Dark Downeast - The Murder of Robert McKee (Maine)

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

It was just before 4 a.m. on June 20, 1975 in Newport, Maine. The sky was just warming with hints of dawn and the air was quiet save for the buzz of the ice cooler and Coca Cola vending machine sitting in the dim glow of the gas station lights. The fishermen waiting in their car for gasoline noticed a light on inside McNally’s Texaco, but no one came to greet them outside at the pump. Anxious to get their day started, the driver stepped out of the car to see what was the hold up.As he opened the door to the station, the unsuspecting fisherman found 35-year old Robert McKee lying on the floor in a pool of blood. His murder remains unsolved to this day.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/robertmckeeFollow @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.

I spend a lot of time reviewing the details of Maine's unsolved homicide list, scrolling the names and seeing the faces of those whose cases still wait for their conclusion. They're all familiar to me at this point. I know their photos by heart and even the years and dates stick with me now, but I notice something new each time I check that list too. Newport, Maine, 1975. Two names, two unsolved homicides. I'd never picked up on it before.

The cases of Robert McKee and Ellen Choate are not linked, at least not confirmed to be linked despite speculation, but they're connected by time and place. The same month and year in the same small Maine town. In the next two episodes of Dark Down East, you'll hear what happened that June of 1975 and about the two humans lost to still unsolved violent crimes. I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of Robert McKee on Dark Down East. He was a 6th grade teacher at the Vickery School in Pittsfield, but when the kiddos were out on summer vacation and his classroom was closed up until the fall, 35-year-old Robert McKee picked up a full-time summer gig

at McNally's Texaco station in Newport. He'd met his wife while stationed in Germany as first lieutenant for the U.S. Army in 1966 to 1968. And that extra cash from his service station attendant job meant he could afford to send his wife back to Germany to visit her family. Robert McKee, by all accounts, was a family man. He had two children, a young son and a daughter. Mike McNally, owner of the gas station where Robert worked, told Bruce Hertz of the Vanguard Daily News that Robert was the kind of person you would like to have as a father or a son. Following his time in Germany, Robert stayed in the Army Reserves, but returned to his hometown in Aroostook County

and earned his teaching degree from the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Robert went above and beyond as a teacher. He was active in the SAD 53 Teachers Association, the Maine State Teachers Association, and was the faculty advisor of the Science Club. It was a quiet yet fulfilling life in small-town Maine. Neither Robert nor the residents of the Sebastakook Valley area knew that the mid-1970s would become a dark time for their community.

In 1975, McNally's Texaco station, where the Irving Oil now sits in Newport, was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact, the Texaco was the only all-night gas station between Bangor and Waterville, with just under 60 miles of dark interstate connecting the two cities. the Texaco was the only all-night gas station between Bangor and Waterville, with just under 60 miles of dark interstate connecting the two cities. The area certainly wasn't built up like it is now. Residents called it a lonely, quiet stretch of road just off I-95. And when Robert McKee clocked in for his shift on June 20th, he'd be the only person working at the lonely, quiet service station overnight.

A Maine State trooper, also on the overnight shift, stopped into the filling station around 1 a.m. Robert was there attending to his duties. There was nothing amiss or worrisome, just a man doing his job. Three hours later, the scene would be different. A fisherman, in town with some buddies from Rhode Island, pulled into the Texaco station. He and his friends had just fueled themselves up with an early morning meal at Charette's Diner, and now they needed a little fuel for their vehicle, too.

The pumps weren't self-service like most of them are in Maine today, so the man and his friends waited for the attendant to come out. It was just before 4am and the sun wouldn't rise for another hour or so. The sky was just warming with hints of dawn. The air was quiet, save for the buzz of the ice cooler and Coca-Cola vending machine sitting in the dim glow of the gas station lights. The fishermen noticed a light was on inside of the office, but still no one came to greet them outside of the pump. Anxious to get their day started, the driver stepped out of the car to see what was the holdup. According to reporting by Bruce Hertz for the Bangor Daily News,

as the man opened the door to the station, the unsuspecting fisherman found Robert McKee lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Police responded to the gas station, sealing it as a crime scene and carefully processing any evidence they could find. Robert was lying between the door and the register, the empty cash drawer hanging open. That empty till was their first sign that this was likely a robbery turned deadly. The station's owner, Mike McNally, later told police and the press that at least $600 was missing from the cash register, down to the last penny, and about 35 gallons of gasoline was unaccounted for. Robert's wallet was empty too. Assistant Attorney General Pat Perino said

that Robert McKee died as the result of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. The bullets were from a small-caliber weapon. Out front, investigators noted a distinct tire print to the left of the gas station entrance. They covered it with a few strips of cardboard taped down to the pavement to protect it from fading or tampering. FBI technicians would later analyze the tracks for possible clues. But police had barely finished processing the scene at McNally's Texaco when another call came in. A robbery at another small store, about an hour away from Newport. Mrs. Freon squared up with the three men standing around her.

She was behind the register of the general store at Canadian Trail Cabins on Wyman Lake. It was a seasonal log cabin campground built among the tall pines and birch trees that prickle the lake's shoreline. According to the Bangor Daily News, it was just about 7 a.m. when the three men stepped into the shop, one grabbing a six-pack of beer and another requesting four packs of cigarettes. She could likely sense that these men weren't the cheery lodgers or casual passers-through that typically frequented the store at this hour. She watched as the men positioned themselves around the cash register. Give us your money, they told the woman. The register was fashioned with an alarm button, and she reached for it, but the men stopped her hand before she could signal for help.

Don't do it if you value your life, they said. The woman didn't see a gun or a weapon not out in the open, but the men promised to shoot if she disobeyed. She watched as the men snatched about $100 from the register and collected their beer and cigarettes. Unsure of their next move, it seemed the robbers had a disagreement about what to do with the woman they'd just threatened. Should they lock her up someplace so they could get away? They chose to place her in the bathroom. She could hear them scrambling to find a heavy object, a chair, anything to keep her in place while they fled. But the men gave up and ducked out of the store.

The woman was left generally unharmed, but not unshaken. When it was finally safe, the woman emerged from the bathroom and hit the alarm. If you live in a big city or a larger metro area, hearing of two crimes on the same morning but an hour's drive away from each other might not be so quickly linked. However, in this region of Maine, where the definition of down the road can mean literally just down the road or a 60-minute drive away, the similarities between what happened at McNally's Texaco and Canadian Trail cabins could not be ignored. Were the perpetrators the same? The woman from the second robbery was able to describe her three assailants. Two of them were about 20 years old, 5 foot 10 or 11 inches tall, with medium-toned complexions. The other was older, maybe in his 30s, and much shorter,

about 5 feet tall, with a mustache. Police told the Bangor Daily News that the two incidents were being investigated in conjunction with each other, but developments came much more swiftly for the robbery at the General Store on Wyman Lake. By Friday evening, June 21, 1975, four suspects were arrested for the robbery. Two of the accused robbers were minors. Though a connection was first thought to exist between the shooting death of Robert McKee and the robbery on Wyman Lake, investigators changed their assessment of the two incidents, stating that they could make no positive connection at the time. That meant whoever robbed the Texaco and murdered Robert McKee, was out there.

And police needed the public's help to move the investigation along. Newport Police Chief Charles Hawkins and Public Information Officer for the Maine State Police Robert Moore took to the local press for a public appeal. They wanted anyone who may have purchased gas at McNally's Texaco after midnight on Thursday and before 4 a.m. on Friday, June 20, 1975, to contact their local state police barracks. The leads trickled in, some of them very good leads, according to Deputy Attorney General Richard Cohen. On July 2, an anonymous letter arrived at the Newport Police Station. We have to talk to the person who wrote this letter, Assistant Attorney General John Atwood told the Bangor Daily News.

Quote, they may hold the key to the whole case. End quote. The letter, apparently sent from someone in nearby Oakland, Maine, began like this. To clear my conscience and still be a good citizen, I feel I have to tell you of an incident that occurred on the morning when the Texaco surface station was robbed and the attendant was shot to death. The remainder of the letter was kept confidential, police saying it included information about this supposed witness that could point the still unknown killer or killers to the author of the letter. Based on the handwriting though, Assistant AG Atwood said that the writer was likely a woman. Though it felt like a big clue, the contents of the letter really weren't of any use to police. The description just wasn't robust enough to move

the case forward and find who was responsible for stealing the life of the father and teacher Robert McKee. But if only police could speak with the person who wrote it, they thought, quote, we might get enough to go on, end quote. State authorities once again appealed to the public, hoping news would reach the letter writer. If he or she came forward, Atwood assured, they could remain anonymous. As they waited for the first letter writer to come forward and reveal themselves, a second letter found its way to police, this time the Maine State Police Barracks in Holton. If the author of this second letter was being truthful, then they were at the scene of the shooting at the approximate time of the shooting at McNally's Texaco. Though investigators were unable to disclose the contents of the letter verbatim, Newport Police Chief Charles Hawkins said the

evidence, if proven to be authentic, could be critical in finding Robert McKee's killer. But the identity of the person who penned the letter or even the geographical origin of that letter was not obvious. Again, police urged those supposed witnesses to come forward and help in the search for justice for Robert McKee. Meanwhile, the first letter sent to Newport Police was proven to be a hoax, some cruel trick that soaked up investigative resources and distracted from the primary focus.

But a few days after the second letter came in to Maine State Police, Deputy Attorney General Richard Cohen spoke to the local media, announcing their search for a Portland, Maine man named Roger Jackson. Quote, At this time, we are making an appeal to Roger Jackson, who might live in the greater Portland area and who we believe has essential information bearing on this case. End quote. Whether authorities ever successfully located

this Roger Jackson, or if he did in fact know anything about the case, is not public information. Still, one month later, authorities were as active in the investigation as ever. But even as strong leads continued to reach investigators, they said that it was, quote, completely premature, end quote, to say arrests were imminent.

Several rumors had circulated that two out-of-state people and a main man were suspects in the case. Bangor Daily News reporters asked Deputy Attorney General Richard Cohen about those rumors, who dismissed them, saying the reports had, quote, no official significance, end quote. According to Richard Cohen and other investigating authorities, though, things were progressing. That was late September 1975. Within months, whatever progress they had, stalled.

Just like the main fall weather can drop off into freezing temperatures without warning, Robert McKee's case went cold too. August of 1981. Six years and two months after Robert McKee was gunned down for some unknown reason at the McNally's Texaco, the cold case began to thaw. The Bangor Daily News spoke with Deputy Attorney General Pat Perino, who reported that new investigators were assigned to review, quote, some very good new leads, end quote. When asked if authorities could name suspects or speak to rumors that state police would soon be digging for a possible murder weapon in nearby

Pittsfield, Maine, Perino refused to answer. Whether Pat Perino wanted to comment on it or not at the time didn't matter. The rumored digging actually began in October of the same year. On the morning of October 9th, 1981, Maine State Police, assisted by the Pittsfield Police Department and Public Works Department, rolled up with heavy equipment, marking the lawn of a Washington Street home as their dig site. In a photo by Brenda Seekins in the Bangordia News, Maine State Police Detective Barry Schumann, holding an umbrella to guard his plaid sport coat and tie from the elements, stood next to a trench coat-wearing Pat Perino as he directed a backhoe forward, a sizable hole already formed beneath its bucket. They were, in fact, searching for the possible murder weapon

in the case of Robert McKee. That small-caliber gun, believed to be the murder weapon, had evaded police for the six years that the case remained open. Locating it could be a crucial advancement towards answers. New information after six years directed detectives to that very spot, but the possible connection of that location to the case or any potential suspects was not revealed. Pittsfield is just over 10 minutes from Newport. Seven miles on Route 100 connects the two dots on the map, but you could also just as easily travel on Interstate 95. The on-ramp was right next to McNally's Texaco, and Pittsfield would have been the first exit south of Newport. Either way, if someone was in a hurry to flee the scene of their

crime, it was a seamless getaway route. Excavators turned over several patches of lawn, sinking the clawed bucket of the backhoe deep into the earth and examining the dirt and clay that it revealed. They dug for days, but with each load of dirt turned over in the hunt for a small caliber gun, or any clues at all that would aid the investigation into Robert McKee's death. They just found more of the same. Nothing. Nothing at all. In February of 1990, a piece by Sharon Mack was published in the Bangor Daily News. Its headline read, Cases of Unsolved Deaths Piling Up in Maine. The article and the work of Sharon Mack comes up frequently in my research on unsolved Maine cases. The piece is a cross-section of the

lingering homicides and disappearances in the state at the start of the 90s. Though some of the cases and names Sharon highlighted in the article have since seen justice, or are at least on their way there, like the case of Janet Baxter, some of the cases remain on the unsolved homicide list to this day. Robert McKee is among them. point it had been nearly 15 years since Robert was killed, Detective Robert Cameron of the Maine State Police Criminal Investigation Division classified the case as an open and active investigation. At the time of Robert McKee's killing, service station robberies were on the rise in Maine. In the wake of Robert McKee's death, a new group formed to support victims of robbery at service stations and their families. A report in the Bangor Daily News explained that Attorney Edward Heisler, general counsel to the Maine Gasoline Retailers Association, was creating the legal groundwork for a non-profit organization called the Service Station Reward

Fund. The fund would be used, in part, to establish a reward for information that leads to the conviction of those who rob service stations, while the other proceeds would be given to surviving family members of service station attendants who are murdered or wounded. At the time, Maine had 1,800 retail gasoline dealers. Organizers hoped to collect $20 from each of the dealers to support the fund. In a later piece published in the New York Times, the owner of McNally's Texaco said that all but one owner of main service stations agreed to contribute to the fund. Robert McKee's widow and his children were among the first to receive contributions from the service station reward fund. I'm looking at a photo of Robert McKee, printed in a free newsletter called SV Weekly in 2010.

Larry Gerard spoke with Robert's son, who was by then a grown man with children of his own. But in the photo, he's a young boy on a rowboat, wearing a baseball cap and a life jacket next to his sister and dad. Robert's son said he had maybe a dozen memories of his father despite being just three years old when he lost him. Quote, I remember bits and pieces of when it happened. I remember the morning they came and told my mom. At that age, you're really too young to understand. End quote. That three-year-old boy grew up to pursue police work with the Penobscot County Sheriff's Department for a time, telling SV Weekly it was his calling. The impact of his father's death was far-reaching.

What he said about his mother twisted my heart in ways I can't explain. As far as my mom is concerned, she married the love of her life, and no one was ever going to fill his shoes. End quote. It had been 35 years in the unsolved homicide case when Robert's son spoke with SV Weekly. He said he didn't mind speaking about what happened to his dad, but what he really hoped for was an ending. On the almost miracle somebody could be convicted, he said, that would mean an awful lot of closure for me, but it would never replace what I lost.

As for what he had to say about the person or persons responsible for stealing his father's life while he worked an overnight shift to support his family, quote, There's someone out there who knows something. There's someone out there who's guilty of this. And they've lived with this all these years. End quote.

In 1977, as the case of Robert McKee's murder continued but at a slow pace, another shocking crime hit Newport. Though it first came to light in 1977, it was clear from the first phase of the investigation that it likely occurred years earlier, perhaps the same exact year as the case of Robert McKee. On Sunday, June 26, 1977, police discovered the decomposed body of a woman obscured by some bushes about 15 feet off the Old County Road between Newport and Corinna, Maine. A state medical examiner determined that the woman had an unnatural

hole in her skull, a possible gunshot wound. When the identity of the deceased woman was confirmed as 23-year-old Ellen Choate of Pennsylvania, a whole new list of questions stacked up around both cases. In the next episode of Dark Down East, another teacher killed by a fatal gunshot to the head, another unsolved case out of Newport, Maine, the possible connections were debated yet unconfirmed. And somehow, that's not all that was happening in Sebastakook Valley in the mid-1970s. Follow Dark Down East on your favorite podcast platform or wherever you're listening right now, so you are the first to hear the next episode of Maine and New England's True Crime Podcast. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources for this episode include the Bangor Daily News,

the Biddeford Socko Journal, and more. All sources are listed and linked at darkdowneast.com so you can do some more digging of your own. If you know of an active missing persons case in Maine or Greater New England, or you are searching for a loved one, send me an email with the subject line missing to hello at darkdowneast.com. I will share the information on an upcoming episode of Dark Down East and at darkdowneast.com slash missing. 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.