Dark Downeast - The Murder of Katherine Murphy (Maine)

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

WATERVILLE, MAINE 1971: Katherine Murphy was a freshman at Colby College, continuing her family legacy at Maine's mini-Ivy liberal arts school, when someone stole her life. This is the still unsolved homicide of Katherine Murphy.This episode was co-written by Natalie Jones. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/katherinemurphyFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

It was a long drive leading up to Mayflower Hill on a chilly morning of November 3rd, 1971. The road to the Colby College campus in Waterville, Maine was covered in a thick fog from the previous evening, the kind that seems to settle from the sky all the way to the ground, as though you're walking through a cloud. A marine forecast probably would have warned of low visibility on the coast that day, but inland, a jogger on an early morning run could see the unmistakable form in the woods all the way from the winding road. The November 4th Colby Echo describes the scene. It was about 35 feet from the road, down a slight embankment, near the pumping station at the sharp turn in Mayflower Hill Drive. Those from the Waterville area or familiar with Colby College can picture the embankment well,

the edge of campus just past the Osborne House, where the president of the college resides. Though this November morning scene was 50 years ago last month, the memory within the community remains. For some, this foggy morning discovery is little more than folklore. For others, it's visceral. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Colby College student Catherine Murphy on Dark Down East. Driving through the downtown Main Street of Waterville, Maine in 2021, it's difficult not to notice the extent of the construction and revitalization occurring all over the city. Older, run-down buildings are receiving a facelift, and new shops and boutique hotels are popping up all over. This is in large part due to the small liberal arts school overlooking Waterville, Colby College.

With only 2,000 students today, Colby was and is the quintessential mini-Ivy, all brick buildings clustered amongst the pine trees. As a member of the community for 200 years, 2021 is not the first time that the college and the city have partnered together to revitalize the area. Over 50 years ago, Waterville was a place of change. Historically an era of industrial change, the 1960s brought more traffic and more business to the area, and the small but expanding college sitting between two of the city's larger industries had, only 20 years before, completely moved campuses with the help of the city. Now and to this day, the college sits on Mayflower Hill above the town,

the blue light on top of the library visible to everyone in the area. Separate yet together, Waterville and Colby College are forever synonymous. The small-town charm, paired with elite academic opportunities, calls to many, both in-state students and those from away. For Catherine Murphy, it was also part of her family legacy. Catherine Rogers Murphy, known to her friends as Kathy, was a first-year student from a small town in upstate New York. Several family members, including her mother and her aunt, were Colby College alumni. Kathy was a legacy student from a Colby family. Like many students then and now, Kathy left New York to seek an idyllic liberal arts education in central Maine.

She was living the dream of so many high school graduates, moving to the beautiful Pine Tree State to further her learning. Kathy was an involved member of her 1971 graduating class. She was a member of the National Honor Society, the Drama Club, and the National Thespian Society, and was involved in editing and writing the Catskill Review, the Yearbook, and the High School Newspaper. She was also a member of the school gymnastics team, the student council, an environmental club, and her local church. She was beloved by her parents, her two siblings, and her community. In 1971, Kathy had just begun creating her place as a freshman at Colby.

During her first two months at school, Kathy started seeing her boyfriend, she got involved in the English department, and surrounded herself with new friends. In current days, the majority of Colby students live on campus, and living off campus is heavily discouraged, if allowed at all. But in the early 1970s, a lot more students lived off campus and throughout the Waterville community. On that Tuesday night of November 2, 1971, Kathy was visiting some of these friends for a meal at their off-campus apartment. This is where she was last seen, around 4.45 p.m., wearing a light green sweater with white stripes, navy blue bell bottoms, and a brown ski jacket. During this time period, with students traveling between campus and home or from campus into work and internships, those without vehicles often utilized a spot known as the Colby Corner. At this specific spot downtown, students who needed a ride back to Colby would wait for a passing driver to pick them up. Hitchhiking was standard practice for many back then, and a small Maine city like Waterville was no different.

After leaving her friend's house, investigators believe that Kathy waited at Colby Corner to return to her dormitory at Dana Hall. According to several sources, around this time, a well-known group of local men had taken to cruising by the Colby Corner to see what students might be waiting for a ride. When they saw a young woman like Kathy, they would attempt to hit on her, catcalling from the vehicle and otherwise harassing her. Police believe that this is what Kathy had experienced that evening. When the men involved would not leave her alone, she decided to walk towards campus in an attempt to escape their harassment. While the physical distance between downtown Waterville and Mayflower Hill is not far, it would have been about two miles, it can feel like worlds apart. And the section of Mayflower Hill Drive leading towards campus through the wooded arboretum can feel isolating. The houses of professors and community members are not far away, but Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press-Herald,

who reported for the Waterville Sentinel around this time, recalls she must have felt like it was the middle of nowhere. Kathy did not return home to her dorm that night. Her roommate grew concerned and notified campus police and the dean on call. As the night went on, concerns continued to mount. The next morning, her body was discovered by a jogger in a ravine at the very edge of campus, confirming the worst. Catherine Murphy's body was discovered fully clothed, with signs of multiple blunt force trauma to her head and face. College deans and the police were called immediately to the site, with local reporters not far behind. At first, according to the Colby Echo, Bangor Daily News, and out-of-state publications, investigators believed that Kathy was the victim of a hit-and-run,

the driver blinded by the thick fog covering the city that had not yet dissipated and unable to see Kathy as she walked from her friend's house back to campus. Initially, that's how police treated the situation. This was a tragedy, but certainly an accident, they said. Further investigation, however, revealed this to be untrue. Kathy's autopsy showed that her injuries, multiple blunt force trauma to the back of her head, were not consistent with a car accident. This was not a hit and run. Someone had murdered Kathy. Jerry Boyle, a 1978 Colby graduate, a crime author, and reporter at the Waterville Sentinel at the time of Kathy's case, was interviewed about this story for Dark Down East. According to Jerry, quote,

It was clear that she had been dragged from the road a distance up into the woods and then had been killed there. In those days, and in some areas to this day, local police departments in Maine investigated the homicides in their own jurisdictions. A small police department could suddenly find itself responsible for a murder investigation for which they were not prepared or trained. This is what happened in Waterville, Maine in the fall of 1971. From the beginning, the scene of the investigation was not secured.

For many of us, we picture an image of an area roped off with crime scene tape when we imagine a homicide investigation. But this was not the case. It was a free-for-all, Bill Nemitz recalls, with police, community members, and reporters walking throughout, effectively erasing any evidence, such as footprints, that may have remained on the ground. It is thought that other evidence was lost or mishandled, and those who reported at the time recall a lot of tension and disagreements between the various moving parts of the investigation. Even after the detectives

declared it a homicide, no arrests were made. At the time, according to Jerry Boyle, a man named Alan Pelletier was seen driving by in his truck, so he was placed at the scene. He later came into the police station, and he acknowledged that he had been near there, but he sustained that he hadn't done anything to her. Alan Pelletier was a resident of the neighboring town of Winslow, and his family was fairly well known in the community. The police did investigate Pelletier's truck and noted that the passenger side window was broken, as if it had hit something. They noted this, but, with insufficient evidence to prosecute, returned the truck to Pelletier. With that, the case went cold. As the Colby College and Waterville communities reckoned with the violence of Kathy's murder, and the police apparently took no further action, fear and anxiety held a strong presence on campus. The Colby student government,

in tandem with the college and the city of Waterville, created a fund to pay a reward for information leading to answers for Kathy's family, and students shared their fears with the Bangor Daily News. The newspaper published that while some students adjusted their safety practices very little, the lives of others were totally shaken. Students who had come from all over the country seeking comfort and safety of small-town Maine were suddenly locking their doors at night, and students rarely walked alone after dark, even from their dorms to the dining hall. According to the Colby Echo, in lieu of Colby Corner, the college instituted a blue bus shuttle service to stop along several points between campus and downtown Waterville.

Students were strongly urged to make use of this bus service as long as the investigation into the murder of Kathy Murphy continued. While no longer a blue bus, the Jitney, as it's known today, still operates on the campus of Colby College. For nearly 10 years, there was no news about any further investigations into the case of Kathy Murphy. In 1981, a Bangor Daily News article revealed that a new grand jury probe was undertaken after prosecutors claimed to have found new evidence. Yet, no breakthrough. Then, in 1986, and nearly 15 years after Kathy's death, prosecutors took action. William Stokes, a current Superior Court Justice and an Assistant Attorney General at the time, decided to move forward with the case against Alan Pelletier, who was then 37 years old.

Pelletier was indicted in early 1986, though according to a Bangor Daily News article from the time, he was able to post $200,000 bail by two days later. Pelletier pled not guilty immediately, his family hiring well-known Daniel Lilly as their defense attorney. According to Jerry Boyle, Dan Lilly was a prominent and somewhat flamboyant defense attorney from Portland, and was seen as the best defense attorney in the state. You've heard his name before on Dark Down East. His courtroom presence was dramatic, but he was recognized statewide for his skill. The trial, held in the Superior Court, was a big deal.

Members of the community showed up to watch the proceedings, hoping for justice. Yet from the beginning of the trial, it was clear that the investigation from the Waterville Police Department was just not up to par. Since they had released the truck in question back to the defendant Pelletier, it had disappeared.

It was rumored that the family had it crushed, and other evidence was missing as well. Dan Lilly came by his courtroom presence rightly. All it takes is a shred of reasonable doubt, and Lilly was able to poke holes in the state's case as a strong cross-examiner. In the end, the jury found Alan Pelletier not guilty and acquitted him of all charges. As Jerry Boyle says, Pelletier's acquittal holds two implications. The first possibility was that Alan Pelletier was, in fact, not guilty. If this was the case, then the individual responsible for Kathy's murder is still out there. But most stakeholders do not believe this to be true.

The other possibility is that Alan Pelletier did commit this crime, and that the evidence was just not strong enough to convict him. Police and prosecutors at the time believed this to be the case. They and many others were certain that they had their man. But you cannot be tried for the same crime twice, and due to the handling of the case and the lack of evidence, this was how it ended. For those who believe that the guilty was acquitted, it is interesting to know that Alan Pelletier's name does come up in Waterville area crime once more as a known associate of Albert Cochran. If you've listened to previous episodes of Dark Down East, you may recognize his name from the cases of Pauline Rourke and Janet Baxter. In 1976, Janet Baxter was murdered in Norwich Walk, Maine, a 20-minute drive from Waterville. Albert Cochran was convicted in 1999

for her murder and is thought to be responsible for the disappearances of Pauline Rourke and others as well. During Cochran's trial, his attorney argued the shadow defendant's theory that Cochran was not responsible for Janet's murder, but that other men were. He named several men around the same age and of the same group in the area. One of those names was Alan Pelletier. However, this claim never went much further. Cochran was convicted of Janet Baxter's murder and died in 2017 and will never be able to provide any further answers. The connections between timelines and locations, though, cannot help but raise questions. These 16 years of events, from Kathy's murder in 1971 all the way through 1987 with Alan Pelletier's acquittal, cast a shadow over the families, the city, and the college for a long

time. Interviews in the Bangor Daily News with Colby College students show the major impact that Kathy's murder had on the community. Students from all across the country and world never expected this to happen in Maine, and the caution of the immediate aftermath never truly faded from campus. Today, Kathy's story is part of the lore on campus, for lack of a better way to describe it.

It's part of why students lock their doors and why they may be cautious to walk alone, even in Waterville, Maine. It's also why the Blue Bus, now the Jitney, never stopped operating. While student safety may have always been a priority, an event like this changed everything. Each year in November, for many years,

reporters and journalists, including Jerry Boyle, would revive the case in memory of Kathy. In a small city, this did not go unnoticed. Alan Pelletier died of natural causes a few years after his trial and acquittal. If he had answers for the Murphy family, we'll never have them. For some, this case is closed. Investigators and prosecutors believe that they had their man, but that the quality of the investigation up against Pelletier's defense was not enough. Because of this lack of evidence, no matter their beliefs, Kathy Murphy's family was never

able to have closure. When court proceedings began against Alan Pelletier, Kathy's father, Howard R. Murphy, had already passed away. Her mother, Marjorie Murphy Schumann, Colby College class of 37, made her way up from New York to Augusta for every day of the trial. Often, she came alone to the courtroom and watched. It wasn't easy, but she remained strong and hopeful that she would find answers and justice. Yet with the acquittal and no further leads, this was the end of that search for justice for Kathy's family. Her mother has since passed away as well. Whether or not they died feeling that they had their answers, the kind of closure that comes with a conviction, was never to be.

November 2nd, 2021 was 50 years since Kathy Murphy was last seen alive. In a college town, life moves fast. Much of the community changes over every four years, and memories can fade quickly. While many Colby College students know of the Jitney or have a hazy idea of the events on campus in fall of 1971, some know nothing. But this tragic crime that shook so many aspects of the community has never been laid to rest. Neither has Kathy's memory. Those who were in Waterville 50 years ago remember the events well,

and for many, it still haunts them. More than one source shared that there was no question for them, but that Alan Pelletier got away with murder. Allegedly. Though some parts of Kathy's story are no less than devastating, she and her family left a positive impact in their wake. The daughter of academics and a budding writer, in 1972, several of Kathy's poems were published post-mortem in New York in the Catskill Review, where she had become an editor. In 1987, 16 years

after Kathy's death and after the acquittal of Pelletier, her parents and friends created an award in the Colby English Department. Each year, a first-year or sophomore woman is awarded the Catherine Rogers Murphy Prize for Original Poetry. She is remembered, according to the Colby College Library's Instagram, for her outgoing personality, her love of the outdoors, and her love of reading. Bill Nemitz recalls that, while he never met Kathy, everything he heard was about her free spirit, which left a lasting impression. While the details of the case may be forgotten by some and never known by others, Kathy Murphy and her impact

certainly have never disappeared. This year, in memoriam, the Colby College Library's Instagram page shared Kathy's poetry. There's just dust swirling through my mind, from an arrow that left me blind, and into the night I go out. One is a blaze of light, twinkling stardust on oneself in spite of the darkness all about, and one shining on, redundant to the night. If there is stardust for 500 years of light, is there enough for 500 years of night? Catherine Rogers Murphy This episode was co-written by Natalie Jones. Natalie, thank you so much for sharing Catherine Murphy's case with us and honoring her legacy through your writing. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East.

Sources for this case include an interview conducted by Natalie Jones with Jerry Boyle. Additional source material for this case is listed at darkdowneast.com. Thank you for supporting this 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 or their stories get lost with time.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.