicle and the suitcases inside, the only women's undergarments they found were the ones Frank purchased.

Who goes on a weekend trip without packing a few extra undies? No one. No one does. And then there's this. One of Frank and Virginia's daughters, Ginny, she was living with her parents in that Cape Holman Lexington at the time of her mother's disappearance. And like I said before, she wasn't home the evening her parents supposedly decided they needed to leave for Maine ASAP. That spur of the moment adventure just wasn't in her parents' nature, according to Ginny. So when she returned home to find the house empty, she was concerned. And that concern only expanded when she came upon something in the house that, she was concerned. And that concern only expanded

when she came upon something in the house that made her call police. That feels like kind of a bombshell, don't you think? It's later reported in the Bangor Daily News that when police searched the house in the days and weeks following the disappearance, the evidence included a blood-stained piece of carpet with a blood type

that matched Virginia's and clumps of human hair from the back steps. Despite the extensive searches spanning multiple towns and involving several state and local agencies, the investigation had nothing. No conclusive evidence as to what happened to Virginia or where she might be. About six weeks later, in the fall of 1988, after his public displays of worry and concern, hiring his own team of search dogs and private detectives, handing out flyers around Belfast with his son Frank Jr., and giving interviews about the day his wife disappeared, Frank Douglas Sr. did a disappearing act of his own. Frank returned to his home he once shared with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts. He stopped giving interviews. His last call to the Belfast police was simply to tell them he'd returned to Massachusetts.

At the end of November 1988, almost three whole months after the reported disappearance, the Douglas daughters, Marilyn and Gin Ginny weren't giving the disappearance theory Any more weight they didn't think their mother was just missing They believed she was dead. They believed she was murdered Sally Jacobs reported for the Boston Globe that Virginia's daughters planned a memorial service for her in St. Petersburg, Florida, where they lived, in hopes to start the healing process, while continuing to search for answers in what they believed was their mother's murder. Their father, Frank, did not attend the memorial service. In fact, Virginia's daughters told the Globe they hadn't spoken to their father in over a month. Frank Jr. was also missing from the service.

In that same interview with the Boston Globe, Virginia's daughters did not hold back their suspicions surrounding their mother's demise. Not only did they believe she was murdered, they say they knew who killed her. But due to legal reasons, they said, they wouldn't name the person they suspected. They had informed police of their suspicions and believed the person would be charged. While Frank appeared to be dedicated to the search efforts at the beginning, he began to return to his normal life. He was back on the tennis courts, he puttered around the lawn, he did yard work, he even chatted with neighbors as they strolled by. One of the neighbors, Burt Davidson, told the Boston Globe in a December 11, 1988 article, quote,

He always brings her up. It's like he's looking for people to talk to about it, end quote. An entire year passed since Frank claimed he and his wife were on their way for a spontaneous getaway in Downeast Maine. And in what appeared to be another spontaneous move, Frank hired Boston criminal defense lawyer William Homans. Homans told the Boston Globe on August 15th, 1988, that Frank hired him, quote, in case he becomes a suspect, end quote. Oh, just in case. Frank was questioned in the disappearance of his wife at the time, but of course his lawyer didn't elaborate on the nature of the questioning or what may have come out of it. So Frank hired that lawyer and not one month later, on September 28th, 1989, police uncovered new information that led them to a search in the area around Sebago Lake. State Police spokesman Steve McCausland didn't elaborate on what that information was or where exactly near the lake they searched, but he told the Bangor Daily News that two police dogs, officers from Lexington, state police from both Massachusetts and Maine, plus the FBI participated in that effort. Sebago Lake is two and a half hours from

Belfast and about an hour and a half from South Portland, the two primary locations that Frank claimed to be with Virginia before she disappeared. Now, Sebago Lake is pretty big. It's the second largest in Maine, in fact, and its perimeter lies in and near many Maine towns. One to note is the town of Casco. Casco is barely a 15-minute drive to Sebago Lake Park. The Douglases had family in Casco, and the family member was Frank's brother. Frank's kids had called that brother, their uncle, in the first few days of the search to see if maybe Virginia had found her way to the only relative they knew in the state of Maine. So maybe that's what pointed police towards the lake. It makes me wonder if Frank's brother was ever questioned. Does Frank's brother know where Virginia is?

If something happened to her and Frank was involved somehow, did he turn to his brother in a time of desperate need? I'll pump the brakes on that question spiral and continue the story while you consider it, because despite the focus and the new information that led them there, the search did not turn up any clues that would indicate Virginia or her body was ever near Sebago Lake. With a whole year of perspective and investigation, police were starting to admit publicly that Frank's story wasn't adding up, but they weren't saying that evidence pointed to Virginia's murder. It was still a missing person case.

But consider these new little discoveries that are actually more like huge discoveries when you look at the full picture. First, remember Frank saying they left Lexington swiftly that evening but only made it to South Portland Motor Inn where they stopped for the night? Well, the Boston Globe reports that the night clerk said Frank was alone

when he checked in and no one at the hotel remembered seeing anyone matching Virginia's description there with him. Then another Rennie's employee also said that Frank asked for them to announce Virginia's name over the loudspeaker, but they didn't remember ever seeing Virginia in the store. So I'm starting to think over here in my armchair, well, my desk chair, really, that Virginia never made it to Maine. Or if she did, she was not alive. Knowing what the investigators removed from their house, that portion of blood-stained rug, the clump of hair on the back steps, plus the piece of

carpet removed from the trunk of the car, those puzzle pieces are pointing me towards a very specific conclusion in my head, but of course it's just my own speculation. On September 1st, 1991, three years to the day of that supposed spur-of-the-moment trip up the coast, police announced that Frank Douglas was officially a suspect in Virginia's disappearance. They maintained that it was still an active missing person's case. No body, no murder. However, Lieutenant Stephen Kaur of the Lexington Police told Boston Globe staff reporter Jordana Hart on September 1st, 1991, quote,

my personal opinion is that she is dead, end quote. Finally, Virginia's daughters felt the case was moving in the right direction. They might have been more reserved when publicly sharing their opinions on the case before, but now they weren't holding back. Virginia's daughter, Marilyn, told the Globe, quote, no one believes the death of Virginia Douglas was planned. Rather, most people think what happened was an accident.

When he realized what he had done, he panicked, carelessly disposed of the body and concocted a ridiculous story that fooled no one, not the police, family and friends, not even total strangers, end quote. It's important to note that Frank and Virginia's daughter, Marilyn, had long been estranged from her father,

even before her mother disappeared, but she hasn't shared publicly why that was. Their other daughter, Ginny, moved out soon after her disappearance and had been living with Marilyn in New Hampshire. As for Frank Jr., he'd apparently taken his father's side and also stopped talking to the rest of the family.

According to police chief Alan Weaver, in a 1988 article written by Walter Griffin for the Bangor Daily News, quote, in all the years since then, Frank has never contacted us, end quote. 10 years had passed since Frank reported Virginia missing from that Rennie's store in Belfast, Maine. In 1998, Frank was 80 years old

and still living in his home that he once shared with his wife of 46 years. And in those 10 years, not a single piece of physical evidence indicated that Virginia was ever in Maine at that Rennie's, stopping for a bathroom break on a road trip with her husband to the coast.

And yet the piles of circumstantial evidence remain to cast a doubt on the story that Frank told all those years ago. And that story tore the Douglas family apart, with their son and two daughters on opposite sides, never to reunite over their common loss. I scoured Boston and surrounding newspapers for Frank Douglas Sr.'s obituary

to see if he's still alive, but he was 80 in 1998, so Frank would be over 100 today. I'm inclined to believe he's passed away without public notice, taking with him anything he might have known about the disappearance or the death of his wife, Virginia. Thank you for tuning in to Dark Down East, and thank you to my sources for this episode. Articles in the Boston Globe by Sally Jacobs, Denise Goodman, and Jordana Hart.

The Bangor Daily News, specifically articles by Walter Griffin and Midcoast Bureau writers, as well as the charlieproject.org listing for Virginia's case. All of my sources for this episode and others are listed at darkdowneast.com so you can dig in and learn more. If you have a story or a case I should cover, I'd love to hear from you at darkdowneast at gmail.com. Follow along with the show at darkdowneast.com and on Instagram at darkdowneast. Thank you for supporting the show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons

and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names, their stories, get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.