Dark Downeast - The Murder of Sean Conway (Maine)

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

CORNISH, MAINE 1991: Sean Conway's family has been waiting 31 years to learn what happened to their brother and son on January 16, 1991. This long-standing case is still considered an open and active homicide investigation, though it’s been years since any new developments have come to light.Nim is on Dark Downeast to share her brother’s story in hopes that it will reach the person or persons who know exactly what happened at that motorcycle supply shop in Cornish, Maine one January afternoon.If you have information about Sean Conway’s murder, contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit at 1-800-228-0857 or submit a tip here.  View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/seanconwayFollow @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.

And I understand that police departments have locks going on, and there are other people that have people that have been murdered in the meantime, and they deal with families, and I understand that, but then there's still us. There's still us. There's still Sean. You know what I mean? So what happens for Sean? 31 years. That's how long Nim and her whole family have waited to learn what happened to her brother on January 16, 1991. Sean Conway's long-standing case is still considered an open and active homicide investigation, though it's been years since any new developments have come to light.

Nim is on Dark Down East to share her brother's story in hopes that it will reach the person or persons who know exactly what happened at that motorcycle supply shop in Cornish, Maine one January afternoon. My hope and our family's hope is that someone will hear this and, you know, it'll spark a memory. There's somebody alive, I know there's more than one person alive that was involved with this. And I hope that they hear this. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Sean Conway on Dark Down East. I'm Sean Conway's oldest sister. My name is Nim.

I'm the oldest of the family. There were six of us at one time. There was three boys and three girls. But yeah, I'm the oldest of everybody. I was like the little mini-mom. As the oldest sister, Nim found herself in a caretaker role, even at a young age. I remember being even as young as I was, I remember changing his diapers. And this was back in the day where you had cloth diapers and safety pins and rubber pants. And it was like, oh, really old fashioned. And he was just like a little toddler kid running around when I was home from school, you know what I mean? Crawling and, you know, like the big sister, you know what

I mean? I watched out for him. Their family lived in a small two-bedroom apartment in Boston. By the time Sean was born, I think I was seven and he was number five. And we lived in a small two-bedroom apartment, which going back as an adult, I couldn't believe that we lived in such a small space because it seemed big to us as kids. Um, and, um, we were just, uh, outside most of the time we grew up in the city and city of Boston. And, um, but we were outside, we're dead end kids. Um, our road ended in a dead end. So we were safe running around playing outside. And that's pretty much how we spent most of our lives, being outside so our mother wouldn't kill us, I think. Because it was just a lot of little kids in one small space, pretty much. Sean's funny personality emerged even as a toddler and a young boy.

He'd do anything for a laugh. He was definitely a comedian. He was, you know, do jokes or make, you know, funny faces. He would make you laugh because that was just how he was. I've got a picture of him when he was little even, and he's in the bathtub again with Mr. Bubbles. And he's got this goofiest face on and all you can see is his the top part of his face out of the bubbles and he is just you know making the funniest face and it's just a cool like little picture of like who he was you know what I mean just like oh I'm gonna make a funny face because you're looking at me you know it was he's cute he was he was always trying to make make us laugh

Nim shared that photo of Sean with me, the one with his face poking out of the mounds of bubbles surrounded by frothy white bathwater. His mouth is stretched into a silly grin and his eyes are focused squarely on the camera. Even in this one snapshot, I can sense the essence of Sean. Silly, happy, funny, a cute little kid.

I mean, he had such white blonde hair, and it was just so always sticking up all over the place. He was really, really cute, had the best charming smile, bluest eyes. He was really, really, really a cute baby and funny. So I think that's mostly what I remember when he was little. As Sean got a little older, he developed a keen interest in dirt bikes and motorcycles. He was young and he was already like dirt biking, you know, on this like little mini dirt bike,

you know, up and down. When we were in New Hampshire at this point. It was a passion. It was an absolute passion for him. I can't even think of anything else that I could say that would be anything that he was even remotely involved with. Nothing could keep him from riding. I think he was eight or nine. And he had to have his appendix taken out. And while he was in there in the hospital, the doctors noticed a pretty good burn on his calf of his leg. And they questioned my mother, like, well, why does he have this? And it wasn't treated

and so on like that. So my mother's horrified because she knows nothing about this. I knew nothing about it. But apparently he was on the little teeny little dirt bike and had tipped it, rolled it onto his leg and the muffler burned him. But he figured if my mother found out, she wouldn't let him ride. So he threw his pants away and he just covered it up and just carried on just like nothing ever happened. I can't even imagine. It was a really big spot, so it must have been really painful. But Sean loved motorcycles and he was not going to be taken away from that. He definitely loved them. School was not easy for him, but when it came to motorbikes, Sean was a walking encyclopedia. He wasn't a very good student. I think now he would probably have been considered for some special help in school because he couldn't read very well.

But if you gave him a motorcycle magazine, he could tell you what every single thing was in there. And if we were on the highway driving, he would say, oh, there's a Triumph, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or there's a Kawasaki. You know, he knew all the details. And I was like, oh, my God, Sean, enough with the motorcycles. But that was him. He just knew it all, knew every single bit of it. School only got more difficult for Sean as he got into his

preteen years. Nim remembers the first time she caught him skipping class. So I'm going to say somewhere around the eighth grade, he was hooking school and he was walking somewhere. So I caught him and, you know, he just was very frustrated. He didn't do well in school, and he didn't want to be there. So I brought him to school. I signed him in, told whoever was in charge at the office that we were late. We just woke up late, and here he is. But I guess that was the time when I started being concerned that things were not doing, he wasn't doing well. You know, because how, I had no idea if he, how often he had done that or did do that.

You know, he would skip school and go wherever. I'm not even sure where he went. Somewhere in between his junior high years and into high school, Sean's troubles compounded when he began drinking alcohol. When he was in high school, he used to confide in me and I was young and naive. I just didn't know. I didn't know what to do, you know, but he told me he kept a bottle of vodka in his locker at school. What do you do? You know, I really didn't know what to do. Seven years older than him, I mean, I just look back and think, I wish I had known now what I didn't know then.

But, you know, so I knew that there was that at that time. And at the same time, in addition to that, my mother and father both have substance abuse problems, had. They both passed. And my mother's disease had progressed to a pretty messy point. Her father had recently passed, and she just was really a mess. So there was really no one watching out for him during that period of time. She did subsequently after a few years, got sober and maintained sobriety after that. But there was a period of time where Sean was on his own pretty much. I would be off at school or I would be working and it was a little

bit, God's sakes, I was like 19 when I moved out and got married. So however old he was at that point, he was still pretty young. Yeah. In retrospect. Nim kept Sean's confession about the vodka in his locker in confidence, not wanting to cause problems for him at home. She didn't know what to do. Nim didn't know what was normal or what indicated that her silly, funny, happy little brother was truly struggling. And I didn't know what to say and I didn't want to make an ugly scene at home

by, you know, telling on him or something like that. And I, you know, I did ask him like, well, how long has that been going on? He says, for a while. And now, I mean, as an adult, I realized he was reaching out and asking for help, but I didn't know what kind of help to give him. And I didn't even realize that that's what was happening. I really didn't. Though not without challenges in school and his alcohol use, Sean Conway did earn his diploma. Nim doesn't know a lot about the years after he graduated. By that time, she'd moved out and got married and had her own family. However, she believes Sean's addiction was an ongoing battle that escalated beyond alcohol.

Though he spent time working for his father in the construction business, Sean did not have goals or a direction for his life that she was aware of. When Nim did get to spend time with her little brother, she was acutely aware of the personality changes that came when Sean was using. He would change into this really kind of a, he just was not pleasant. You didn't want to be around him. But then he would get sober and he would call me and we'd have this great conversation and we would talk and it was, and we'd talk spirituality and things about, you know, childhood and, you know what I mean,

we connected all the time and it was, it was great childhood and, you know what I mean? We connected all the time, and it was great. Though Sean badly wanted to maintain his sobriety, it was hard fought. When he was sober, he and I were really close, and I missed that. You know, I missed that. And he did struggle with being sober. I think he liked himself way better when he was sober, but it was really hard for him But it was really hard for him. It was really hard for him.

In 1983, Sean and Nim's family faced an enormous and sudden loss. Their brother, Kevin, was killed in a construction accident when a concrete slab shifted on top of him. He died almost instantly. Kevin's death was a breaking point for Sean. His path to sobriety was derailed by his grief as other members of his family found their own ways to cope and heal. Our whole family was just in shock. I mean, here he was. He was like, what, 24, young man. And it was so sudden. And none of us in my family, we were lucky in the way that we

didn't have anyone that was close to us that passed like that. So my brother Kevin was the first time we had to, you know, deal with that pretty much. And it was a shock. And I know Sean got in trouble with drinking and driving during that time. I believe he spent some time in jail after the second time it happened, you know, just because and he subsequently lost his license. And so that didn't help. Losing his license to operating under the influence charges meant Sean would be held back from his biggest interest in life, motorcycles. However, even if he couldn't drive them, Sean still maintained his passion. He even opened his own motorcycle shop. It seemed to me that in and out of sobriety, Sean was still passionate

about motorcycles. You know, he had a Harley-Davidson, and at one point he opened a motorcycle shop, but they weren't open for very long, you know, to refix and repair. And I don't know if that has to do with his sobriety or money or being not a business person or exactly what, but that didn't last very long. In the years following Kevin's death, Sean existed inside his addiction. During this time, Sean also met a woman and together they had a daughter. However, their relationship did not last. He really loved his baby, you know, but he wasn't able to, you know, when he was sober, he was great. And when he wasn't, he wasn't.

And they broke up and he went to live back home. He went back home up to New Hampshire to live. And things, I don't think things did very well. You know, I'd hear stories about him not being sober and like hanging out with these motorcycle people. And my mother would tell of this personality change when he put on that motorcycle vest and, you know, turned into like a bike or kind of a guy or some kind of bad guy. I'm not sure. He, I don't know. It just was, his life got really messy. You know what I mean? It was just really messy. You know what I mean? It was just really messy. In late 1990 and into 1991,

Sean Conway lived at his parents' home in Freedom, New Hampshire, where they ran a successful horse farm. He'd moved back to the area when his relationship fell apart, and as his late mother Selma Conway told the Portland Press-Herald in 1993, Sean was impartial to the horses but felt safe at the farm. It was a soft place to land while he worked to find his footing again before getting back to life on his own. He had years of attempted treatment for his addiction to alcohol and cocaine. Selma said in the press herald that every time he fell, she would do whatever she could to pick him up again. But addiction had a firm grip on Sean,

and he seemed to get pulled into the orbit of trouble. And somewhere around there, Sean got involved with some people over in Cornish, Maine, with a motorcycle shop there. And I think there was some trouble there at some point. I don't know. He was back and forth there. So he got new friends and his personality changed. He didn't stay sober much after Kevin passed. The names of these individuals that Sean was involved with at the time are part of the public record. Among them is Vaughn English, a fellow motorcycle enthusiast. He called himself Sean's best friend, and he was also apparently Sean's chauffeur, as Sean still did not have a driver's license following his OUI conviction. Von English told the Press Herald in 1993, quote, There are some people you just click with, and he was one, end quote. English introduced Sean to Robert Sanborn, the owner of Cornish

Motorcycle Supply on Route 25. Sanborn would later tell reporter Martha Englert in reference to Sean, quote, I barely knew the guy. He was a business contact, end quote. However, the business he referred to was beyond the motorcycle parts sold at his shop. Sean had sold two handguns to Sanborn, their origin unknown. Sanborn later resold the guns. I'd deal anything to make a buck. Guns, antiques, motorcycle stuff, Sanborn later told the Portland Press-Herald. So, when Sean Conway walked into Cornish Motorcycle Supply on January 16, 1991, driven by his friend Von English, Sean expected to make another deal with Robert Sanborn. But what really happened that day remains a 31-year-long mystery. It was the last time anyone saw Sean Conway alive.

My parents had gone off to, I believe, Texas for a horse show with a trailer and so on. And Sean didn't have a driver's license, but he was going out and he had someone come pick him pick him up a friend and brought him over to a motorcycle shop in in Cornish and stories diverse a little bit about who was there exactly and who wasn't there and but there were people there Sean had owed the shop operator some money and he had brought a couple of handguns to sell to trade to pay off his debt. As far as Nim knows, however, Robert Sanborn was not at the shop when Sean arrived. With time to fill, Sean went to pick up some beer with his driver. The little that's known about Sean's interaction with Robert Sanborn that day

comes from Sanborn himself, who spoke to the Press Herald in 1993. According to Sanborn, he decided not to buy the second set of handguns from Sean that day, citing that the serial numbers had been filed off. Sanborn claims that he thought the firearms were stolen and so he opted not to take the deal and sent Sean on his way. In Sanborn's version of the story, Sean made two phone calls and then left. Sanborn said he never saw Sean again. He was found seven days later frozen, covered in four inches of snow, basically dumped at the side of a man, covered in snow, about 30 feet from Spring Road in Newfield, Maine.

He was ID'd from a report on the news describing what he had on and tattoos, and somebody, a friend of his, recognized him. And then after that, he was definitely identified after that. They left him with his face up. And that said to me that maybe somebody that knew him or cared enough about him at one point was involved to leave him with his face up. And that said to me that maybe somebody that knew him or cared enough about him at one point was involved to leave him with his face, not just kind of like rolled off the back of our vehicle or something. Sean's identification, about $80 in cash, and the two guns he'd reportedly brought to sell at the motorcycle shop were missing. The guns that my brother had brought

to trade to pay off his debt were never recovered. The person that owned the shop said that they had had their numbers erased off of them, but basically what my brother had done was taken them from my father's gun collection. Those firearms had serial numbers when they were in Sean's father's possession. Nim believes the detail shared by Sanborn about the numbers being filed off is a lie. It was the first of several pieces of the investigation that did not add up, both for the family and investigators. It was considered a homicide from the beginning. It snowed and so on, but there was clearly blood

surrounding his head, in the head area. So that left no doubt that it was something. He didn't like bang his head and fall that way. It was apparently evidence of dragging, you know, to get him where he was. So they determined it was a homicide right away. Early reports said that Sean had been shot, but this is not a confirmed detail, and family did not recall seeing signs of a gunshot wound when they viewed his body. Maine State Police have not released Sean Conway's cause of death. From the very start, Sean's case had very little in its favor. From what I understand, they did little investigating at the last place he was seen. And then by the time that they went back to where he was last seen, the shop owner had bought a 55-gallon drum of heavy oil and spread it all over the shop, the tools, everything. And which is suspicious to

me, you know, but I don't know. Things could not have worked worse pretty much for my brother's case. I mean, it was pouring the night he was last seen, you know, and then he was left outside for seven days, and then it had snowed on him four inches. I mean, I don't know what they could do at that point, and to tell you honest, I don't know how much, how serious it was taken even. He was a motorcycle guy, you know what I mean? I don't know if he was taken as serious as like if it was somebody's mom or somebody's child or I don't know if it was taken as seriously as somebody else's murder may have been. Nim said something to me during our first phone conversation last summer that made me even more dedicated to sharing Sean's story.

This concept of an innocent victim. We hear over and over again the narratives of the victims who didn't deserve what they endured. Stories highlight every sparkling and positive detail of that human's life, the good they did while on Earth, their upstanding reputation in the community, the potential that was stolen from them when their lives were ended by violent crime. All of it is true and valid. But let's not forget, too,

that a victim does not need to be perfect, unflawed, and otherwise quote-unquote innocent in the eyes of the public to deserve their story told and remembered, to earn the coverage and attention they need to find answers. Sean and his ongoing battle with addiction, his circle of friends, his choices in life, do not disqualify him or his family from a complete investigation and closure. Not at all.

So it was just so devastating for my parents. I mean, for all of us, for my parents specifically. How do you live with that? How do you live with that? Especially so quick after another brother had died. I don't know how they did it. I really don't. In the days following the discovery of Sean Conway's body,

Maine State Police hung posters along Route 25 through Cornish and distributed over 150 of them to truck drivers at a checkpoint. Sean's family handed out posters of their own, announcing a $25,000 reward for information. According to a piece in the Portland Press-Herald, they later returned to find most of the posters had been torn down. Two years later, Sean's family raised the reward for information to $50,000. Still, nothing. State police have followed up on certain pieces of information throughout the years, including interviewing both Robert Sanborn and Vaughn English as possible suspects in Sean's murder. Sanborn felt state police had

been, quote, real jerks, unquote, in their questioning and investigation. Sometime before 1993, Maine State Police obtained a search warrant for Robert Sanborn's 1957 Chevrolet station wagon. They scraped paint off the car in nine places and removed a section of carpet. Sanborn was irritated with the search, telling the Press Herald, quote, I get so wound up even thinking about it, end quote. That car was among his prized possessions, and the paint scrapings left it damaged. Sanborn reported that his motorcycle supply company lost significant money due to the negative attention brought on by the investigation, and that his family endured public shame and rumors. Why police went after his car, or what, if anything, resulted from the paint and carpet samples, is not public

information. My father wrote to the attorney general in Maine, very frustrated because nothing had happened. He wasn't getting any information. And as he wrote in that letter, you know, people who were involved with the case that had been named as suspects or individuals of interest were basically bragging about how they had gotten away with murder and then they wouldn't be found, they wouldn't be caught out. So, as you can imagine, that was very, very frustrating. For the avoidance of doubt, Maine State Police have not publicly named Robert Sanborn, Vaughn English, or any other individual a suspect in Sean Conway's murder. Robert Sanborn and Vaughn English were interviewed only as possible suspects, as reported by Martha Englert in the Portland Press-Herald. No charges have been filed against any person as it relates to Sean Conway's homicide investigation.

January 2022 marks 31 years since Sean Conway was killed. Little progress has been made in the case. They're looking for somebody to come forward. I did ask and I didn't get an answer over the summer about, well, can his clothing be retested? Can, you know, that was a long time ago. Can we do anything different today that hasn't been tried? And I couldn't get an answer for that. Basically, yeah, the police are looking for a strong lead.

They've had a lot of rumors. Supposedly, they've followed up on rumors, but they need an actual lead. They actually need someone to say, this is what happened, and I know this because. In 2006, Maine State Police made a move for information in the investigation of Sean's death, but it went nowhere. The detective I spoke to in 2006 said that there was a person that they had, was somewhere involved with this case, and they believed he had information, and they offered him a deal. He was going to do jail time for a drug offense, and he wouldn't give any information.

And I think that was the last time anybody had anything that perhaps might have been a real thing. They've not told me that anything new has happened in a really, really long time. Both of Sean's parents passed away without knowing what happened to their son. It's been over three decades since she lost her little brother, and Nim's questions remain unanswered. Someone that you love has been murdered.

I mean, it's already horrible that they're dead, but they've been murdered, so there's like this extra level or layer on top of all that, that you just want to know more information. It's like, you know, we know what happened with my brother, Kevin, you know, piece of cement shifted and it fell on him and that's what happened. But we don't have that. We know that my brother, Sean is dead. We know he was murdered. But we don't know what happened. You know, and there's always that part in the back of your mind that's like, well, the person that did that is still alive.

They're still alive. But who else have they harmed in all of this time? When a family member dies in such tragic, sudden, and violent terms, their surviving loved ones are not given a guidebook on how to find answers and support the investigation and advocate for themselves and the one they lost. Nim and her family have had to figure out how to navigate this process on their own. They've done everything from collecting each newspaper article and clipping published about Sean, to consulting psychics, and following up with detectives when

they feel enough time has passed without an update. Nim agreed to speak with me about her brother because, after 31 years, she holds out hope that closure is possible. If only she and her family can continue to advocate for Sean. My hope, our family's hope is that someone will hear this and you know it'll spark a memory. There's somebody alive, I know there's more than one person alive that was involved with this and I hope that they hear this. I hope that they know somebody that tells them about this and I hope that they think that what they know is important and that they can tell what they know, not what they think they know, but what they do know, because I know these people are alive still. If you have any information about Sean Conway's murder, contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit at 1-800-228-0857

or use the tip form linked in the show notes of this episode. No matter the challenges in Sean's life and with his sobriety, one thing stayed constant. His love for motorcycles. The sound of a roaring engine and exhaust pipes popping would often signal his arrival for an unplanned visit. The recognizable sound continued to trigger memories of her brother for years. And sometimes I would be, you know, in the kitchen and I'd hear this motorcycle coming around down the road. And it was like, oh, he's coming. He's surprised visits, you know what I mean? And I just don't love that, you know.

For years, when I heard a motorcycle after his passing, I thought, oh, it's... And I was like, oh, no, it's not. It's not him, you know. Though our conversation was about the loss of her brother, Nim was quick to smile and chuckle as she recalled her memories of him. He just was a beautiful person. He's a beautiful, beautiful, wonderful, helpful, loving, generous person. And that's the part I keep close to my heart. If he has a legacy, it'd be like, you know, to show families not to give up because it can happen even after almost 31 years that to not give up hope and because amazing things happen and he's in a better place and he's looking down and I can feel him next to

me right now and giving me some courage, you know, to be here and to talk about him. I think that's, I think that's, if it was anything, I think that's what he would want me to say, is like to not give up hope. To be continued... and additional print and media sources listed at darkdowneast.com. Nim, thank you for trusting me with Sean's story. At the end of 2021, I focused this end segment of the show on highlighting missing and unidentified persons cases in Greater New England. What I learned from this process is that there are so many families seeking any help they can get to spread the word about their missing loved ones. With that, I will continue to bring attention to these cases into 2022.

67-year-old Mark Conley was last heard from on December 24th, 2021, Christmas Eve. He lives in Naples, Maine and drives a 2016 Silver Jeep Patriot with Maine plates, number 5823XK. He is 5 foot 8 inches tall and about 200 pounds. His family is concerned for his well-being. If you have seen Mark or have any information as to his whereabouts, please contact the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department at 207-693-3369. This information and a photo is listed at darkdowneast.com slash missing. As we move into a new year, I want to thank you again 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.