Dark Downeast - The Murders of Cyrus Everett and Donna Mauch (Maine)

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

MAINE MURDERS, 1964: When a cryptic poem landed on the editor's desk at the Fort Fairfield Review in 1984, it would be the beginning of the end of a 20 year saga that cast a dark shadow over the small Aroostook County town.Two highly publicized murders, plagued by inexperience, rumor, and political drama, would go unsolved for two decades until finally, the spider himself got caught in the tangled web he believed he was weaving.These are the Fort Fairfield Murders of Cyrus Everett and Donna Mauch. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/fortfairfieldmurdersFollow @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.

With this note, we tempt you to peek, searching in areas you first didn't seek. Perchance an answer you may uncover, to two unsound corpses you did discover. And soon, Fort Fairfield PD, I will approach to find this clue you need, before time and nature turn it to seed. Signed, The Mystery Guest That poem was the beginning of the end of a 20-year saga that cast a dark shadow over the small Aroostook County town of Fort Fairfield. Two murders, highly publicized, plagued by inexperience and political drama, would go unsolved for two decades until, finally, the spider himself got caught in the tangled web

he believed he was weaving. I'm Kylie Lowe, and these are the Fort Fairfield murders of Cyrus Everett and Donna Mouch on Dark Down East. Cyrus Everett was 14 years old when he left his home on Presque Isle Street in Fort Fairfield around 6 p.m. the day after Christmas in 1964. He hollered to his mother that he was going to collect payment on his paper route, and off he went into the frozen winter evening. As he knocked on each door, his customers greeted him with a smile. They handed off their payments due, and some slipped Cyrus a tip inside a Christmas card, just something extra in the spirit of holiday giving. By 8.30 p.m. that Sunday night, he was rounding out his route and turning off onto Depot Street, near the Bethel Baptist Church in the center of Fort Fairfield.

But after his final knock on his final door, Cyrus Everett didn't return home. Mary C. Everett reported her son missing. She told the Bangor Daily News, quote, I don't feel he's gone away on his own free will. She told the Bangor Daily News, quote, I don't feel he's gone away on his own free will. I could be wrong, but that's the way I feel about it, unquote.

Cyrus was in eighth grade at Fort Fairfield Junior High School. He came from a family of four kids, himself, two brothers, and a sister. And he was just 100 pounds and 5 feet tall, small for his age, with brown hair and brown eyes. Detectives obtained a copy of Cyrus's root list from his boss and retraced what they believed to be his steps that evening. With this sighting around 8.30 p.m. the night of December 26th, right near the Bethel Baptist Church, they began their canvassing in that area of town. From door to door they went, speaking to 68 of Cyrus's newspaper customers. But they learned nothing new, no new information each time they knocked, nothing of note or concern. That is, until they stepped into the dooryard of an apartment building on Depot Street.

Harold Adams owned the building. He was also the owner of a small trucking company in town, and he was the father to a son who was quite familiar to local authorities. When the door of the apartment building swung open, it was Harold's son, Philip Leroy Adams, on the other side. Philip had moved into an apartment in his father's building after his release from jail, where he'd been serving time for forgery. But that offense was the least of his crimes. People magazine covered Cyrus Everett's case in 1985, and writers Ross Drake and David W. Grogan reported

that Philip Adams was a known pedophile. Police assessed the man before them, explaining as they had at every other door that they were looking for anyone who might have seen 14-year-old Cyrus Everett on Saturday evening. Now, Phil didn't have much to offer in their search for the boy. He said he would have been in the basement hanging his laundry at the time that Cyrus was supposedly at his door. But Phil did have his own incident to report. He told police that the day before, the same day Cyrus was reported missing, he had been outside in his dad's garage when someone attacked him from behind.

He didn't get a good look at his assailant, but he motioned to the back of his neck half-turning to reveal the scratched and broken skin just below the base of his scalp and around his neck. Incredulous, the pair of detectives nodded as Phil explained away his injuries. Phil wasn't one to inspire trust amongst law enforcement, but the story he told didn't raise too many alarm bells in their search for Cyrus Everett at the time. Because at this point, despite what Cyrus's mother felt about her son's disappearance, the strongest working hypothesis amongst the investigative team was that Cyrus simply ran away. On Monday, December 29, 1964, the search for the assumed runaway continued in both Maine and in Canada,

with assistance from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in New Brunswick. Cyrus's father, Clyde Everett, lived with his sister in a small community called Bairdsville near Andover in New Brunswick, and investigators hypothesized that Cyrus may have crossed the border to see his dad. By Wednesday the 31st, though, police had checked with the boy's father, and Clyde hadn't seen his son. The search expanded to involve authorities in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Cyrus had an aunt, but there had been no sightings of him there, either. An entire week passed without any leads playing out in the disappearance of Cyrus Everett. And so the community came together alongside authorities to conduct an intensive search beginning the morning of January 2nd, 1965. The search involved over 50 volunteers, firemen, national guardsmen, game wardens, local police, and state officials,

all methodically combing the town with property maps in hand so as to not overlook a single square inch. Abandoned buildings, wooded areas, culverts, the banks of the Aristic River, despite the comprehensive survey of the area, they uncovered no clues, not a single sign of 14-year-old Cyrus. Fort Fairfield was and is a small town, and with so much attention on the disappearance, the chatter was plentiful and the rumors ran wild. Investigators lamented that they were spending too much time running down false leads based on rumor and speculation. The Saturday search extended into Sunday morning and evening, but with nothing to indicate Cyrus was anywhere to be found in town, the effort was called off.

Over a month later, February 19th of 1965, police in Alpine, New Jersey contacted Maine State Police to report the discovery of a body, one they believed could be the missing Cyrus Everett. But later identification proved that the body belonged to a boy from New York City, not Cyrus. As Mrs. Everett hoped for her boy to come home, and the entire town of Fort Fairfield waited for answers in his disappearance, the community was about to be shaken by another sudden tragedy. 24-year-old Donna Mouch had just moved into a new apartment on Depot Street in Fort Fairfield in February of 1965 with her 17-year-old brother James Kennedy and Donna's three-year-old daughter Victoria Louise. The vacancy came at the perfect time for Donna, who was working as a waitress at the Plymouth Hotel in town.

She was recently divorced from her second husband, and the marriage had been an abusive one. This new place in a new town was a new start. On February 15th, the landlord Harold Adams handed them the keys to their new place. Just five days prior, the apartment was home to Harold's son, Philip Adams. But according to reporting by People magazine, Phil decided that he needed a rest and attempted to check himself into the state mental hospital in Bangor on February 10th. In Phil's absence, his father didn't waste much time collecting rent from a new tenant. The other tenants in the building were all Adams' family relatives, Mrs. Hattie Adams, Phil's grandmother, in one of the first-floor apartments, and Dan Adams, Hattie's brother-in-law with his wife and two kids in the only second-floor unit.

Hattie was a widow with ample time on her hands, and she liked to sit in peace and chain-smoke her cigarettes and keep tabs on the building's residents, including the newest, the young Donna Mouch. Donna, though only a neighbor for a handful of days, found Hattie to be a great listener. She often popped in for a chat and dished about the man she was seeing who worked on Loring Air Force Base. She also told Hattie about a date that she still had planned with her ex-husband. The occupancy of the Depot Street apartment building increased again a few days after Donna moved in. Phil Adams had actually been denied admission to the Bangor Hospital, and so after spending a few days in Kentucky, he decided to move back into his old

building. But this time, he'd be sleeping on his grandma Hattie's couch, since his apartment had new tenants. Although the apartment was rented to Donna, Phil had left behind some of his things when he made the spontaneous trip out of Maine. He seemed especially eager to recover those important personal belongings, whatever they were, and spent the afternoon of his return frantically searching the building for everything he'd left behind. Donna worked nights at the Plymouth Hotel, and Wednesday, February 26th would have been her shift. But the phone on the wall of Mrs. Hattie Adams' apartment rang around 11.10 p.m. On the other end was her grandson, Jerry Adams, who also worked at the Plymouth Hotel.

He asked his grandmother if she'd seen Donna at all, because Donna hadn't made it in for work that night. Hattie told Jerry she hadn't seen Donna all day. At 11.45 p.m. that night, Donna's brother James returned home to find his sister dead on the living room floor. A formal autopsy revealed that 24-year-old Donna Mauch died of a fractured skull and lacerations of the brain. The typical quiet farming community of Fort Fairfield was stunned by the latest shocking event in town, and the police force was already taxed by the disappearance of Cyrus Everett from less than two months prior. Now they had a homicide investigation on their hands. Questioning began with the men known to Donna at the time, the boyfriend she told Hattie Adams about, as well as her ex-husband, the one with the apparent violent tendencies.

They spent a few days in Caribou, not far from Loring Air Force Base, following up on Leeds. By March 8, 1965, police announced that they'd ruled out Donna's ex-husband, but they didn't let on any details or reassurance that they were any closer to an arrest. It was the second unsettling case in Fort Fairfield that had stalled out without any clear direction. Meanwhile, talk about the concurrent case of the missing newsboy Cyrus Everett had made its way across the state, and it was the subject of discussion during a banquet for undertakers at Portland's Holiday Inn by the Bay. The keynote speaker was Shirley Harrison. Shirley Harrison claimed to have ESP and often gave talks on the subject.

At this particular talk, Shirley's audience asked if she could use her special skills to learn anything about the disappearance of Cyrus Everett. Shirley told her audience that Cyrus Everett met a violent death. His body would be in water under a heavy log. Her observation was largely ignored at the time. But as March turned into April, and then finally May, Shirley Harrison anding out after another frozen, aristic county winter. Neighborhood children were playing in the wooded field off Richard Street, a short, dead-end lane that cut off just before the tangled trees and brush turned into swamp and bog. Maybe it was a game of tag or capture the flag. Maybe they were playing make-believe or hide-and-seek. Whatever it was, the game took them into the shaded swamp area

and led them to a grisly discovery. Investigators first on the scene encountered the badly decomposed body of a young boy, pinned beneath a massive 673-pound, four-foot-long log. Based on his clothing and description, they believed the body to be that of the missing boy, Cyrus Everett. When they called his mother to make a positive identification, she couldn't even make it out of the car. Mrs. Everett fainted. The family pastor, Reverend A.L. Stairs, ultimately identified the body. The initial statement by county attorney Frank Hickey, after consulting with the county medical

examiner Dr. Philip Pines of Limestone, announced that Cyrus was alive when he was placed under the log, and that he likely died by compression of the heart. He also said that the boy had several broken ribs and bruises on his head. Was it an accident? Could the over-half-ton log have just fallen on top of the 100-pound boy as he walked through the woods that night? Would he have any reason at all to even be in that swampy wooded area? Why wasn't he discovered during the extensive foot search of the entire town of Fort Fairfield. The questions in the investigation into his disappearance and now death were just beginning. The easiest of those questions to answer is why they didn't discover his body for over five months despite two full days of searches.

It's believed that Cyrus was concealed by a layer of snow and so the discovery couldn't have been made until springtime. Would Cyrus have any reason at all to be in that swampy area? Well, according to a May 12, 1965 report in the Bangor Daily News, he was known to visit the horses at Mr. Harris Whited's farm, less than a tenth of a mile as the crow flies from Richard Street, near where his body was discovered. The swamp was a regular shortcut, so it wouldn't have been strange for Cyrus to be there. But was it an accident? Did the log unexpectedly fall on top of him? That would be the question of much debate. Debate that would last months. If the initial statement by the county attorney was accurate,

saying that Cyrus was alive when the log landed on top of him, an accident could have been plausible. But two days after his body was discovered, and after an official autopsy by Dr. Nekdet Gorelli, they reversed their earlier statement. Cyrus was not alive when he was placed under the log. It seems to me, and it did to many people in town, that it would have been impossible for his death to be an accident if he was dead before the log somehow landed on top of him. A cause of death would have made it a much clearer distinction,

but that was the critical detail missing from his death certificate. On May 10, 1965, the family of Cyrus Everett buried the young boy at Riverside Cemetery. His funeral was the largest the small town had ever seen. Meanwhile, the ongoing investigation into the murder of Donna Mouch drew new speculation now with the discovery of Cyrus Everett's body and the proximity of both of their deaths. They lived just two blocks away from each other. And perhaps more significantly,

police believed that the last stop Cyrus made on his paper route that December evening was the same Depot Street apartment building where Donna had lived. Compelling connections, yes, but investigators weren't willing to confirm if they were actually connected. The town was left to jump to their own conclusions and perpetuate their own stories about what Perrin Edmonds had killed Cyrus in a drunken hit-and-run accident. As the rumor developed, people said that Donna was either in the car with the man or found out later, and was maybe blackmailing the political figure, which led to her murder. Maine's governor at the time, John Reed, also a Republican, was from Fort Fairfield, and Edmonds was married to his cousin. So the rumors seemed to fuel political controversy in

the county and across the state. The Attorney General's Office needed to uncover and provide answers in Cyrus Everett's death. The community was uneasy with so many unanswered questions, and not to mention the heat of political pressure and salacious rumors left investigators standing barefoot in the flames. October 21st, 1965. A joint statement by County Attorney Frank Hickey and Maine Attorney General Richard J. DuBord read, quote, As a result of the investigation, it can be stated that no evidence has been discovered to indicate that the death of Cyrus Everett, 14, was otherwise than accidental. Unquote. It had been almost a year since Cyrus disappeared, and nearly six months since his body was discovered under the 673-pound log, and their answer, again,

flip-flopped back to it being an accident. He died of exposure under the log. It was their final theory. The joint statement and preceding press conference only seemed to confuse the case in the town more. The very earliest reports of his death claimed he had broken ribs and bruising on his skull. But now, they said at the press conference, Cyrus didn't have a single broken bone or trauma to his body. His cause of death was announced as undetermined. How could there be two very opposing results of these examinations? It certainly raised eyebrows around town. Hickey and Dubord responded to questions about the money bag that Cyrus would have been carrying to collect payment from his customers. Hickey offered the

theory that animals probably took it. No money was found on or near the boy's body. They also stated that there was no indication that his death was at all related to that of Donna Mouch. The people of Fort Fairfield, along with Mrs. Everett, were doubtful of the entire story. Mrs. Everett telling Bangor Daily News reporter Dean Rhodes, quote, I really thought they were going to come up with something. I was surprised. I don't agree with it. Unquote. But that was that. They all but closed the investigation into Cyrus Everett's death, stating that there would be no further action warranted by the agencies involved, but that no case was ever closed. They just weren't about to devote any more agency time or money to the investigation. The non-answers they got from the duo of County Attorney Hickey and Attorney General Dubord didn't satisfy hardly anyone in Fort Fairfield. They were going to need to rally behind Mary Everett

and take this case into their own hands. They were prepared to do exactly that. Following a heated town council meeting, Fort Fairfield town manager Leonard H. Kyle announced in November of 1965 that the town had hired former state police trooper detective and then Old Town Police Chief Otis N. Labrie as a private investigator in the death of Cyrus Everett. Otis Labrie was a name many in Maine law enforcement knew well at the time. In 1999, he was recognized as a legendary trooper by the Maine State Troopers Foundation. His colleagues and critics alike called him colorful, cocky, and often controversial, but damn good at his job. He patrolled northern Aroostook County on a motorcycle, and he was a renowned handwriting,

fingerprint, firearms, and ballistics expert. He was also bilingual in French and English. One of his most notable cases from his early trooper career was when he was stationed in Van Buren. He arrested a priest. The town believed the move would send him straight to hell, but the arrest turned into a conviction, and so he was ultimately justified in the blasphemous move. The case of Cyrus Everett had never been officially closed, but with Labrie's appointment, it was completely reignited. He followed up on past leads, consulted experts in Maine and Massachusetts, fielded written tips both anonymous and signed, and reviewed the entire case file, detailing earlier findings by state and county investigators. In an eight-page report furnished to the Fort

Fairfield Town Council, Labrie's assessment of Cyrus Everett's death was the precise opposite of the former report issued by the attorney general and county attorney back in October. The unpublished footnotes of the report, which contained solid leads and direction for next steps in the investigation, were shared with both the town council and the attorney general. His notes also pointed out several glaring mistakes by the original investigators, and they didn't like hearing Labrie's commentary on their work. Labrie told the Bangor Daily News, quote, Labrie flat out said nothing in the report, not in the entire case file, indicated that it could have ever been an accident.

Labrie also mentioned to the press that he couldn't look at the death of Cyrus Everett without stumbling on compelling connections to the case of the murdered mother, Donna Mouch. You can't talk about one death and not the other, he said. The most curious lead uncovered by Labrie's work on the case was the report of a town resident who likely had knowledge of the location of Cyrus's body long before it was ever discovered by the children playing near the swamp. While the information was not confirmed with the public at the time to protect the integrity of the investigation, the stories never stopped among the close-knit town of just over 5,000 people where everyone knew everyone. And more importantly, someone always saw something. Several times during the five months between Cyrus' disappearance and eventual discovery,

one town resident noticed the same red car driving the same route, stopping each time at the dead end of Richard Street, a few hundred feet away from the swampy wooded area. And each time, the driver cranked down the car window and peered out over the frozen stretch of land with binoculars. Based on Labrie's assessment of the case, as well as outside consultation with a medical examiner in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and the director of the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard University, it was determined that a new examination of the boy's body was warranted. Two months after Labrie's report that challenged everything the county and state attorneys first claimed to be true, a new state police detective was assigned to the case, and authorities had the body of Cyrus Everett exhumed.

And with that new autopsy came new findings. The sutures in Cyrus Everett's skull, the seams between plates that naturally fuse together as a person grows, they were separated in the back right portion of his head. The injuries were consistent with a blow to the head. Ten days later, in February 1966, the death of Cyrus Everett was officially classed as a homicide. In the new report issued by Attorney General Dubord, he stated that authorities believed the motive was robbery, given that Cyrus' money bag was never recovered.

Also revealed in that statement was that the first autopsy performed on Cyrus was the first medical-legal autopsy conducted by that particular physician. Although the pathologist, Dr. Gorelli, was a certified anatomical and clinical pathologist, Dubord implied that inexperience led to inaccurate findings. The skull separations and fractures had been there all along. Further, they determined that Cyrus Everett's injuries were not the result of being hit

by a car, something the AG had to clarify to douse those fiery rumors that this was the case. He also pointed to those rumors as the reason the first conclusion of accidental death was reached in haste, saying, quote, "...my statement was prompted largely by a desire to quell widespread rumors which Unquote. While some of the rumors and chatter may have been put to rest with the homicide classification in Cyrus Everett's case, one question persisted. Was the death of Cyrus Everett connected to the death of Donna Mouch?

The coincidences were too much to ignore. On April 9th, 1966, an Aroostook County grand jury completed four days of deliberation, returning 60 indictments. 38 of those indictments were secret. And among the 38 kept under wraps, the town wondered, was the murderer of Cyrus Everett or Donna Mouch about to be brought to justice? The next day, state police arrested 25-year-old Loring Air Force Base officer Lieutenant Kenneth E. Fore for the murder of Donna Mouch. Kenneth's trial began in June of that year. The man, who was known to love singing and theater and performing on stages as much as he did his career in the service, was notably stoic and emotionless as both the state and defense presented and argued the case against him. The state's case was flimsy.

They could hardly place Kenneth at the scene of the crime with the circumstantial evidence they presented. A woman named Shirley Allen was a key witness for the defense. She told the jury that she'd been with Kenneth for on the night of Donna's murder until about 1 a.m. Now, it wasn't a perfect story because Donna's time of death was a range, between 12.30 a.m. and 8 a.m. on February 24, 1965. But after only four days of testimony and cross-examination, the jury began their deliberations. Did Kenneth Foer kill Donna Mouch? It only took the jury two hours to answer that question. Kenneth Foer, not guilty. His victory lap was a boisterous one. The previously quiet and reserved defendant did not hold back his joy. He shook jurors' hands outside the courthouse and waved to the flashing cameras of

the press. He told everyone he wanted to make captain before retiring from the service. And then, if he had the guts, he told reporter Ken Buckley, he wanted to sing on Broadway. Joy and victory for Lieutenant Kenneth Foer and the defense. but for Donna Mouch, still absolutely nothing. The state thought they had their guy, and with this acquittal, they slammed the book on the young mother's murder. Case closed. No more investigation into her death.

In the years following, Governor John Reed quietly offered up funds to continue the probe into both Cyrus Everett's murder and on a match, but other powers at B rallied against it. Meanwhile, the Fort Fairfield town manager petitioned the state for the investigation to continue on behalf of the residents, but it appeared that the agencies were overwhelmed and disorganized. No one department was deemed the leader of the effort, and disagreements over next steps stalled any real action or forward motion. Otis Labrie, the one-time private investigator contracted by the town to look into the cases, told the Bangor Daily News, Both cases were paid for his work on Cyrus Everett's case,

and he'd spent too much of his own time and money on the cases. He'd developed strong opinions on his findings, but without local and state agencies to propel that work forward, his hands were tied. He stepped down from his private investigator role in the cases, telling reporters, quote, my wife and I are going on vacation, unquote. It was two years later and still not a single answer. No one had much confidence that they'd ever have answers. Labrie told reporters six years after the fact, in 1970, quote, They may be resolved, somebody could make a dying declaration,

but the murders probably never will be solved, unquote. In a Summers, Connecticut prison cell, Philip Leroy Adams read the poem back once more before handing it off for postage with the next day's mail. Although the rhymes weren't his own work, he commissioned the piece from a fellow inmate with a flair for dramatics. Phil signed it, The Mystery Guest. The former Fort Fairfield local was serving time in the Connecticut Correctional Institute

for the beating of a 10-year-old boy. And it seemed that after years of speculation and other recent circumstances, he was ready to confirm what so many back in his hometown had suspected, what the police had continually failed to prove. When that poem reached the local paper, the Fort Fairfield Review, it was immediately turned over to the police chief and then to the district attorney. The signed pseudonym was anything but a mystery, because the return address of Summers, Connecticut, led them directly to the man they'd all suspected since the very first knock on his Depot Street apartment door 20 years before. In 1984, with an exclusive interview from prison granted to the same publication that first received the poem,

Phil Adams unraveled the mystery of the Fort Fairfield murders. Phil told the reporter, quote, Well, from what I've been holding back for the last 20 years, a lot of people going to get hurt up home. A lot of top people, and it's really too bad, but it's time, unquote. The publication presented the four-part interview series in its entirety like a transcript. There was no interpretation of his words, not even a copy-edit of his sometimes improper grammar. So, although I couldn't actually hear it, because of the way it was presented, it was very easy to sense Phil's tone. He was noticeably smug, almost like he enjoyed the

attention he'd garnered for himself. This smug attitude, this delight in attention was something Phil demonstrated throughout the previous two decades. Phil's ex-wife and mother to his children, Karen Sprague, told People magazine that Phil liked to tease and entertain speculation that he was Donna and Cyrus's killer. He'd play, maybe I did it, maybe I didn't. The tipping point for Phil to speak, finally, after all these years, he claimed, was his daughter with Karen. Karen and the children had all since moved back to Fort Fairfield from Connecticut, and Karen's new husband adopted their kids as his own. But as a teenager, Phil and Karen's daughter Jodi began asking questions about her biological father. The whispers in town still

persisted. Everyone knew who her real father was, and everyone still believed the rumors from decades past. When Jodi visited Phil in prison, chaperoned by her adoptive father, Phil shared that he felt Jodi could be his purpose for living. That Jodi could be, quote, a new start, someone to give me initiative, unquote. Phil shared a lot with her in that meeting, and a lot of it was dark and scary. They stayed in touch by phone after that meeting. Jodi's adoptive father made her agree to wait until she was 18 years old to see Phil Adams in person again. During one phone call, Phil asked Jodi if she would stay in his life as he neared an opportunity for parole, and Jody agreed. But he also said to her that if he felt she didn't love him, if Jody walked away from him,

quote, whether or not I committed the murders, I would confess to them with a guarantee from the governor that he would give me the death penalty, unquote. Maine abolished the death penalty for all offenses in 1887. But weeks after that meeting with his daughter, Phil got a letter from Jody. She told him to plan his life after prison without her. She was doing the very thing Phil feared. Jodi was walking away. Phil explained, quote, This is how the poem finally originated. I thought there was nothing left, and it was a way of showing at least Jodi that I would die for them, for her. Whether I committed the crimes or a noble and valiant act,

a father willing to give up his life to end the whispers and fear and speculation that his children endured during their entire lives, with their father as a suspected double murderer. But Phil stopped short of coming out and straight up confessing to the crimes. He could have called up Maine State Police the moment he got that letter from Jody, but instead, he commissioned a poem with a mysterious air and made himself the center of all attention. It was clearly the attention that Phil wanted all along. Though he may have been unaware of how transparent his motivations were,

it all started after his mother died. Phil told the reporter that he had been playing with matches, and it started a fire in their home. His mother leapt from the high window to escape the blaze, and she later died of her injuries. Phil carried guilt for his mother's death his whole life. When his father remarried, Phil and his siblings were largely raised by their stepmother Muriel. Phil explained that he would intentionally get into trouble just so his father Harold would notice him.

Decades later, with all of the new controversy swirling around the two unsolved Fort Fairfield murders, and Phil standing in the middle of it, his father Harold finally started visiting him in prison. Phil and the Fort Fairfield Review reporter spent much of their time in a back-and-forth argument over whether the state of Maine would hand down a death penalty in the murder cases of Mouch and Everett. The reporter tried several ways to explain that capital punishment was not a thing in Maine anymore, that there would be no exception, that the conversation wouldn't even be entertained. But Phil was firm in his belief, quote, the state of Maine will take my life. That's a guarantee.

Phil continued, I'm just tired of this life. The next one has to be a lot better. At least if there's any mistakes that I've made in this life, I'll certainly know not to make them in the next, unquote. Before the Fort Fairfield Review ever sat down for that interview with Phil at the Connecticut prison, but after his daughter Jodi wrote to him, saying she didn't want him in her life, it seemed the floodwaters of 20 years were already spilling over for Phil. And Phil didn't realize that the prison had started recording all of his phone calls.

Phil had believed this whole time that the cryptic poem had been the catalyst for reopening the cases, but in truth, it was one phone call made to his brother Wayne. In that phone call, Phil said he was about to reveal what his brother had waited 20 years to hear. Phil admitted to repeatedly punching Donna Mouch there in her living room when she surprised him. Phil admitted he was responsible for her injuries. Phil confessed to the murder of Donna Mouch. On July 19, 1984, Philip Leroy Adams was indicted by a secret grand jury for the 1965 murder of Donna Mouch.

The trial lasted seven days during January of 1985. Although Phil believed he had the upper hand, that this was somehow going to go the way he'd imagined in his head, with himself as the court's puppet master, Phil was sorely mistaken. The court presented that Donna Mouch had been beaten with a blunt instrument wielded by Phil Adams as he frantically searched for his things in her apartment that day. They hinted, without saying so specifically, that he was searching for evidence that would link him to another unsolved murder in town.

Perhaps it was a change purse belonging to the then-still-missing newsboy. Donna came home to find Phil rustling around in her apartment, and he responded by taking her life. Even though in his phone call confession to his brother, Phil said that he punched her, the method of murder didn't seem to matter. Phil said he did it, and his own words were the strongest evidence against him. The jury found Phil Adams guilty of the murder of Donna Mouch. The judge told him, quote, your efforts to weave a web of mystery indicate your lack of concern for the value of human life, unquote. Phil would serve a life sentence in Maine State Prison, concurrently with his existing sentence for his conviction in Connecticut. He pursued a new trial, his legal team arguing that the publicity surrounding the case tainted

the jury, but a mistrial ruling never came to fruition. Just as he'd promised during that interview with the Fort Fairfield Review, the state of Maine took his life, albeit indirectly. Phil Adams died of a massive heart attack at Thomaston State Prison on October 28, 1985. There is a case still unfinished after all of this, but you won't see the name of that victim on a list of unsolved homicides in Maine.

We still don't know, at least without hard evidence to prove it, who killed 14-year-old Cyrus Everett. Phil Adams tried to play one last game with the press and people of Fort Fairfield before his death in prison. He wrote again to the Fort Fairfield Review, saying he'd confessed to the murder of Cyrus Everett under certain conditions. He wanted his hometown to raise money for the legal defense of a woman from another state, who Phil apparently believed was innocent of some unknown crimes. Phil wanted his letter with those demands printed in the paper. Only then would he confess to the murder of Cyrus Everett.

The paper refused his demands. They'd had enough of Phil Adams' games. And then Phil died, taking with him the truth only he knew about Cyrus Everett. Before the conviction of Phil Adams, before the story made headlines again 20 years later, Bangor Daily News reporter Dean Rhodes asked Mrs. Mary Everett if she believed her son's killer would ever be brought to justice. She responded plainly, I don't know. His mother called him Psy. She never stopped missing Psy, though through her faith she found strength.

We don't know why, Mrs. Everett said. That's one of the things we have to leave with the Lord. He knows what there is ahead of us and we don't. All I can say is trust in the Lord that never makes a mistake. I don't feel hate, she said. I don't have vengeance. Mrs. Everett passed away in 1992. She's buried in the same cemetery as her son, Cyrus. Donna Mouch's mother dabbed her tears as she sat with the same reporter for the Bangor Daily News. I just wait for her to come through that door, she said. Whenever I hear anyone at the door,

I think it's her. I go and I lift the curtain. I just feel that she's coming all the time. When the verdict was finally delivered at trial, her daughter's killer finally facing justice, she shouted, Thank God it's over. It will never really be over for Cyrus Everett. Fort Fairfield will never have the satisfactory ending of a trial and conviction proving beyond the whispers and rumors who stole the life of the young boy. I'll leave you to your own conclusions in the murder of Cyrus Everett. Though we can't prove he was a victim of the prime suspect, Phil Adams, it's safe to say that Cyrus was the victim

of a bungled investigation, distracted by political motivations and vicious rumor, of a disorganized and inexperienced inquiry into his tragic, unfair death. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources for this episode, including links to individual articles, are listed in the show notes at darkdowneast.com, including that four-part interview series with Phil Adams published by the Fort Fairfield Review in 1984. In what truly felt like uncovering buried treasure, the Fort Fairfield Review

has nearly their entire archive digitized online, and I could not have told this story without it. Subscribing and reviewing Dark Down East is free, and it not only supports the show, it's the single best way to ensure that you never miss an episode of Maine and New England true crime stories. If you have a story or a case I should cover, I'd love to hear from you at hello at darkdowneast.com. For photos and other information relating to this case and others, head to darkdowneast.com and see them on Instagram at darkdowneast.

Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let their names or their

stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.