Dark Downeast - The Murder of Leslie Spellman (Maine)

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

ACADIA COLD CASE, 1977: Leslie Spellman was just 27-years old when she set off to Bar Harbor in the summer of 1977, hitchhiking from Vermont with her scruffy mutt Taylor by her side. Her beaten body would be found just a day after she left for her adventure, along the walking trail at Asticou Gardens in Northeast Harbor.To this day, over 40 years later, her family is still searching for answers -- Who Killed Leslie Spellman?If you have information regarding this case, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - North at [phone] or toll free 1-800-432-7381. You may also report information about this crime using the leave a tip form. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/lesliespellmanFollow @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 area we now call Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island is the ancestral land of the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe. The Wabanaki people have inhabited the area for more than 10,000 years, long before it was a national park and popular destination for tourists in down east Maine. Millions of people flock to Acadia National Park every year. Visitors pour into the gorgeous landscape that truly has it all, from its 26 mountain peaks to deepwater ponds, the rocky Maine coastline and thick pine forests, and that salty down-east air that could never be captured by a Yankee candle scent. Many well-known names have claimed a piece of Mount Desert Island as home at one point or another. Among them, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, and Morgans. These wealthy summer residents built up their cottages as they contributed to a massive tourism boom,

telling tales of how beautiful Maine is this time of year, and so their city-dwelling neighbors just had to come see Mount Desert Island for themselves. But Acadia wasn't Acadia until 1929. That moniker was given just as the Great Depression arrived. The once-wealthy people from away retreated from their down-east escapes back to the cities from whence they came. Tragedy struck Mount Desert Island and the National Parkland in 1947. Fire raged through the dry autumn forests, destroying 10,000 acres of Acadia, as well as nearly 70 estates, several historic hotels, and 170 homes in Bar Harbor. Can you imagine what Bar Harbor and MDI would look like today, with every one of those early

1900s structures still standing? Think of how the landscape of the park would look if those trees lost in the fire were given the last 70 years to spread their roots. The loss was devastating, but nature has done as it does, and it started new again. According to author Randy Mentor, you can see the distinct line of young trees that have grown where the fire burned what was once there. The beauty of Acadia is hardly a well-kept secret. Over 3.5 million visitors experience it for themselves each year. But of those millions of people seeking beauty, adventure, or solitude with a trip to Acadia, some never return home. 76 people have died in Acadia National Park since it was officially labeled a national park in the early 1900s.

Many of them accidental, tragic falls to their fate after attempting challenging hikes. Like the two climbers who decided the precipice trail wasn't challenging enough, so they struck out on their own, looking for more thrill. They were first-time free climbers. They had no experience climbing without equipment, gripping the slick rock with just their fingers and toes, and yet they thought they could handle it. Not long into the climb, they lost their grips on near-vertical rock faces and tumbled to their tragic deaths. The author of the book Death in Acadia said she writes books about national park deaths to help people be more aware of what they need to know, to help them stay alive on their adventurous trips to national parks like Glacier, Zion,

and of course, Acadia. But her research and teachings shared inside her book couldn't have prepared the visitors whose trips to Acadia ended in murder. One of those murders is still unsolved over 40 years later. This is the case of Leslie Spellman on Dark Downeast. It was 1977, and the July 4th weekend was just a few weeks away from bringing the height of the tourist season to the Downeast area. Maine seems to be a go-to retreat for celebrating our nation's birthday. Toll booths are always backed up to the state line, the back roads to lake towns are congested with city-like traffic, and coastal hotels proudly hang their no-vacancy signs as tourists roll into town. Northeast Harbor is a little village on Mount Desert Island, with just about 2,000 residents calling it home year

round. It's the quiet side of Mount Desert Island versus the more well-known and more frequented Bar Harbor. The Rockefeller family owns a summer home in Northeast Harbor at present time, and it's not unusual to see super yachts pull into the harbor. But in 1977, it was home to just over 600 people. A town small enough that it didn't demand a full police department. There was Ernest Combs, a civilian police and fire dispatcher, two island police officers, Matthew Stewart and Chief Maitland Murphy, and Sergeant Tyrone Smith. When the phone inside the community police station rang mid-morning on Sunday, June 19th,

Ernest took a sip of his coffee and put down the newspaper before answering a call that would knock the tiny town of Northeast Harbor off kilter forever. The caller was standing at the phone booth in front of the fire station, and his frightened tone made it impossible to understand much beyond one key fact. There was a body at the Azalea Garden. The fire station being just around the corner from the police station, Ernest asked the man to come see him in person. Gordon Wheatman and his family walked into the station and began to tell their story. This next excerpt is from the Boston Globe, an article titled On the Cold Trail of a Killer, dated July 17, 1977. Gordon Wheatman said he had driven into the gravel parking lot of the Azalea Garden behind the Astakot Inn on Route 198. It was 9.30 a.m. They had parked their car on the left-hand side

of the parking lot. He and his wife had just started to walk down the crushed stone pathway into the highly landscaped Azalea garden. Their children were behind them. The Wheatmans had walked less than 25 feet down the pathway when they observed the body of what they thought was a man lying on the side of the path. The person's face was splattered with blood. The couple presumed that the person was dead. They never let their children see the body and put them back into the car. Gordon drove swiftly to the nearest payphone to make the call that would land him in the police station, retelling what he and his wife had just encountered. Ernest took notes and quickly

picked up the phone to call Sergeant Tyrone Smith. Sergeant Smith reached the gardens in less than five minutes, approaching the scene that the Wheatmans had described. Smith radioed into the station, 10-49, that's a homicide. Ernest Coombs told the Boston Globe, when I first heard the story, I thought it was just an unattended death. We get those occasionally up here, or maybe a suicide. When I first heard the story, I thought it was just an unattended death. We get those occasionally up here.

Or maybe a suicide. Nope. Never thought it was a murder. I guess because nobody's ever been murdered here before. Unquote. In fact, the only recorded murder in the town before this occurred in 1789, before Maine was even its own state. The convicted murderer was hanged by the sheriff and buried at the low tide mark. Descendants of both the victim and the murderer still live in town.

The azalea garden planted around Astakou Pond is one of the primary draws for people visiting Northeast Harbor. The land on which the Astakou Azalea Gardens were planted was a gift by the Rockefellers in the mid-1950s. The gardens are technically outside of Acadia National Park. However, the proximity to the formal park boundaries means the gardens are often associated with the park and are close enough to add to any Acadia National Park itinerary. The stunning garden design with distinct Japanese-style landscaping was dreamt up and created by Charles K. Savage,

and it was intended to be the perfect area for a stroll, just as the Wheatmans were planning that morning. By 10.15 a.m., Corporal Edward Mendel from the Maine State Police Homicide Department was on the scene, and Ernest the dispatcher was busy phoning the reserve policemen and detectives who lived in town. Together, they sealed the scene and began their investigation. The first piece of information investigators learned was that this was not a man, as the Wheatmans had initially believed. It was a young woman, mid-twenties. She was wearing a beige sweater, a maroon nylon vest, and knee-length socks, along with unique jewelry, a wooden serpent bracelet, a silver band bracelet,

and a tiger's eye stone ring. She only had on underwear from the waist down. Her shoes and shorts were missing. The woman's hair was styled in long pigtail braids. She had olive skin and gray eyes. She died between 6 and 6.30 a.m. that day, just three hours before the Wheatmans came upon her body. It appeared that she had died from multiple blows to the head with a blunt instrument. And upon completion of the autopsy, this was confirmed. She had lacerations of the scalp and brain and fractures of the skull. She had a broken upper jaw. The autopsy also showed no signs of alcohol, drugs, or sexual assault. However,

this did not mean there were not sexual motivations in the case. Other clues they uncovered at the scene showed that she may have tried to defend herself but couldn't get her arm in the air to cover her head. It looked like she had been running from her attacker. The murder weapon was found nearby, but details on what that object was were not released to the public. For 48 hours after the murder, the woman remained unidentified. A sketch artist drew a photo of her face, and it was circulated in the media. Leads poured in, people looking for their missing daughters and sisters. But still, no positive ID on the woman. In the early days of the investigation, the Boston Globe was pulled in to help identify the woman.

The vest she was wearing could be traced to an Eastern Mountain Sports in Boston. A sales clerk there remembered selling her the vest and some camping supplies. He said she seemed to be new to the camping scene. The Boston Globe published the details of this vest and the story, and it reached Mrs. Betsy Spellman. When she saw the sketch of the woman found murdered in the gardens, she knew it was her daughter. On June 26, 1977, the body was positively identified with dental records as that of 27-year-old Leslie

Spellman. Leslie Spellman was a brave, adventurous soul. Her bravery no more clearly demonstrated than when she helped stop an armed robbery in action at the bank where she was a teller, and Leslie's adventurous nature drew her outdoors and into the wilderness. She was from Hingham, Massachusetts, but she had just finished a week of backpacking with her sister Amy on the Long Trail near Bennington, Vermont. Leslie planned to continue her adventure north while her sister ventured onward to New York. After a night at a friend's house, Leslie set out to hitchhike from Vermont to Acadia National Park with all of her camping equipment and her dog, Taylor. The last time Amy saw her adventure buddy and sister, Leslie,

was Saturday, June 18, 1977. Hitchhiking was standard practice for Amy and Leslie, although they always traveled together with Leslie's dog and Amy's two huskies. Thumbing a ride just used to be super commonplace in the first half of the 1900s because fewer people owned cars, interstate mass transit wasn't as easily available or affordable, and there wasn't much fear around hopping into a vehicle with a stranger. Some of the first laws against hitchhiking were passed in the 1960s and 70s, and the FBI started using scare tactics in campaigns to warn drivers that a hitchhiker might be a sex maniac or a vicious murderer. It's curious to me, though, that those

campaigns at first didn't warn the hitchhiker about whose car they may be getting into. There was a campaign by Rutgers University police that I found particularly problematic? At the time, they handed out cards that basically said, if you're a woman and you hitchhike and you're sexually assaulted, it's your own fault. That was kind of the view of hitchhikers around the time of Leslie Spellman's trip to Acadia. If you hitchhike and something bad happens, well, maybe you shouldn't have been hitchhiking in the first place. Of course, that is tremendous victim blaming, but it was the view of the time. Leslie's sister Amy told the Boston Globe that she was concerned that because Leslie was

hitchhiking, quote, people would have the image of her as some crazy hippie. Instead, she was a highly motivated, hardworking woman. There seemed to be no end to what she could do, unquote. As the investigation continued in the days following her discovery and identification, Leslie's dog, Taylor, who was always her sidekick, became a key clue in the timeline of the attack. A witness came forward saying that around 6.15am that day, they saw a dog being tossed out of a car about a quarter mile from the Azalea Garden on Route 198. The driver pulled off towards Seal Harbor, but the witness couldn't make out the license plate number or any distinctive details of who tossed the dog. Before Leslie's body was even discovered in the garden, an officer located

a dog wearing a red bandana wandering confused around the side of the road. The dog had an injured shoulder. Another witness, a gas station clerk, remembered a rusty, old, dark-colored car pulling into the pumps. They added $3 worth of fuel to the tank, paid, and left. But the clerk distinctly remembered a man driving the car, and in the passenger seat sat a woman with a dog on her lap. He gave a description of the man, woman, and the dog. The dog was wearing a red bandana. The clerk later positively identified the lost dog police rescued from the side of the road as the same pup he saw that night. Amy, Leslie's sister, also identified Taylor the dog and collected him from the kennel to bring him home to her family. With all of this

information and the witness statements, police determined that Leslie arrived in Mount Desert Island around 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 16, 1977, the night before she was killed. Leslie wasn't known to go camping at campgrounds or formal camping sites. She was more of a find-a-spot-and-set-up-camp adventurer. Amy said that Leslie loved the woods, so she may have set up her tent in the woods the night she arrived in town. So, police searched for signs of a campsite in the wooded areas near the gardens. They hoped her personal items, like a journal she always carried with her, might still be there. But her personal items were never recovered journal she always carried with her, might still be there. But her personal items were never recovered. In an interview with the Boston Globe one month after her murder, lead investigator on the case, Howard Mandel, told reporters, quote,

I wish I could say that we had something solid to go on, but the real truth is that we don't have a thing that would help us identify the killer. Unquote. That's where the speculation, theories, and possible connections to other homicides began swirling. In July of 1977, a man named Lorne Aquin entered the Connecticut home of Cheryl Bowden, killing Cheryl, her seven children, and her niece before burning down the house. In the book Death in Acadia, the author notes that a FBI report surfaced showing comparisons between the Bowden slayings and the death of Leslie Spellman. A few of those similarities in the cases center on the dog, Taylor. While DNA, as evidence, was still a decade

away at the time, police found dog hair in Aquin's car that was, quote, compatible, unquote, with Taylor's hair color, texture, and chemical composition. Also similar, the suspected murderer did not hurt Taylor the dog, except for his minor shoulder injury likely caused by getting pushed out of that car. In the Bowdoin murders, Aquin let the family dog out into the backyard, leaving it unharmed. Outside of the canine connections, there's this. The murders were committed with the same type of blunt object, and Aquin's appearance was similar to the description the gas station clerk gave of the man that Leslie was assumed to be with the night before her murder. Aquin also had dies to MDI, and his whereabouts were unaccounted for between June 17th and June 20th, 1977.

This possible connection found its way into the press, and whether you feel those connections are too loose or worth exploring further, one man took great offense to the circulating story, the attorney of Lorne Aquin. Attorney John Williams of New Haven, Connecticut said, quote, whoever made these charges in Maine should be dismissed. I'm even more upset that the media has seen fit to print this. It's a classic non-story, unquote. Despite it all, Aquin was put to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison in Connecticut in 1979. Police have never identified a credible link between Leslie's murderer and Lorne Aikwin. In the year 2000, Leslie Spellman's case saw renewed attention when serial killer James Hicks was arrested in Texas and made a deal with prosecutors to give information about the locations of his victims' bodies

if he could serve his sentence in Maine. According to the Murderpedia summary of his crimes, James had three victims, all Maine women, his wife, 23-year-old Jenny Hicks in 1977, 34-year-old Geraldine Towers in 1982, and 40-year-old Lynn Willett in 1996. But while Sergeant Troy Gardner couldn't confirm or deny if Hicks was a suspect, there are parallels in his M.O. and the timeline of his crimes. Leslie was murdered around the same time that James Hicks' wife, Jenny, disappeared. He also had ties to Northeast Harbor where Leslie was found. Maine State Police Lieutenant Daryl Ouell died as the result of foul play, especially in central Maine, it's safe to say we would have been looking at his possible involvement, unquote.

Lieutenant Ouellette also said that Hicks was very capable of doing what happened to Leslie Spellman. Maine State Police Detective Joseph Zamboni told the Bangor Daily News in an article titled, FBI Lists Hicks as Serial Killer, dated April 14, 2000, that nothing explicitly links James Hicks to Leslie's case. However, quote, I think logic tells you that when you have a suspected killer in the neighborhood, you have to consider that when you have unusual and unsolved James Hicks is serving life in prison in Maine. At this point, he has not been named a suspect in Leslie Spellman's murder. In 2007, new developments in forensic technology gave investigators renewed hope in uncovering even the smallest clue as to what happened to Leslie. State Police Sergeant Troy Gardner said that sophisticated methods for analyzing DNA, along with new ways to study footprints and fingerprints, could move the investigation forward. Leslie's sister, Amy, was at the news conference that day to show her continued support and dedication to the search for answers in her sister's murder.

Amy Vaughn told reporters, quote, It's never over. It never goes away, unquote. In 2017, a major milestone in Leslie's case passed without answers. 40 years since her brutal murder in Acadia National Park. And it seemed to pass without any significant attention in the media. Two years later, in the summer of 2019, one short article was published on foxbangor.com on June 17, 2019. The Northeast Harbor town manager told the reporter,

Unfortunately, I don't think we know a lot more today than we did 40-some years ago." The simplified version of the facts released to the public on Leslie Spellman's case is this. Leslie Spellman and her dog arrived in Mount Desert Island late on Saturday, June 18th, 1977. She was found dead along the walking trail of Astakou Garden just after 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 19th, 1977. Based on the autopsy, she was likely killed between 6 and 6.30 a.m. that day. She was killed at that spot, not dumped there. Amy Vaughn said in that 2007 news conference, quote, She was so precious to kill someone like that who was so defenseless.

I just can't understand. No matter what kind of monster did this, they must think about it. It must follow them. Unquote. I share in Amy's sentiment, it must follow the monster who did this to Leslie. I also share in the investigator's lingering decades-old hope that someone, somewhere, will come forward with details even after all this time. Maybe hearing this podcast will recover a long-buried memory. Or maybe you know someone with tales of their 1970s summers in Bar Harbor. Maybe someone will remember their conversation with a young woman on her way into the Acadia woods with a scruffy pup at her side.

One thing's for sure. Someone knows what happened to Leslie Spellman. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. One of my main sources for this episode is a book by Randy Mindtor called Death in Acadia. It's on Amazon and I read it on my Kindle. And as much as the book is about death, it's also a curious history of the national park and its surrounding communities and how it all came to be. If you have any interest in Maine history, please pick it up. I'll put a link in the show notes.

Links to all my other sources for this case are 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 to advocate for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases like Leslie Spellman. I am not about to let their names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe and this is Dark Down East.