Dark Downeast - The Murder of Sonny Grotton (Maine)

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

MAINE MURDER, 1983: Sonny Grotton lay in his dooryard, blood pooling around him. Norma dialed 9-1-1. Everything happened quickly.When first responders arrived at the scene, Sonny spoke only in gurgled noises, unable to say who pulled the trigger firing three shots into his body, one at close range. Mervin "Sonny" Grotton was pronounced dead at 8:36 p.m. on December 16, 1983.A giving family man, a long career in the Navy. No known enemies, no suspicious dealings. Who would shoot and kill Sonny Grotton in his own front yard, with his wife and son just inside? View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/sonnygrottonFollow @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.

It was after dinner on Friday night, December 16th, 1983, and Michael Groton was in his bedroom, plucking his guitar with a friend, repeating the riffs he'd been working on, and hanging out with his pal. Just typical 16-year-old stuff. Michael's mother, Norma Groton, was in the kitchen, on the phone with his sister, Rosalyn. It was a routine Friday evening, just waiting for Mervyn Sonny Groton to get home. 46-year-old Sonny Groton, as he was known, was a machinist mate chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy with 26 years of service.

Though his wife Norma, his son Michael, and his daughters Rosalyn and Nina all lived in Maine, he commuted to his job training new officers on shipboard equipment at the Naval Education Training Center in Newport, Rhode Island, each week. On Fridays, he made the four-and-a-half-hour drive back to Maine, pulled into the driveway, hopped out of his truck, sundered quietly up the walkway, and stepped through the front door of his home on White Street in Belfast to greet his family. But on December 16th, 1983, Sonny Groton didn't make it through the front door. He pulled into the driveway and hopped

out of his truck and began his quiet saunter up the walkway. And then, three loud pops rang out over the guitar strumming in Michael's bedroom. They pierced the sound of Norma's phone call in the kitchen. Rosalyn asked her mother on the other end of the line, Is something wrong with the truck? Backfiring or something like that? As Michael and his friend ran to the living room window to determine the source of the sounds, Norma Groton said dryly into the phone, I gotta go. Researching this case, as I was sitting on the couch across from my husband,

I kept repeating to him I cannot believe this case happened in Maine, as if Vacationland is somehow immune to conniving, selfish, evil masterminds devoid of feeling and remorse who will do anything to satisfy their own desires. But once again, I'm reminded that these things do happen here. This is the Sonny Groton case. Sonny Groton lay in his dooryard, blood pooling around him. A neighbor dialed 911 to report the sound of the gunshots coming from next door, as Norma herself dialed 911 too. Everything happened quickly.

When first responders arrived at the scene, Sonny spoke only in gurgled noises, unable to communicate what happened, what or who he saw, who pulled the trigger that fired three gunshots into his hip, arm, and torso. They rushed Sonny to Waldo County General Hospital where attempts to save his life were unsuccessful. Sonny Groton was pronounced dead at 8.36 p.m. on December 16, 1983. He had the biggest heart and was so giving and so honest and so hardworking and so loving, Rosalind told 48 Hours NCIS. The loss of Sonny Groton was one felt by the entire community

and one that shocked and confused everyone who knew him. Sonny was a respected member of the Navy. He was known as the helpful guy around town, lending a hand to anyone who needed it. A giving family man, a long career in the Navy, no known enemies, no suspicious dealings. Who would shoot and kill Sonny Groton in his own front yard with his wife and son just inside? The investigation that would end up running for nearly 20 years began in Belfast with a public appeal for information. Maine State Police Lieutenant Gene Pierce announced to the media, quote, we are looking for anyone who may have seen a parked vehicle or someone running along Route 1 between 6 and 8 p.m., end quote. Whoever shot Sonny Groton had fired the first two rounds from behind the wood pile in the front yard, and then the shooter

moved closer to fire the final fatal bullet at an extremely close range. Detectives considered the narrow section of woods between Sonny's home and Route 1 and believed the killer could have quickly committed the murder and then fled the scene through the wooded area, escaping on Route 1. The local Belfast police force, the Maine State Police, as well as the U.S. Navy and Rhode Island State Police, ran concurrent investigations, conducting dozens of extensive interviews with Sonny's family, his friends, his co-workers on the Navy base. Rumors swirled. You see, Waldo County experienced a massive surge in cocaine in the early 80s. It was a problem formerly thought to be reserved for Maine's more urban areas, but it was a time of chaos, of drug kingpins, of surveillance,

and undercover sting operations, and a multi-million dollar trafficking ring, all right on Maine's picturesque coast. Retired Waldo County Sheriff and game warden John Ford told the Bangor Daily News, quote, it was a crazy time. There was a lot going on and a lot of things happening. It was just something you always thought you'd read about in other places. It was highly volatile for a while, end quote. The source of the cocaine that inundated Waldo County was a suspected Colombian connection in Newport, Rhode Island. Sonny Groton? He commuted between Newport and Belfast each week. The community speculated. Was he involved in the trafficking? Was he transporting cocaine from Rhode Island to Maine, flying under the radar with his helpful, kind, unassuming persona? Did someone want Sonny

dead for a deal gone wrong? With police circling closer in their undercover operations, did Sonny know too much? State and U.S. Navy authorities refused to comment on the cocaine trafficking theories. With the investigation ongoing, it centered on Belfast, not Newport, Rhode Island. The civilian in charge of the Navy's investigation into Sonny's murder, Kent Walker, told the Bangor Daily News, quote, We are doing whatever we can to help, but it's tough, very tough. We have talked to those who knew him and worked with him, but found nothing to support that the motive came from down here. End quote. Investigators determined that the murder weapon

was a 30-30 rifle, but the rifle itself wasn't recovered at the scene. The details of the murder weapon and the gunshot wounds were kept out of the press at the time in hopes of using that information to single out the murderer. It's a tactic used in a majority of investigations. Only the killer knows specifics, so they need to keep those details out of the media. While hard evidence was scarce, as interviews continued, detectives were hearing the full backstory of Sonny and his wife Norma. Their marriage was fraught with issues from the start. Their daughter Rosalyn told 48 Hours NCIS,

My dad was such a nice person that he would be helping everyone else in any spare moment that he had, and it would piss my mother off to no end because she was a selfish person and he was a giving person. They were brought up two totally different ways, end quote. Police discovered that while Sonny was away, Norma would play. For years, she carried on extramarital affairs, a social life prickled with drugs. And it wasn't new behavior either. Rosalyn remembered meeting her mother's other men during her childhood. She was told to call them Uncle, that, or they weren't around long enough for Rosalyn or her siblings to even need a name to call them.

In the weeks leading up to his murder, Sonny and his wife were really at odds. Their daughter Nina said they avoided each other and they weren't getting along. Norma had a new man visiting in the last few weeks, Nina remembered. A guy she recognized from around town. Actually, he was quite notorious. Everyone in Waldo County knew Joel Fuller. Rosalyn remembered her father reaching his breaking point. Sonny was forgiving to a fault, it seemed, but this time he'd had it. He told Rosalyn, I can't do this anymore. It's not clear, though, what he may have meant by that, if he planned to file for divorce or separate from Norma. As of December 16th, 1983,

he was still coming and going from their home each week. But Sonny's retirement was fast approaching. He'd soon be moving back to Belfast for good. No more long commutes. This fact seemed to agitate the perpetually irritated Norma, who had grown accustomed to her freewheeling, unsupervised life while Sonny was on the base. With the impending lifestyle change, people closest to Norma said that she became almost disgusted by her husband. Norma's friend Vicky Harriman was over the Sunday afternoon before Sonny's murder,

and she watched as Sonny leaned in and kissed his wife Norma goodbye before heading off to another long work week. Norma said to Vicky, quote, that's the last time that son of a bitch will ever kiss me and touch me, end quote. And then she repeated a phrase that she'd said many times before. He's worth more to me dead than alive. Red flag. As interviews continued, Mrs. Groton emerged as a prime suspect, with one major caveat. She didn't pull the trigger. She couldn't have. Norma stood in the kitchen on the phone with her daughter as someone else, huddled behind the woodpile with a.30-30 rifle, fired two shots, and then a third at close range, ending Sonny Groton's life. So, did Norma hire a hitman to take out her husband?

It sounded like a movie plot, but it's exactly what police were beginning to suspect. Proving this plot and Norma's involvement was another task entirely. Norma went in for 11 interviews, but she never broke. No shred of admission emerged, no deviations from her original story, no names dropped, no co-conspirators implicated. But when asked to take a polygraph, she refused. It was another red flag raised. But red flags aren't cause to arrest. As the investigation stretched into the new year, 1984, leads and evidence evaded

investigators. The region fell deeper into the clutches of cocaine. A massive undercover operation and bust in early 84 claimed the attention of law enforcement and the community. With resources elsewhere and without any new hard evidence pointing to the person or persons responsible for the death of Mervyn Sunny Groton took back her maiden name and became Norma Small once again. She collected her late husband's death benefit from the Navy and a monthly payment from the VA. Then she sold their home, the murder scene on White Street, took the money, and moved the family to Kansas. She took up a job cleaning motel rooms. It appeared that, despite her suspected involvement in their husband's death, she was afforded the life she'd always wanted, Sonny's money, without Sonny himself. That is, until the newly formed Naval Criminal Investigative Service Cold Case Squad stepped in to assist the Maine State Police

in a renewed effort to uncover the calculated plot that ended the life of Naval Officer Sonny Groton. In late 1999, Maine State Police Detective Dean Jackson began re-interviewing original witnesses in the case. On his list was a man named Larry Phillips. He was a criminal in his own right, with pending weapons and other charges, and while potentially an unreliable witness, he shared a story with Detective Jackson that revealed new information police hadn't encountered in the last 17 years. Back in the mid-80s, an unknown period of time after the murder of Sonny Groton, Larry and his best friend Joel Fuller were out driving around drinking when they passed through Searsmont and drove alongside a Brooke.

That was the same Joel Fuller that had been hanging around the Groton house before Sonny's murder. According to the Bangor Daily News report of Larry Phillips' interview, that Brooke in Searsmont triggered a memory for Joel. He turned to his best friend Larry and told him that's where he ditched his 30-30 rifle. It was the start of a story that ended in a confession. Joel killed someone, he said, shot him in the back. Phillips later testified, quote, he said the guy was pleading for his life and he shot him in the back, end quote. He, him, pronouns, Larry doesn't say it was Sonny, but investigators knew. The details revealed by Joel to Larry in this supposed booze-fueled BFF confession, combined with Joel's criminal past, was enough for a grand jury to hand down an indictment

for Joel Fuller in March 2001. And they knew right where to find him because Joel Fuller was already incarcerated. Agent Dave Truesdale, a now-retired NCIS special agent, told 48 Hours, quote, I've been around some really bad people in my career. Joel is the personification of evil, end quote. Former Sheriff John Ford said, quote, there's probably no other person who's as cold-blooded as he is from shooting deer to shooting people, end quote. An article in the Bangor Daily News referred to him as legendary Waldo County bad man.

He was known to do pretty much anything for money. In fact, as the Groton murder case was reinvestigated in late 99 and the early 2000s, Joel was already in prison serving a life sentence for the murder of two men in relation to that big 1984 undercover cocaine trafficking operation in Belfast. On December 12, 1984, Joel Fuller was buying drugs from a dealer-turned-undercover agent. Joel wanted that agent to join him in robbing another known dealer in town, a man named Norman Grenier, but he declined. As Joel sped to Swanville to carry out his plan, the undercover agent tried to warn Norman Grenier, but the phone line was dead. Joel Fuller shot Norman Grenier with buckshot from a 12-gauge shotgun as he sat watching TV with his girlfriend. Joel went on the run and evaded police for months after that murder. He eventually turned himself in, but

only to be released on bail. A murderer who had been on the run was released on bail. And what did he do while he awaited trial? According to testimony reported by the Bangor Daily News, a notorious Waldo County drug kingpin hired Joel while he was out on bail to gun down another man named Scott Lacombe, who had recently cooperated with state police in a plea deal. Before he could make it to his plea hearing, though,

Scott LaCombe was gunned down in his driveway by Joel Fuller. Joel received a 50-year sentence for the murder of Norman Grenier. In a separate trial and sentence for the murder of Scott LaCombe, Joel received a life sentence for the premeditated murder-for-hire plot. Shooting and killing another human to make a buck wasn't outside of Joel Fuller's limits. But to bring charges against him in the murder-for-hire of Sonny Groton, investigators needed more. They needed someone else to implicate Joel in the plot, to admit there was a plot. They needed the mastermind herself. But rehashing the same details with the same suspects wasn't likely to reveal anything new. Norma Small had made it through 11 interviews without letting a single detail slip.

This time, they needed a new approach. It was time to go undercover. The case of Sonny Groton will continue thanks to the support of Deliberate Duplicity, the debut detective and crime novel by David Rolfeng. Over the holiday, I really wanted to do some reading, and so I cracked open Deliberate Duplicity and got a jumpstart. It's so good. It explores the twisted, vengeful mind of a serial killer and follows dedicated detective Sasha Frank, who is hellbent on solving the mystery behind a string of gruesome crimes. One by one, dead bodies are being found at different points along the Constitution Trail. The work of a calculating,

methodical killer poses each body on the ground with their eyes manipulated so they remain wide open. Will Sasha be able to solve the mystery before time runs out. Deliberate Duplicity is published by River Grove Books and is available everywhere books are sold on January 5th, 2021. Pre-order online right now from your favorite book retailer and thank you for supporting Dark Down East sponsors so I can continue sharing these true crime stories with you. All right, back to the show. Enter Tony and Bubba, aka Agent David Truesdale and Agent Kenneth Menick. The undercover operation centered on a fabricated story that a newly released prison buddy who owed Joel Fuller some favors, needed to talk to Norma Small on Joel's behalf. Agent Truesdale would play the role of the prison buddy. He flew to Kansas to find

Norma with the primary goal of getting her to admit ties to Joel Fuller and the plot to kill Sonny. He introduced himself as Tony. In the undercover video obtained by 48 Hours, you can hear the conversation between Tony and Norma in the parking lot of the motel where she worked. The story Tony told was that Joel, still in prison serving life for those two unrelated murders, had heard someone on the outside was cooperating in Sonny's murder case, and he thought it was Norma. Norma told the undercover agent, quote, sure ain't me, honey, no sir, end quote. The conversation continued, and Tony leaned into the story, pressed Norma, told the undercover video,

I don't want to hurt Joel or anyone else, but I ain't talking to nobody. I ain't pulling the plug on nobody and I expect the same. They tried to tell me that he was implicating me. What they're doing is they're lying to get some info, but didn't work, end quote. She may not have said anything directly, but what she said was enough. Now investigators knew she was involved and that there was, in fact, a plot they had been concealing. As the undercover agent asked who might be sharing info if it wasn't her, that's when Norma revealed a third name previously unknown to the case.

A big, tall fellow, she said. A family friend named Boyd Smith. It turned out Boyd Smith was Rosalind Groton's old boyfriend. Undercover agents had their next target, a man that had flown at the edge of their radar unnoticed for 17 years. Before ending that conversation in the motel parking lot, Norma cleared up the facts with the man she knew as Tony. I didn't hire Joel, I hired Boyd, she said. But apparently, Boyd had chickened out. That's when Joel Fuller entered the scenario.

The details of this connection were key to bringing each conspirator to justice. So back to Maine investigators went. Details of this connection were key to bringing each conspirator to justice. So back to Maine investigators went. When the agents located Boyd Smith, he was living deep in the woods of Brooks. They used the same cover story. They were career criminals. They were now out and they owed Joel Fuller some favors. Joel wanted to know who was cooperating with the police and they needed to be sure it wasn't Boyd. But Boyd didn't crack. Not at first. The conversation went in circles. Boyd denied

having any knowledge of the murder-for-hire arrangement for Norma's husband, Sonny. Norma had already pointed her finger at Boyd, so agents knew that he had information. They needed those specifics from him, so Tony and Bubba asked if they could meet again. Boyd told them he was off for lunch at noon and asked to meet in a cemetery in Camden. Their next meeting with Boyd Smith ended in his arrest. In a surreptitiously recorded video of the cemetery meeting, Boyd took bites of his lunch as he sat with the two men he believed were convicts, acting on behalf of Joel Fuller. During that meeting, Boyd gave the agents the specifics they were seeking.

According to the Bangor Daily News, Boyd said in the surveillance video, quote, Norma wanted her husband gone, and she was always rah-rah-rahing about it. She asked me several times. I thought about it, told her no way, end quote. Okay then, who did it? How did Joel Fuller get involved? I didn't make any arrangement with Joel, Boyd told the agents. I put him in contact with her, and they did their own thing, end quote. Several months before the murder, as summer turned into fall of 1983, Boyd Smith sat down next to Joel Fuller at Raleigh's in Belfast. Boyd knew he'd find Joel

at that bar. He also knew Joel would be up for the task he was about to present to him. He said in later testimony that he knew Joel was a, quote, wild man, someone who would do most anything for money, end quote. Norma dangled $10,000 in Boyd's face. He told Joel about the bounty on Sonny Groton's head. After that meeting at a Belfast bar, Joel told Boyd he'd never hear from him again. Boyd felt he'd washed his hands of it at that moment. He reported back to Norma that, Joel would be in touch., it didn't matter.

He identified himself to two undercover agents as the middleman in a murder conspiracy. Norma Small and Boyd Smith were both arrested on Wednesday, May 9, 2001. The triad of murder conspiracy brought the 17-year investigation to a close. But the case only gets more confounding as Boyd Smith, Norma Small, and Joel Fuller all stood trial separately for the murder of Mervyn Sunny Groton. The indictments and early trial proceedings were kept exceptionally hush-hush. With Joel's notoriety and the extensive press coverage the case had already received, prosecutors needed to protect the potential jury pool.

But it could only be kept a secret for so long, and soon the three trials garnered incredible local and national attention. Back in Iola, Kansas, after Norma Small was arrested, her neighbors responded to the news incredulously, saying to the IOLA register, quote, you mean that little old lady who lives by herself? I have a very hard time believing that she could do something like that, end quote. Once transferred to Maine from Kansas, detectives sat her down for a formal interrogation. They recorded the conversation, and the little old lady known as Norma Small was steely as ever, and not for one second did she claim to feel any remorse or concern for the plot that she had put in motion. I just got tired of the bullshit, Norma told the NCIS agent in a video obtained by 48 Hours.

She never got more specific either. All she said was picky, aggravating things. That was all. That, in her mind, was justification for his murder. She reluctantly admitted to the $10,000 sum that she'd promised Boyd to take care of her husband. She spoke in half sentences, as if only uttering half the words would make it less of an outright confession. The agent asked Norma if she believed she was entitled to the money she'd been collecting in her husband's name after his death, even as the one who orchestrated his murder. She nodded and said, because if I didn't, I wouldn't have nothing to live on. I tried working. That took too much out of me. Norma, in her own words, said she felt no guilt,

no ill feelings, no qualms about what she did. It makes me feel good, she said in that taped interrogation. The NCIS agent asked, Do you think the kids will have the same peace of mind, or how do you explain this to them now? Norma responded, They'll understand. Boyd Smith was the first to stand trial in the Sunny Groton murder. The statute of limitations had expired on the crime of soliciting murder, so the prosecution had no choice but to pursue Boyd on a murder charge.

In Maine, we have the accomplice liability principle. As it relates to Boyd's trial, an accomplice to a crime can be charged with that same crime unless the person terminates complicity prior to the commission of the crime by 1. informing the person's accomplice that the person has abandoned the criminal activity and 2. leaving the scene of the prospective crime if the person is present thereat. That was the burden of the prosecution, to prove that Boyd did not terminate his co-conspirator role in the murder of Sonny Groton. The defense poked holes in every angle the state took. Yes, he made the introduction. He made these mistakes and then he backed out.

He was petrified that what he did was a terrible wrong and he knew in his heart that it was terribly wrong, said defense attorney Morse. It's a drastic act to hold someone accountable for the conduct of someone else when you are not at the scene and you did not pull the trigger, end quote. The jury was conflicted. During deliberations, they asked the judge if they could find Boyd Smith guilty on any other charges, but Justice Meade told them it wasn't their job or their concern. On February 8, 2002, after seven hours of deliberation, Boyd Smith was acquitted of murder. Then, one year later, on February 1st, 2003, in a truly unbelievable conclusion to Joel Fuller's murder trial, he, too, was acquitted of all charges. The suspected trigger

man, the convicted killer for hire, the accused assassin of Sonny Groton, busted into a grin as the jury read their verdict. Not guilty. The witnesses in his case were unreliable. The defense tore them apart. Their key witness, Larry Phillips, Joel's best friend who he allegedly confessed the murder to, he squirmed under cross-examination. The defense said, quote, This man is a professional snitch, a professional rat, and when the chips are down, he's desperate to save himself. end quote. The defense also argued that this was simply confirmation bias, a case of convenience, they called it, saying, quote,

it's convenient to take these pieces of the puzzle and put them together to convict Joel, but there's not a shred of physical evidence. There's nothing except Larry Phillips, end quote. The jury asked for Larry's testimony to be read back to them again, and they reviewed Boyd Smith's confession tape a second time. Ultimately, the jury determined that the state had not made their case. Though acquitted on those charges, Joel Fuller was immediately transported back to a maximum security penitentiary where he would continue serving his life sentence for murder in an unrelated case. And then there was Norma Small. She went to trial in 2002, before Joel, and each witness painted the picture of a conniving wife who wanted her husband

dead. The state presented her confessions in the interrogation, and while she claimed she was only telling them what they wanted to hear, the tapes were damning. After four and a half hours deliberation, the jury found 63-year-old Norma Small guilty of being an accomplice in the December 16, 1983 murder of her husband Sonny, as well as guilty of theft for claiming his survivor benefits under false pretenses. She was sentenced to 60 years in prison with a consecutive 10-year sentence for theft. Rosalind Groton told 48 Hours, quote, My dad was the greatest dad in the world. I could just use about every good adjective that there is known in the dictionary to describe him.

Anytime you needed anything, he was right there. He was just, he was just super wonderful. He really was. It's not really over until she's gone, Rosalind said. I think that's the biggest part, is it's not going to be over until she's gone. The whole chapter, the whole book, end quote. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East, and thank you to my sources for this episode, including articles in the Bangor Daily News by Walter Griffin and Tom Groening, and an article in the Iola Register by Bob Johnson, as well as 48 Hours NCIS, The Sting. Sources for this case and others, including links to all individual articles, are listed in the show notes at darkdowneast.com, so you can do some more reading and digging of your own. Don't forget, subscribing and reviewing Dark Down East is free.

And it not only supports this show, it really is the best way to ensure you never miss an episode of Maine and New England True Crime Stories. If you have a story or a case I should cover, like this one, I'd love to hear from you at darkdowneast at gmail.com. Follow along with the show at darkdowneast.com and on Instagram at darkdowneast. I'm truly 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.