Dark Downeast - The Murder of Kenneth Zernicke (Maine)

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

Jessica Zernicke Holmes left work on the night of September 24, 2015 to find her phone flooded with missed calls and messages. When she was finally able to call her family member back, they delivered shocking news about her father. 58-year old Kenneth Zernicke was found dead inside his burning home in Caribou, Maine. Two days later, his death was ruled a homicide.Jess reached out to me because after nearly 7 years her father’s case remains unsolved with little public information available, even to family members. She wrote in her email, “I understand it makes it hard to cover a case with little to no information, but I am hoping to get this out there as much, and as often as possible. I miss my dad.”That is why I started this show. No matter the amount of public information on a case, these stories need and deserve attention.If you have any information that could aid the investigation into the 2015 homicide of Kenneth Zernicke in Caribou, Maine, please contact Detective Adam Bell at the Maine State Police Houlton Barracks at 207.532.5400.  View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/kennethzernickeFollow @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.

My dad didn't deserve his death, and he doesn't deserve for his case to go unsolved. He was a good person, and I wanted him to be able to be at peace. Help us put him to rest. Jessica Zernike Holmes left work on the night of September 24, 2015, to find her phone flooded with missed calls and messages. When she was finally able to call her family member back, they delivered shocking news about her father. 58-year-old Kenneth Zernike was found dead inside his burning home in Caribou, Maine. Two days later, his death was ruled a homicide. Jess reached out to me because after nearly seven years, her father's case remains unsolved, with little public information

available, even to family members. She wrote in that first email, I understand it makes it hard to cover a case with little to no information, but I am hoping to get this out there as much and as often as possible. I miss my dad. That is why I started this show. No matter the amount of public information on a case, these stories need and deserve attention. I'm Kylie Lowe, and here is Jess Zernike-Holmes

to tell the story of her father, Kenneth Zernike, born at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, on the ancestral land of the Mi'kmaq Nation. Loring is no longer an active base. It closed down in 1994 and was later redeveloped as an industrial and aviation park. If you know Aroostook County, though, you undoubtedly know the Loring Base, whether it be from family members or friends who lived and worked there or have visited since its redevelopment, or maybe you've heard about the reported UFO sightings near the base in the mid-1970s. Either way, it's part of the history of the area. Kenneth grew up in nearby Caribou, about 10 miles from the base. He was there his

entire life and bought a house in the central part of town in 1989. Aristide County is largely untouched forestland and wilderness. There's a lot of nature to experience and appreciate up there. And Kenneth was a county guy through and through. He was big on hunting and had several different kinds of bows. And he was also a skilled angler who made his own fishing lures. Kenneth was Mi'kmaq and an elder of the tribe. Jess told me that while he didn't tend to participate in big events, his Micmac heritage was important to him and something he taught to his daughter, including the things they weren't teaching Jess in school. His whole house

was plastered in Micmac stuff and he made sure that it was a part of my upbringing as well. He focused a lot on the beginning stages of the history with Indigenous people. He taught it to me as a genocide on our people, which wasn't taught in school. Although her parents split up when she was young, Jess got to spend time with her father on summer vacations and school breaks and holidays. Jess was Kenneth's only child, and whenever they were together, he made it all about Jess. Always whatever I wanted. Always. The first day I'd get there, we'd go grocery shopping, and it was just throw whatever you want in the car.

And then he was an amazing artist. We'd paint. With his fishing lures, we would make earrings out of them and such. Like, there's little jewelry. You'd actually go fishing. Kenneth always made his daughter feel safe. Like she was wanted, she told me. I think I had a place.

It was pure love. Kenneth was clearly proud of his daughter. My mom, to this day, she will still tell me that he would go and get four rolls of film developed a week just to photoshoot me. Some of them were damaged in the fire, but not all of them. And I was still able to keep a lot of those photos. Kenneth spent his entire life in the Caribou community. The population was just under 7,700 people as of 2020, down from prior decades, but it was always a small town. People knew Kenneth. He was well-liked, even loved, and really maintained a simple life. He was a very simple man. He was very organized.

He worked for Irving, like farming the potatoes up there. He'd go to work, go home. He was like a set schedule type of dude. It's really weird, like, coming down to that night, because he wasn't involved in anything. Kenneth Zernike went to work as usual on Thursday, September 24th, 2015. And as usual, he went home after work. Like Jess said, her dad was known to like his schedule. At the time, the father and daughter weren't on their greatest terms.

Jess said that she was in her early 20s and she didn't see eye to eye with her father on some things. One argument caused Jess to distance herself from him, so they hadn't spoken in a while, when on that night, September 24th, her phone started to ring non from him. So they hadn't spoken in a while when on that night, September 24th, her phone started to ring non-stop. I was working that day. I was a cashier at the time and my phone kept going off like I was getting messages after messages but I was I couldn't check it at the time. I didn't check it until I got home. So there was a good 40 minutes between the first message and when I checked it. And then the first message that I saw was my cousin letting me know that my dad's house was on fire and that he was deceased. But that is all that we knew at the time.

According to the limited public information available in Kenneth's case, around 10 p.m. on Thursday, September 24, 2015, Caribou firefighters responded to the call of a house fire at 5 Lower Linden Street in Caribou. 58-year-old Kenneth Zernike's body was found inside the home. The news was devastating as much as it was confusing. Right, but it still didn't make sense to me because like at first it was like, could there have something like a fire in the kitchen have started? He's safer than that. I know that. It wouldn't have been an electrical thing. He's safer than that. He's smarter than that. I know that. It just didn't make sense. And it

wouldn't make sense that he wouldn't be able to get out. We didn't find out until two days later that it was a homicide after the autopsy. Although Maine State Police have never released a cause of death in the case, Kenneth Zernike was likely already dead when the fire started. It happened on a Thursday. I was able to get up to the house on a Sunday, the Sunday night. And during that period of time, it was a weird, like a limbo stage. It was, I had nothing solidifying that this was real. I hadn't seen anything, but seeing the house and

the officers still bringing stuff out, working around the house and stuff, it was just that solidified it, that that was very real. So it was more getting up there that it really sunk in. When his manner of death was ruled a homicide, the investigation shifted. Kenneth Zernike's house was at the center of a busy four-way intersection, so police set up an information roadblock to speak with anyone who may have seen anything of note at the residence before the fire. A neighbor who spoke to the Bangor Daily News said that her husband believed he saw someone drive a truck into Kenneth's driveway and left their lights on as they went inside. That person was only there for a minute or so before getting back into the truck and driving off. According to this neighbor,

the fire started sometime after that. In the version of this story Jess has heard repeated over the years, the truck may have had two people inside when it pulled up. So basically like that, and that's the story that I've heard from a lot of people, was that there was a truck there. Somebody got out of the passenger seat, went in, came back, sped out, like burned out, and that's what made the neighbors kind of like bring their attention to it, and then they saw the fire rolling out. Jess has considered a number of scenarios over the years, reasons why someone would want to end her father's life, a man who kept to himself and his routine, but was generally well-known and well-liked. I asked Jess if she had any reason to believe that someone didn't love her dad, though. If there might be someone who had a problem with Kenneth Zernike. Not with him. Him in particular,

no. His family, yes. Jess explained to me that a family member had frequent trouble with the law, and her father was known to be the one who bailed this person out. Jess believes the circle this family member ran with may have had something to do with what happened to her father, but without evidence or confirmation from investigators, she can only speculate at this time. Of the unsolved homicides I've covered, Kenneth Zernike's case seems to have some of the most limited public information. The facts are this. There was a fire at Kenneth's home. Kenneth was found deceased inside the home.

A neighbor may have seen a truck with one or maybe two people pulling in and speeding off shortly before the flames sparked up. And no new public information has been released since 2015. Keeping important case details close to the vest is a key part of protecting the integrity of any investigation. If they have a suspect, if they have evidence, if they have anything at all, Maine State Police detectives are unlikely to disclose it for fear of ruining their chances, Kenneth's chances, of an arrest for this unsolved homicide. Regardless, Jess keeps up with the investigation. I've been in touch with all the detectives on it. We are on our third detective right now.

I do periodically keep in touch. The one that is in charge of it now, Detective Adam Bell. He's doing phenomenal. He does reach out from time to time. He is going through the whole case files. He's still conducting interviews. We email back and forth just if I find something else, I'll just let him know that little piece of information. Last time I talked to him, I think was a few months ago, but he had an interview that day for the case. So it's still being worked on. It's just not the priority, I guess. There's other cases that have more evidence and more pressing, which I understand. You know, you've got to work on the things where you have evidence on.

I get it. While she waits for any updates in the case, Jess Zernike-Holmes shares her father's story on social media and reaches out to other platforms like she did to me, hoping to get it out there to anyone who might know something. Every time she speaks about it publicly or shares a post on Facebook, without fail, someone comes forward to tell her the same story with names of the same people believed to be responsible for her father's death. I cannot independently confirm this story or that the individuals in this story are indeed suspects or persons of interest, but I can say that in a small

town like Caribou, people talk and people seem to have an idea about what might have happened that night. Proving it, enough to bring charges, is another thing. The night that I showed up there, which was a Sunday, that's when they turned the house over to me. So I was able to go through it at that point. Periodically throughout the years, we have cleaned out everything in it. It is still like a salvageable house. Luckily, he put in fireproof sheetrocking. So it definitely helped with that. And bringing it down to the studs, nothing is like stained or too soot. It's

going to cost, but it's going to be fixable. So it's really not that bad. Frustratingly, parts of the house not damaged by the fire were damaged by individuals on the trail of a rumor. A rumor, rumor mills and how they roll. Supposedly my dad had a whole bunch of money hidden in the walls. So people, to this day, so I went up in September last year just for a really one day trip. And then I went up again the beginning of this month. And the damage that has been done inside of that house since then is ridiculous. Almost every single wall has at least four holes punched in it or broken down.

They were looking everywhere. For the record, the rumor that money is stashed in the walls of Kenneth Cernicki's house is untrue. But Jess manages to look on the bright side. She said it's less demo she'll have to pay to do or do herself when it's time to fully fix up that house again. And what matters most to her are the pieces of her father's legacy that survived the flames, his artwork. Kenneth was a gifted painter and many of his works still hang in the homes of his family and friends. Jess was able to recover even more of his paintings from his house that were spared from the blaze and spread them around to people who knew and loved Kenneth. I still have enough and I was able to give them to people who didn't

have stuff from him. Like I have two brothers, my mom has two other children and my oldest brother harassed my dad about one particular painting for years and years and years my dad's like no that's mine you can't have it I was able to send it to him so now my brother has some like my best friend has one of them in her living room and just spreading it around I mean I I can't keep it to myself it's that's selfish see what he did, what he created. It's beautiful. Jess and Kenneth bonded in their creativity. It's something she continues with her daughter now, too.

He started me off when I was really little, like doing paintings and sketching with him and stuff, and that was something that we really bonded over and we connected with was that. And my daughter has such a want to do this stuff too. She was born in 2018, so it was about three years after he died. She never got a chance to meet him, but she knows his artwork. She knows his pictures.

Paint pretty pictures, Mama, just like Grampy. Definitely that connection and something to bond over that we can make something that will be here for years to come. Like, I want to keep that going. It's a family thing now at this point. Just months after her father was killed, Jess's best friend died by suicide. She's experienced tremendous loss in her life, but the energy I could sense from her was nothing short of resilient and strong. It's taken a lot. I've gone through a lot of the emotions and whatnot, but it's, I gotta keep upright. I gotta keep doing stuff like this too, because I can't let this be what he's remembered for. I can't. In 2021, Kenneth Czernicki's brother, Joe Burgoyne, announced a reward for information in the case.

Today, the reward stands at $12,000. Joe saved up for years to be able to offer that reward. Joe, Jess, Kenneth's loved ones, they want to know what happened. They want justice for Kenneth. As far as what happened to him and anybody that might know something, whatever the fear is or whatever is holding them back, I just hope to whatever anybody believes in that they just come clean about it. It's hard enough, A, living without my dad, but also not having any answers on what happened to him when the person or persons that did this still get to live a life.

It's not fair, and I get that that's not like life's not fair, but he didn't deserve any of this. He was a good man. Jess, do you have a favorite memory of your dad or something that makes you look back and smile? I think my favorite memory, this is going to sound so ridiculous. I was meeting a friend up there and I, you know, I was still in high school. I asked him like, Hey dad, can I go hang out with my friend? And he's like, well, I need to meet him first, blah, blah, blah. So my friend shows up and I'm like, Hey Anthony, this is my dad. Anthony's like, what, what you doing over there? And he's like, making bullets. Like, okay. And I was like, yeah, we should go. He had

never done anything like that before and it wasn't it wasn't somebody that i was seeing or something like that it was just a friend of mine that i like to see when i went up there and he got up to me what who does that that's so main that's so main literally yes very main thank you for trusting me with your father's story. I can't thank you enough for even like having the energy and the faith behind to do stuff like this. It was really heartwarming to read. Somebody else knows about this case. It's not directly related to the family.

It's not directly related to the family. It's hopeful. Keep his memory alive. Spread his love. If you have any information that could aid the investigation into the 2015 homicide of Kenneth Zernike in Caribou, Maine,

please contact Detective Adam Bell at the Maine State Police Holton Barracks, 207-532-5400. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources cited in this episode, along with additional sources referenced, are linked at darkdowneast.com so you can do some digging of your own. If you or someone you know has a personal connection to a New England homicide or missing persons case,

unsolved or closed, and you want to bring new attention to their story and honor the legacy of your loved one lost to violent crime or suspicious disappearance, you're welcome to reach out to me at hello at darkdowneast.com. I created this platform for you. I'll do whatever I can to help. 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 homicide 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.