Dark Downeast - The Murder of Theresa "Terry" Duran (Maine)

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

40 years have passed since 14-year-old Terry Duran left her home in Gorham, Maine for some fun on one of the last weekends of summer before she started high school. She told her parents she’d be home Sunday night, but Terry never returned. When her body was discovered weeks later, there was no doubt her death was a homicide, but who would kill this teenage girl and why? This case has seen two arrests and one trial. And yet, after four decades, her murder is still unsolved. If you have any information about the murder of Terry Duran please contact Maine State Police, Major Crimes Unit – South at 207-624-7076. View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/theresaterryduran Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

40 years have passed since 14-year-old Terry Duran left her home in Gorham, Maine for some fun on one of the last weekends of summer before she started high school. She told her parents she'd be home Sunday night, but Terry never returned. When her body was discovered weeks later, there was no doubt her death was a homicide. But who would kill this teenage girl and why? This case has seen two arrests and one trial. And yet after four decades, her murder is still unsolved. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Teresa Terry Duran on Dark Down East.

It was dinner time on Friday, July 27th, 1984, and 14-year-old Teresa Duran, who preferred the nickname Terry, was out to eat with her parents, Irene and Donald. Robert Lowell reports for the Portland Press-Herald that Terry was what her mother described as a typical teenager. She had a messy bedroom, she was picky about her appearance, and she didn't always see eye to eye with her parents. For one, Terry's mother and father didn't approve of her older boyfriend. Irene and Don had only met him once, but the Durans told Terry they didn't like him. Terry knew how they felt, so during that dinner when she told her parents she was going to hang out with some friends for the weekend and was leaving that night, she left out the detail that she planned to see her boyfriend, too.

According to reporting by Donna Halverson for the Portland Evening Express, Terry was picked up by a friend and left home on Sebago Lake Road in Gorham later that night. The next day, Saturday the 28th, Irene got a call from Terry. She was checking in to let her parents know that she'd be home tomorrow, as planned. When Sunday afternoon rolled around, and then nightfall came, and Terry hadn't shown up yet, her mother was immediately concerned. She had no reason to believe Terry wouldn't be coming home, and Terry hadn't called to say she was running late or anything like that.

Terry always came back when she said she would, so this wasn't like her. Irene and Don waited out the night, hoping Terry would turn up with a logical explanation. But even without an explanation, they just wanted her to come home. Monday morning, July 31st, arrived with no word from their daughter, so Irene called Gorham Police to report Terry missing. Terry's parents were unable to sit still and wait for the police search to locate their daughter, so they drove all around town looking for Terry themselves. One of the very first places they checked was Terry's boyfriend's house. Irene said she and Don asked Terry's boyfriend if Terry was there, but he said no. Irene asked if her daughter had been there at all that day, and the boyfriend

again said no. Irene and Don left empty-handed and more concerned than ever. Terry didn't turn up at her boyfriend's house or or anywhere else, for weeks. The search continued in and around Gorham, but it was as if she vanished without a trace to follow. But then, the worst possible development came over Labor Day weekend. According to an Associated Press report published by the Bangor Daily News, on Sunday, September 2nd, 1984, two people walking in the woods a few hundred feet from a discontinued section of Plummer Road in Gorham discovered an unidentified body. Early reports state that police believed the woman was in her 20s and may have been dead for at least three weeks. She was fully clothed in dungaree jeans and a dungaree jacket, and some personal items were found near

her body at the scene. When the medical examiner's office confirmed the identity of the remains the next day, it was revealed that the remains were not those of a 20-year-old woman, but the 14-year-old Terry Duran, who had been missing now for more than a month. Police were treating Terry's death as a homicide. The M.E. found that Terry died from three gunshot wounds, including one to the back of her head. She also had a tiny, unidentified hole in her breastbone. The medical examiner, Dr. Henry Ryan, ruled out the injury as a bullet hole and post-mortem animal activity.

It looked like it could have been caused by a screwdriver or maybe even an ice pick. At the scene in the woods, investigators scoured the area for clues. While they did not locate a murder weapon or anything that could have caused the injury to her breastbone, a metal detector helped to uncover two spent.22 caliber bullets and four casings. A firearms expert from the Maine State Crime Lab determined that both of the bullets could have been fired from the same gun, and at least one of the casings could have encased one of those bullets. On closer examination later at the crime lab, a forensic chemist identified three hairs on one of the bullets. One of the hairs looked to be similar in color to Terry's hair, which was a medium brown, but the other two were lighter in color.

According to a report in the Evening Express, also found in the same area as Terry's body, was a car that had been vandalized and abandoned in the woods. When police ran the plates of the 1978 Pontiac, they found it had been reported stolen from East Kidder Street in nearby Portland on July 30th, the day Terry was supposed to return home. However, police were quick to dismiss any connection between that vehicle and Terry's murder. Four Gorham police officers were actively working the case alongside Maine State Police. They conducted interviews to piece together a timeline of Terry's movements and get an understanding of her social circle. And the overwhelming consensus from friends was that Terry didn't have a single enemy.

She had an outgoing personality and got along with pretty much everyone. She didn't cause trouble, and she was known for being fun-loving and up for anything. They did learn, however, that Terry was seen alive on the day she was supposed to go home, that Sunday, July 30th. A witness told police that he saw Terry on a dirt bike, riding three up with her boyfriend and a friend of theirs, a guy named Mark Parker. The witness remembered the incident because it

looked dangerous with all three of them somehow piled up on the bike together and speeding off. He said the trio was leaving a house not far from where her body was eventually found. The home belonged to the father of a guy named Louis Chase, known by the nickname Chipper. Chipper Chase was well known to local and state police in Maine. According to reporting by the Evening Express, Chipper was 19 years old when he was arrested in Bridgeton, Maine on October 15th, 1984, for aggravated assault and robbery. He was accused of severely beating a man's head and body in a rural area off the Weeks Road in Gorham and taking the man's wedding ring. When Chipper was booked at Cumberland County Jail, he was also put on a hold order by the Department of Probation and Parole,

because as it turned out, Chipper had been on the run after escaping from the Maine Youth Center, now known as Long Creek Youth Development Center, Maine's only secure juvenile facility. Chipper was either released on bail or escaped again because a few months later, in February of 1985, he led police on an hours-long chase in the woods as he tried to escape arrest for burglary and theft of firearms charges. According to reporting by the Lewiston Daily Sun, the pursuit broke out around 10.30 a.m. on February 19th after Chipper drove his car into the woods off Route 37 near the Bridgeton Town line

and fled on foot. Police dogs and officers on snowmobiles pursued the suspect in the area surrounding Little Moose Pond and finally caught him around 5 p.m. Main State Police had been wanting to speak with Chipper as part of their investigation into Terry Duran's murder since a witness placed Terry at his father's house, or at least leaving Chipper's father's house, on the day she was last seen alive.

Investigators questioned Chipper that spring of 1985, what would be the first of several conversations with the man. According to an AP report in the Lewiston Daily Sun, each time police spoke with Chipper, he had something different to say about Terry's death and who might be responsible. During the first interview, Chipper pointed the finger at one person he said killed Terry. In other interviews, he blamed someone else. At one point, he suggested that his own brother killed Terry. Police checked out this story and were apparently satisfied with the brother's alibi for the

date and time of the murder. They didn't think Chipper's brother did it. But Chipper himself landed on the list of suspects. However, Maine State Police Detective Peter Herring would only say that Chipper was a suspect, not the prime suspect. In October of 1985, a whole year into the investigation of Terry Duran's murder, Chipper was serving his sentence for aggravated assault, burglary, theft of firearms, and other charges at the main correctional center. But one day, he and another inmate disappeared on their walk back to the dormitory following a meal at the dining hall. Witnesses reported seeing Chipper and the other guy scaling a fence and

escaping prison grounds. As reported by Robert Kessel for the Lewiston Daily Sun, for days, local and state police alongside sheriff's deputies from multiple counties were on the lookout for the two escapees. Sightings were called in all over Bridgeton, including one terrifying report of Chipper seen carrying a rifle. The.30-06 caliber rifle was believed to have been stolen from a camp on Little Moose Pond, the same area where Chipper was apprehended a few months earlier. Multiple residents reported break-ins and burglaries at their homes in the area. Their camouflaged clothing, food, and firearms turned up missing. The manhunt for Chipper and the other escapee continued for well over a week before hunters stumbled upon the body of a man in the woods off Harbor Road in Lovell. The remains were later identified as the other escapee, not Chipper. The state medical examiner's office determined that the man died from a gunshot wound to the head, though the circumstances of his death

were still under investigation. Reports in 1986 state that it was being treated as suicide. In late November 1985, an indictment for Chipper Chase was handed down by a Cumberland County grand jury relating to his escape from prison and charges that had racked up while Chipper was on the run. Reports state that he was suspected of at least six vehicle thefts in the towns of Standish, Bridgeton, Gorham, and Portland. He remained at large for months. Chipper was finally apprehended more than 1,600 miles south in Miami, Florida on June 15, 1986. The Miami News reports that Maine State Police received a tip that Chipper might be in South Florida, and they notified officers there. Given the laundry list of violent offenses to his name, the Miami Beach SWAT team was sent in to

arrest Chipper outside an apartment on 15th Street. He was held at Dade County Jail prior to extradition. While in custody, Chipper made several statements to Florida police. He told them he knew who killed a 14-year-old girl in Maine two years earlier. Florida authorities shared the information with Maine State Police, who, of course, had already spoken to Chipper about Terry's murder more than once. But this time, he implicated someone new. In this new interview following his arrest in Florida, Chipper Chase told police that Terry Duran's killer was her boyfriend and his friend Mark Parker. Now, both Mark and the boyfriend had been on the case radar since the beginning, after a witness placed Terry, Mark, and the boyfriend together on that dirt bike the day of the murder. Police had interviewed both suspects at least twice during the initial investigation back in the fall of 1984, but the investigation in the two years since hadn't developed a strong enough case against either Mark or Terry's boyfriend to make an arrest.

Chipper's statement changed that, though. And interestingly, within a week, another witness surfaced to make the accusation even stronger. A woman told police that Mark had confessed to her that he killed Terry. That was the corroborating evidence investigators needed. A little less than a month later, news broke that police had made not one, but two arrests for the murder of Terry Duran. On July 24th, 1986, almost two years to the day since she died, 18-year-old Mark Parker and the other 17-year-old suspect were arrested on murder charges.

Documents from a pre-trial bail hearing for Mark Parker indicate that evidence showed the killing was likely premeditated, though the assistant AG later conceded that the motive for the two suspects for killing Terry was obscure. The state didn't need to prove motive at trial, though. That wasn't their burden. Both entered not guilty pleas and were ordered held without bail until hearings to determine if they would be tried as juveniles. In the meantime, Mark and the other suspect were ordered to undergo psychological evaluation at the Maine Youth Center, and the results of those evaluations would be used in weighing how the suspects should be tried. At the time, if tried as juveniles, the maximum sentence for a murder conviction would be incarceration at the Maine Youth Center until they turned 21.

However, if tried as adults, the maximum sentence was life in prison. A judge ultimately ruled that both Mark and the other suspect could be tried as adults. In October of 1986, Mark Parker was indicted by a grand jury. However, the attorney for Terry's boyfriend challenged the ruling that his client could be

tried as an adult, and so his case was not heard by the grand jury at the time. It was instead sent back to juvenile court by a superior court justice to get clarity on why the ruling was made to try the teenager as an adult because apparently the judge didn't follow procedure. The appeal meant a long delay in the case of the second suspect, but the investigations into both of the accused killers continued in anticipation of the day they faced their separate trials because a criminal investigation, especially a homicide investigation, doesn't stop when suspects are arrested and charged. The interviews and evidence gathering continues for the prosecution and begins for the defense. Even from the first

hearings, investigators were scrutinizing Mark and the other suspects' behaviors. During a hearing when Mark and Terry's boyfriend were together in the courtroom, Mark allegedly leaned over to the other suspect and whispered something, to which the other suspect appeared to shake his head no. What Mark actually said was a point of debate. Assistant Attorney General Michael Westcott believed that when Mark leaned over to say something, he was asking the other suspect if he said anything, and it looked like the other suspect said no. However, Mark later claimed that wasn't the question at all. Instead, he said he remarked to his friend,

Can you believe this? As both of them faced homicide charges. Investigators sat down for additional interviews after the suspects were in custody, at least one more with Mark. According to court documents, on November 11th, 1986, a Maine State police officer, an assistant attorney general, and Mark's attorney all sat down for a pre-polygraph interview with Mark at the Cumberland County Jail. Mark was not under oath during that interview when he told investigators that his friend, Terry's boyfriend, and the other person

charged with murder had admitted to him that he killed Terry. During the polygraph exam, Mark said again that the other suspect told him he killed Terry. He was still not under oath when he made the accusation during the polygraph. It was more corroboration of the evidence against Terry's boyfriend, though he still didn't have a trial date yet. According to an AP report in the Sun-Journal, it wasn't until April of 1987 that a judge finally ruled Terry's boyfriend would be tried as an adult, and the case was again sent to Superior Court. He did not appeal this decision. He'd already been in jail

for nine months and didn't want to wait for another appeal. He was indicted of May of 1987, just days before Mark's trial was scheduled to begin. When his trial opened in Cumberland County Superior Court, the prosecution walked the jury through their evidence against the suspect, Mark Parker. Assistant Attorney General Michael Westcott told the jury what they were about to hear in the trial that lay ahead. He talked about Mark's inconsistent statements to police, and his accusation that his friend was responsible for the murder. In the prosecutor's assessment, these were indicative of someone with a guilty conscience. He prepared the jury for the upcoming

testimony of Chipper Chase, who accused both Mark and Terry's boyfriend of her murder. The assistant AG also acknowledged what the defense was sure to highlight. Chipper was someone who had changed his story along the way too. And yet at least three other witnesses, a woman who said Mark confessed to killing Terry and since then two jail inmates corroborated what Chipper had told police. According to the prosecutor, Mark admitted to the two inmates that he was at the crime scene. Mark's defense team included attorney Stephanie Anderson, and she attacked the case from every angle.

She argued that Maine State Police were singularly focused on Mark and his friend, and they ignored other possible leads. She suggested that the abandoned, vandalized car found in the woods near the scene of Terry's murder, the one that was supposedly reported stolen on the same day Terry was last seen alive, should have been tested for prints or analyzed for blood and other evidence. But it wasn't. She also tore down the state's suggestion that because Mark changed his story

and eventually accused his friend of being involved with Terry's murder, he himself must be guilty. The defense team said that Mark had gotten some advice from a jailhouse lawyer who told him he had to do more than deny any involvement with Terry's murder. He had to point the finger at someone, so he did. Of course, the defense called out the witness whose testimony was at the center of the prosecution's case, Chipper Chase. The defense attacked his credibility, telling the jury how Chipper's story had changed several times. In the eyes of the defense, those inconsistent statements paired with Chipper's long criminal history and the fact that he was currently serving a nine-year sentence for a litany of charges made his

testimony worth some scrutiny. The defense planned to call their own witnesses, but before the jury would hear from those individuals, the prosecution presented testimony from their list of witnesses, including Chipper Chase. Louis Chipper Chase was once a suspect, but at the trial of Mark Parker, he was the state's star witness. When Chipper finally took the stand to testify that Mark and Mark's friend were responsible for Terry's death, he was unsurprisingly challenged by the defense on the inconsistencies in his multiple statements. He explained that he

just wanted the police to stop bothering him. Chipper testified that he was tired of being asked if he knew anything about the murder or what he knew about the murder and being pestered by investigators who accused him of knowing more than what he was saying. He didn't want to implicate anyone, and he didn't want anyone to be arrested for killing Terry, he said, which is why he made some stuff up at the beginning to keep police at bay. But Chipper eventually decided that enough was enough with the constant scrutiny. He finally decided to roll on his friends, which was apparently what police had been waiting to hear all along. When Chipper was asked on the stand

about one of the early statements he made accusing his brother of killing Terry, he said he, quote, wouldn't put it past his brother, but he said that he lied and the accusation was false and he insisted his brother wasn't responsible. Now, Mark Parker's team was prepared to call several witnesses as part of his defense.

According to staff and wire reports published in the Evening Express, two of those witnesses were federal prisoners serving time in Pennsylvania. At one point, the two men were housed in the segregation unit at Maine State Prison with Chipper Chase. As reported in the Morning Sentinel, they'd written a letter to a local newspaper that was then turned over to one of Mark's defense attorneys, Thomas Connolly. The letter and subsequent statements by the two men alleged that Chipper told them that he was in the woods with his brother when his brother killed Terry. Chipper also allegedly admitted to the two men that he helped his brother conceal the body. They also said that Chipper bragged about implicating Mark and making up a bunch of lies that ended up making him a star

witness. He was, they said, very proud of the fact that he got two teenage boys arrested because he didn't like them, and he thought he might get less time for his pending charges, and he was protecting his brother in the process. The alleged motive for Chipper's brother killing Terry, according to this jailhouse informant letter filled with unverified secondhand information, was that Terry rebuffed the brothers' advances that day. It would have been potentially explosive testimony for Mark's defense, but the men who wrote that letter never ended up testifying, because local authorities discovered that the duo was planning to hold Mark's defense attorney hostage and then escape the courthouse.

Defense attorney Thomas Connolly had interviewed the two witnesses numerous times in preparation for trial, so he was their primary contact in Maine. Before the witnesses were transported to Maine, where they would be held at the county jail, they shipped a box to the defense attorney, which reportedly contained personal items, but it also had a false bottom. Inside a secret compartment was a zip gun, basically a rudimentary improvised weapon capable of firing low-caliber ammo. The secret compartment and its contents were discovered before Thomas Connolly brought it to the witnesses. But that gun wasn't the only firearm that was part of the plot.

Investigators learned that alleged outside accomplices were supposed to bring automatic weapons into the courthouse on the day the men were scheduled to testify. However, the gun smuggling scheme was intercepted before any firearms made their way into the courthouse during Mark's trial. The courtroom was cleared, and the search turned up no guns of any kind. There was no indication that any weapons had made their way into the courtroom, and no one had been identified as these alleged accomplices. One of the witnesses was still brought into the courthouse, even after police knew about the escape plot, but he ended up refusing to testify anyway,

and he was immediately placed in a waiting car for transport back to the federal facility in Pennsylvania. The trial continued without those two defense witnesses, and security was amped way up in the days that followed. Officers from state and local police, as well as sheriff's deputies, set up a perimeter around the courthouse and at points on the roof, some carrying rifles. In what was described as a surprise move,

the defense didn't end up calling any witnesses in Mark's defense at all. The defense attorney, Stephanie Anderson, said that she assessed the state's case against her client and determined that bringing her own witnesses as part of the defense wasn't necessary. Actually, her exact quote later on was, If it's not broken, don't fix it. According to Donna Galverson's reporting in the Morning Sentinel, before the jury left to begin their deliberations, they asked to have a large portion of testimony read back. The section of the testimony centered on Mark's statements

during that interview in November when he told police his friend was involved in Terry's murder. The jurors also wanted to hear again the testimony of a so-called jailhouse lawyer who said that he advised Mark to give investigators something, and that's when he implicated his friend. Perhaps the jury was looking for any incriminating statements or something that corroborated the accusations made by Chipper Chase and other witnesses. Whatever they wanted to double-check, no doubt informed their final decision.

Deliberations lasted about four and a half hours before the jury returned with a verdict. Mark Parker, not guilty, acquitted of all charges. Standing outside the courthouse, Mark fielded reporters' questions about the case and how he was feeling, now free for the first time in almost ten months. He explained how he'd been under the influence of an inmate acting as a lawyer while he was in jail. Mark said the things he said about his friend killing Terry were definitely not true. He planned to say so during his testimony at the other suspect's trial the following month. But that never came to pass. With Mark's acquittal,

the case against Terry's boyfriend seemed to unravel. Less than two weeks later, the suspect was released on bail conditions after coming to an agreement with the assistant AG. He waited out his trial at his mother's home and was ordered to report to a probation officer each week. As Mark's trial was progressing, the other suspect's defense team had been working on their client's entirely separate case. They'd filed a pretrial motion to have Mark's statements thrown out and excluded as evidence. Mark had ultimately recanted those statements

and admitted he was lying, and court documents show that Mark wasn't under oath when he made them, so the defense attorney argued the statements shouldn't be permitted at trial. A judge ruled in favor of the defense, meaning a critical part of the state's case was no longer allowed to be used in the trial of Terry's boyfriend. According to Dieter Bradbury's reporting for the Evening Express,

the trial of Terry's boyfriend was scheduled to begin in August of 1987, but the state requested the proceedings be continued, so there was time to appeal the judge's decision regarding Mark's statements. The appeal was expected to take several months. When the Maine Supreme Judicial Court finally ruled on the state's appeal, it was dismissed. The Supreme Court basically said that the AG's office should have researched case law themselves to determine if the statements were admissible because the Supreme Court didn't have jurisdiction in the matter. All that to say, the statements by Mark were definitely not going to be allowed as evidence against Terry's boyfriend during his trial. And what else did the state have

against the suspect? It appears not much more than they had in the case against Mark Parker, which didn't end in the state's favor. A little less than two months later, in September of 1988, the state dropped all charges against the other suspect. They just didn't have enough evidence. However, if new evidence

developed, charges could be brought against the suspect again. So far, though, that hasn't happened. No charges have been brought against anyone in Terry Duran's case for nearly 40 years. I talked to retired state police detective Pete Herring as part of my reporting on this case. If you're a longtime Dark Down East listener, you've heard his name before. He was the guy put on many major cases for Maine State Police during this era. And Pete was the lead detective on Terry's case. And he worked alongside Gorham PD from the beginning all the way through the arrests of the two suspects and the trial of Mark Parker and beyond. For Pete, there was no question

in his mind that the two people arrested were the ones responsible for her murder, even after Mark Parker was acquitted. Pete said that the case against Terry's boyfriend falling apart was a big disappointment. He came back to the detail that Terry was last seen with both Mark and her boyfriend, but it was her boyfriend who had a possible motive to kill Terry, not Mark. With Pete on the phone with me, I ran through a few of the details about Terry's case that bothered me, like the abandoned car found near the scene. Pete said he remembered a lot about the scene, the condition of Terry's body, the fact that some personal items and evidence were found nearby, but he had no memory of any such car. He thought

maybe it was a story curated by the defense attorney to drum up some doubt in the minds of jurors, but he truly couldn't remember. By the way, I submitted an FOAA request with Portland PD for reports of car theft on July 30th, 1984 with the name of the registered owner, but they didn't have any records on file that matched the incident. It doesn't mean there was never a stolen car on that date from that address. It's been several decades, so maybe the report was lost or destroyed, but I had to mention it regardless. I also asked Pete about Chipper Chase and how he was wrapped up in all of this. I mean, he was reportedly on the run at the time of the murder. Terry and the

two suspects were last seen leaving Chipper's father's house on a dirt bike the time of the murder. Terry and the two suspects were last seen leaving Chipper's father's house on a dirt bike the day of the murder. And Chipper was known to steal cars, so that alleged stolen and abandoned car near the scene is interesting when you look at it through that lens. It makes sense why Chipper was a suspect at one point. When I brought up Chipper to Pete, his tone of voice changed ever so slightly. Like, oh yeah, that guy, kind of thing told me that once Chipper claimed to know where the murder weapon was, and so police brought Chipper out to an undisclosed location in the woods so he could point out where he said the gun was tossed, but an extensive search of the area never turned up any firearms. Pete offered up another detail about the possible murder weapon during

our conversation. He told me that police had investigated a report of a stolen gun around the time Terry was killed. The gun owner usually kept it under his mattress, but it turned up missing and police were never able to locate it. Pete couldn't remember much else about that lead though, like whose gun it was or if it belonged to someone known to any of the suspects. He said that at the time, he and other investigators believed that locating that gun would have been critical to the ongoing investigation into Terry's murder. Instead, it remained a loose end while Terry's case grew colder by the day. One other detail I can't stop thinking about are the hairs

that were found on the bullet at the scene. A forensic chemist who analyzed those hairs said that one might have been Terry's based on color comparison alone, but the others

were lighter than her hair. Could they belong to the killer or killers? Have they been tested with more modern-day forensic methods that can work wonders with the follicle and shaft of a strand of hair found at crime scenes? I was at risk of spiraling off about the hairs when Pete raised a few fair points. He said it makes sense that

Terry's hair may have been on a bullet because she had at least one gunshot wound to her head. But how would hair from a suspect be there? He thought it was more than likely animal hair. There was a lot of post-mortem animal activity at the scene, he told me. Okay, maybe I'll spiral just a tad bit more, even with those valid counterpoints. I don't know if those hairs or any other undisclosed physical evidence has been tested in subsequent years, or if other physical evidence even exists.

Terry's case is still unsolved, but is considered open and active, so current investigators aren't able to say much of anything about the ongoing investigative efforts. Terry Duran is included on the Maine State Police list of unsolved homicides. Her listing on the website actually has an incorrect date. It says her remains were found on August 1st, 1984, when in fact they were found on September 2nd of that year. Don't worry, I've reached out to have it fixed. But the listing also says that one suspect was tried and acquitted, Mark Parker, of course, but there are two other suspects in the case. One of those suspects, you've got to assume, is Terry's boyfriend. The charges against him were dismissed, but they could be brought again

if new evidence is uncovered. But who is the other of those two remaining suspects? Is it Chipper Chase? Is it someone else still yet to be publicly identified? The endless questions in Terry's case are still there, now even 40 years later. Terry Duran would have been entering Gorham High School as a freshman in the fall of 1984. She played softball, so maybe she would have been entering Gorham High School as a freshman in the fall of 1984. She played softball, so maybe she would have tried out for the team. She loved animals, especially cats, and dreamed of becoming a veterinary technician one day. Those and other dreams untold would never be realized, because someone chose to end her young life. In July of 1985, Terry's family published

what would be the first of many in-memoriam messages in the local paper. A July 30th, 1985 message in the Portland Evening Express reads, In loving memory of our daughter, Terry Duran, to hear your voice and see your smile, to sit with you and talk a while, to be together in the same old way would be our dearest wish today. We love you so much and miss you, Mom and Dad and Donnie. Twice a year, for almost two decades, a similar message was published in the paper around the anniversary of Terry's

death and on her birthday. Some of the messages include poems like that one. Others are simple notes of how much they love and miss their daughter and sister. There are a few, ones that seem to read louder than the others, that were printed after the one-time suspect was acquitted for Terry's murder. The in memoriam from October 21st, 1987, what would have been Terry's 18th birthday, reads in part, Today is a day of remembrance and many sad regrets,

a day we shall remember when the rest of the world forgets. No matter how many years passed, even when Terry faded from the memories of everyone else as her case grew cold, her family could never forget the person they lost. The final in memoriam I could find was printed in the October 21st, 2002 edition of the Portland Press-Herald. Terry would have been celebrating her 33rd birthday. It says only, Happy 33rd birthday, Terry Duran. Love and miss you dearly, Mom and Donnie.

Terry's father's name is missing from this one. He passed away earlier that year without ever knowing what happened to his only daughter. If you have any information about the murder of Terry Duran, please contact Main State Police Major Crimes Unit South at 207-624-7076. To be continued... Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. 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. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck.

So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?