Dark Downeast - The Murders of Diane Compagna & Anne Psaradelis (New Hampshire)

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1973: On July 11, 1973, 15-year old Diane Compagna swung her beach bag over her shoulder and headed out the door of her house in Merrimack, New Hampshire. She was off to a nearby lake to swim with her friend, 15-year old Anne Psaradelis. At least, that was the story they told their parents.Neither girl was expected home that night, but their parents weren’t suspicious as the girls left for the day. It wasn’t until the next afternoon when the pair didn’t return to either home that their parents began to worry.What began as a missing persons investigation for two teenage girls in the summer of 1973 ended in a double-homicide. In 2023, this case will reach its 50 year anniversary without answers.This is the case of Diane Companga and Anne Psaradelis.If you have information that could aid in the investigation, leave a tip. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/compagnapsaradelis 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 

On July 11th, 1973, 15-year-old Diane Campagna swung her red beach bag over her shoulder and headed out the door of her house in Merrimack, New Hampshire. She was off to swim in a nearby lake with her friend, 15-year-old Anne Serradellis. At least, that was the story they told their parents. Neither girl was expected home that night. It appears they pulled a classic teenager scheme. Anne told her mom she was spending the night at Diane's, and Diane told her parents she'd be sleeping over at Anne's house. But their parents weren't suspicious as the girls left for the day.

It wasn't until the next afternoon, when the pair didn't return to either home, that the parents began to worry. What began as a missing persons investigation for two teenage girls in the summer of 1973 ended as a double homicide. In 2023, this case will reach its 50-year anniversary without answers. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the story of Diane Campagna and Anne Serradeles on Dark Down East. On July 12, 1973, a concerned father walked into the Merrimack, New Hampshire police station. Dispatch had called for Sergeant Joseph Horak over the radio

and asked him to come down to the station to take the initial missing persons report from Marcel Campagna, Diane's dad. Sergeant Horak told the concerned father that they typically didn't take missing persons report in the first 24 hours because, in many cases, people turn up in that window. But the father was adamant, and so Horik said that he could issue a bulletin in the local community and put their physical descriptions over the radios. Diane was last known to be wearing blue jeans and sandals with a dark blue crop top blouse and her red beach bag. She had long,

dark hair and was about 5 feet 4 inches tall. Anne left the house wearing jeans and a red blouse and her red beach bag. She had long dark hair and was about 5 feet 4 inches tall. Anne left the house wearing jeans and a red blouse with a multicolored bag. She too had long dark hair and was about the same height as her friend Diane. The day that Mr. Campagna walked into the police station to report his daughter missing was the same day that Joseph Horik began what would become a lifelong dedication, or infatuation, depending on who you ask. Joseph Horik had served in the Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War. He was also a veteran of the United States Air National Guard. But in 1957, he retired from the military and began a career in police work. He'd been at it for over 15 years

by the time the case of the missing teenagers landed on his desk in 1973, previously serving as the chief of police in Northfield, Massachusetts, before joining the Merrimack, New Hampshire force as sergeant, and later ascending to the detective lieutenant position. Joseph Horik would eventually write and publish three books, two of which cover Anne and Diane's cases extensively. The books, Justice Denied, A Detective's Dilemma, and Pride and Honor Behind the Badge, are out of print and incredibly hard to find, but not impossible. I read it with a skeptical eye. A lot of it is dialogue, and Joseph said at the time of the book's release that it was all written from memory. To me, it just seems like a stretch

that someone could remember each and every word from dozens of conversations so many years in the past without taking some creative liberties to fill in where memory failed. But his book also includes documents from the original case file, newspaper clippings that weren't available in other archives, and details of court proceedings. Those pieces can be cross-checked with other sources, and those are what I was most interested in to tell this story. Horak made this case his passion project from day one, and he continued to pour over it even after he retired from police work. He'd been called devoted by some and obsessed by others. His persistence alienated some family members of the girls in the process.

Joseph passed away at 88 years old in 2017. The case is even mentioned in his obituary. Beginning on July 12th, 1973 and the days and weeks that followed, Joseph Horik worked with the Saradelis and Campagna families to find their daughters. He told the New Hampshire Union leader writer John Clayton in 2004, quote, I would finish a tour of duty, get a call to come in, and Mr. Campagna would ask me to go out and look for the girls. We'd do that, drive around Merrimack for four or five hours, and when we'd get back, Mr. Saradelis would ask me to do the same thing." Horak details in his book these non-stop efforts during the first few critical days that the girls

were missing. He says he spent hours with each father, checking back roads, bowling alleys, shopping malls, local hangouts, anywhere that a 15-year-old girl might want to spend some time away from her parents. But each time, nothing. None of the other local kids had seen Anne or Diane either, or maybe it was just that none of them were willing to rat out on their friends. Two days after the missing persons report was filed, Merrimack Police issued a national bulletin. Anne and Diane's parents publicly appealed to their daughters in local papers, asking them to please call home and let them know they're alright. But as the days passed, the phone never rang.

Several reports of sightings came in during those first few days, one seeing the girls were spotted hitchhiking to Boston. According to Horik, Diane was known to hitchhike every once in a while, but the Boston lead didn't seem particularly reliable in the eyes of law enforcement. Other calls said the girls were spotted in Nashua, Salisbury, Lowell, Hampton Beach,

even Florida and New York. Two weeks passed. Each day, police searched, and every time they came up empty. By July 30th, Joe Horrick said he was beginning to fear the worst. That was the same day Joe says he received a phone call from an anonymous source. The source wanted Horrick to know that a man, who Horrick only refers to by Tom Jefferson, a fake name, throughout his book, may have been with Diane on the night of July 4th. After that night, Diane told people that Tom raped her. Although the anonymous tipster told Horik that his information was all hearsay,

it was still a compelling lead. Horik says in his book that they tracked Tom down and questioned him, reading him his rights before asking him about Diane Campagna. Tom didn't appear to conceal anything. He spoke openly about his involvement with Diane on the night of July 4th. He said that Diane told him no, but didn't give him a reason and didn't try to physically stop him, so Tom didn't stop. Tom gave a written statement with the same details and was released at the end of the interview. Information about this interview with Tom was not released to the public at the time. Two months later, a second report about Tom having raped Diane on July 4th

came in from a different source. Horik tried to contact Tom for another conversation on September 30th, but couldn't reach him. Horik didn't know yet that the search for Diane and Anne had ended the day before. On September 29th, 1973, a bird hunter who had been out walking a wooded area of Candia, New Hampshire, near the intersection of

New Hampshire Route 107A and New Boston Road, came barreling out from the tree line and jumped into his Volkswagen. He knew what he'd just discovered amidst the fallen pine needles on the forest floor and he needed the police to see it too. It was fair season in New England and New Hampshire's oldest family fair, the Deerfield Fair, was in full swing. Candia, New Hampshire Police Sergeant John Morse was directing the sluggish traffic towards the fairgrounds when the hunter approached and told him what he saw in the woods. Morse radioed for additional units as he walked to the woods with the bird hunter to confirm his sighting. Candia and Auburn police responded

to the call, as well as state police investigators, the mobile crime lab, and the Rockingham County medical examiner. A section of the wooded area was taped off as investigators made sense of the scene. The hunter had discovered a decomposed body there in the middle of the woods, unconcealed except for the brush that had collected around it. When police arrived, they also found a second body, about 300 feet from the first. In Horak's book, he includes original crime scene sketches from the case file. The first body was nude, the second was fully dressed. A shirt and underwear were found around the first body, and the sketch of the scene notes that a pair of denim trousers were located underneath the first body's left arm. In later

reports, investigators theorized that the second person had been running away from the attacker, explaining its position and distance from the first. Due to the condition, no visual identification was immediately possible. After the scene was processed, the bodies were removed to the funeral home for an autopsy and identification with dental records. It wasn't until the next day that police learned these were the bodies of the two missing teenagers, Anne Saradelis and Diane Campagna. A Boston forensic pathologist assisted in the autopsy of the two girls, but was unable to immediately determine a cause of death. Investigators did not find a weapon at the scene to help in the determination either. However, Attorney General Warren Rudman told the Concord Monitor,

quote, the probability is almost complete that this is a double homicide, end quote. Joseph Horak wrote in his book, Justice Denied, that the New Hampshire State Police and the Attorney General's Office formed a multi-jurisdictional task force to investigate the double homicide, and he was part of that task force, along with Chief Robert Baker of the Candia Police Department, among others. Baker and Horik were partnered up on the case within the task force from day one. Their first conversations together focused on the report Horik had taken about a Tom Jefferson. Baker agreed that it was a detail worth investigating further. He thought Tom Jefferson might have had a motive to do something to Diane, and perhaps Anne was a witness to what he did, and therefore a liability.

But it was only an unsubstantiated theory. So far, no evidence could give any credence to that theory. A complete search of the scene turned up nothing to send police in any particular direction. No murder weapon and no items that belonged to anyone but the girls themselves. Their parents had identified all the clothing and accessories. In that first meeting of the Joint Task Force, though, Assistant Attorney General Robert Johnson III told the group that the cause of death was believed to be strangulation. The bodies showed no signs of gunshot wounds, stabbing, blunt force trauma, or other injury.

Horak and Baker worked together to question other witnesses on their list, including friends of the girls who had begun to open up a bit more since Diane and Anne were found murdered. One friend of the girls told her mother that she knew that Anne and Diane were actually in Hampton Beach on July 12th, and the last time anyone saw them there was around 4.30 p.m. the same day. This girl claimed that she knew who drove Anne and Diane to the beach from Merrimack, but was afraid to say in case this person was also the one responsible for their deaths. Other interviews with witnesses backed this girl's story up. Diane and Anne were definitely in Hampton Beach on the afternoon of July 12th. Detectives also learned through conversations with the individuals who saw Anne and Diane in Hampton Beach that the girls had been telling people they'd spent the night the previous night, July 11th,

at a cottage with a male, his sister, and a young child. But the witnesses didn't know the identities of these people. Hampton Beach is about 30 miles from Candia, the town where their bodies were later discovered, so the girls must have gotten another ride there. But with who was the all-important question. One year after their disappearance, and after Joseph Horik was promoted to detective lieutenant in Merrimack, police issued a bulletin in the Foster's Daily Democrat. The announcement read, in part, Diane and Anne were last seen in the area of the Casino and the Red Cross station at about 4.30 p.m. on July 12, 1973. The two girls are supposed to have spent the night of July 11, 1973 at a camp or cottage with a male person,

his sister, and a small child. Apparently, they slept on the floor. The two girls were waiting for some person or persons they knew in the Hampton Beach area when they were picked up by some unknown person or persons. The investigators are interested in talking with anyone who might have seen the girls at the beach or anyone who gave them a ride or might have seen them being picked up. They would also like to talk with the people the girls are supposed to have spent the night with on July 11, 1973. The announcement continued, The investigation has been hampered by people who do not want to get involved in a case involving two murdered girls, or who are afraid to come forward, fearing the same thing will happen to them. You could help, so please come forward with any information you might have.

Candia Chief Robert Baker and Merrimack Detective Lieutenant Joe Horrick are listed as the contacts for this bulletin. A year had already passed, and the time seemed to stretch on between any updates in the case. Investigators fielded reports of a man who had been collecting newspaper clippings about the case. A rape in another jurisdiction that showed similarities to Anne and Diane's case. A wife concerned that her husband may be involved because she once saw the trunk of his car covered in blood. He said he'd shot a deer off-season, but she didn't believe him. Baker and Horik, as well as the other officials involved, ran down each lead. Although they had individuals of particular interest in the case,

there were no arrests even two years after Diane Campagna and Anne Serradellas first disappeared. In 1976, Joseph Horik was forced to retire following an injury he sustained from a car accident in the line of duty. His police cruiser was hit by a drunk driver. Before his duty ended that year, though, he had more work to do on the Campagna-Saradeles investigation. Horik writes in his book that it always bothered him that the man he refers to as Tom Jefferson was never charged with any crimes as it related to the accused rape of Diane Campagna. But all he had to work with were the secondhand accounts from friends who said Diane told them Tom raped her,

and the sort of confession from Tom himself where he said that Diane didn't stop him from having sex with her. Joe decided to go to the Attorney General in September of 1975 in hopes of appearing in front of the grand jury to seek an indictment for statutory rape. The AG was at first reluctant, calling the evidence Joe had hearsay at best,

but Horak claims he convinced the Attorney General to allow him to appear. In April of 1976, the grand jury did hand down an indictment for Thomas Jefferson on the charge of statutory rape. Jefferson was living out of state at the time and so he needed to be extradited. He eventually stood trial in March of 1977 and was found guilty of statutory rape. However, Jefferson did not receive any prison time as part of his sentence, given how much time had passed since the incident occurred. To be clear, although convicted of the statutory rape of Diane Campagna, who was murdered less than 10 days after that rape

occurred, Tom Jefferson could not be ruled out or included as a suspect in the double homicide. In the first months of the investigation, Horik claims that Tom voluntarily submitted to a polygraph test. And again, the results of that test did nothing further to include or exclude Jefferson as a suspect. The investigation into Diane and Anne's murders continued after Joseph Horik retired, though there is little public information about the case and any possible progress between 1976 and today. On occasional milestone anniversaries, local papers carried stories about the still unsolved killings in the small New England town.

Horrick and Baker continued to insert themselves into the narrative of this case, even after they were both retired, and they were featured heavily in news coverage of the 20th anniversary. Joe told Nancy Mearsman of the union leader in 1993, quote, I really feel the person who did this is local, and the girls knew the person, end quote. Assistant Attorney General Michael Ramsdell said in a 1993 piece by Diane Scarponi in Foster's Daily Democrat that his office and the state

police were reviewing the case file, which was thousands of pages thick. He said that over 500 people were interviewed back in 1973, and the clothing and items found at the scene were processed in the state crime laboratory as part of the initial investigation. Ramsdell told Scarponi, quote, there are some things that can be done, but I don't want to sound too optimistic about this either, end quote. Ramsdell also said in the union leader that same year, quote, frankly, it's a case that doesn't have many viable leads. That's a tribute to Horik and Baker because of the work they did early on in this case. Anything they can do that might turn into a tangible lead, we're thankful for, end quote.

Joseph Horik explained in his book that he and his counterpart, Robert Baker, remained focused on one mutual goal. Find the person or persons responsible for the girls' deaths if it was the last thing they did, even if they received pushback from the very people they claimed they were trying to help. There are multiple instances that Joe recounted in the book that the surviving family members told him to back off and stop pursuing the case. His attention so many years later, and without any official rank as a police officer anymore, made them uncomfortable and angry. For all the pieces that centered Joe Horik and his self-commitment to the case, the feelings of Anne and Diane's families were glossed over or ignored altogether. This fact bothered me.

I attempted to locate any surviving family members myself, but was unable to make contact. Because I couldn't reach anyone, I intentionally omitted pieces of this story that family members at one time said that they didn't want to be public. If this episode reaches anyone related to Anne and Diane, you can contact me at hello at darkdowneast.com. In one of his books, Joseph Horik chose to print the real name of the person he believed

is responsible for the deaths of Diane Campagna and Anne Sarah Dulles. This person was never publicly named a suspect or charged with any crime as it relates to the murders. Joseph took an enormous risk with potential legal repercussions by printing the name and labeling that person a double murderer. Sarah Schweitzer of the Boston Globe attended an event at a local Merrimack library in support of Joseph's newly released book in 2007. He explained to the crowd, quote, I'll tell you something. If I wasn't sure he was the killer, I would never have put it in the book. I put myself at risk, but when you spend 34 years on a case, you have an obligation to do whatever it takes to bring it to conclusion, end quote.

At the same event, Sheriff Schweitzer of the Boston Globe learned the name of the person that Joseph identified in his book. For obvious reasons, the Boston Globe did not print the name, but the reporter tracked down that individual, calling the person at their home for comment. The person spoke briefly with the reporter over the phone, saying, quote, I live in this town, I do business in this town, and I've lived in this town for 35 years and I haven't gone anywhere. The man has committed quite a travesty naming me in a book like that, using my name, end quote. A person identifying themselves as the spouse of the accused person told the Boston Globe writer that they would be consulting an attorney. In 2007, the Merrimack Journal newspaper received a faxed letter from the man accused of murder by

Joseph Horek. The paper printed the letter in its entirety. It reads, This response isn't so much for the people of Merrimack that don't know me and who are jumping printed the letter in its entirety. It reads, merit to a book that was recently published about two murders that happened long ago. I will explain my involvement and how I have spent my life falsely accused by a man who has never had any evidence but has still harassed and been allowed to harass me for so long. When I was 18 years old, I went to the local 4th of July celebration. The day turned into evening, and the bands were playing, the fireworks were going off, and we were young and curious. I had met one of the girls mentioned in Mr. Horik's books, and we were getting along well. One thing led to another, and we became intimate. This is the last time I ever saw this young lady. This I swear as Jesus Christ is my witness. In a spirit of cooperation, when I was approached by Mr. Horak about the two missing girls,

one I didn't even know, I agreed without any kind of attorney or legal counsel of any kind to give Mr. Horak, then a detective, a full statement about my involvement with the young lady. I believe I was led in some of the wording, but just the same, Mr. Horak had a statement and the only piece of I was led in some of the wording, but just the same, Mr. Horik had a statement and the only piece of evidence involving me in any of this. Mr. Horik did use this statement against me. As far as the killings, I have two daughters of my own and the thought of anything like that happening is heart-wrenching. I can only imagine the pain that Mr. Horik is continually creating for everyone concerned, including myself and my family.

I can only say that, again, in the spirit of cooperation, I did take a polygraph test about the disappearance and killings of those girls and was cleared way back then. Mr. Horik is in a sense like a pathological liar, that after a while they believe their own lies. I assure you there is no merit to his accusations, and it's criminal that he could name me in a book without a shred of hard evidence to back up these terrible directives. I have lived right here, raised my family right here, and performed services to the community right here. I think

that the dark cloud point of view he has surrounded my life story with is a very selfish and self-serving way to sell books that have no merit. Mr. Horik owes me, my wife, and my two daughters an apology for the pain he has caused us. I also believe he should not be able to profit from a book under these conditions. I also wonder why he has been so determined to hang this around my neck with absolutely no evidence. Is his past something that should be looked at deeper? I know that I am not as eloquent a writer as Mr. Horik, but at least what I write is the truth. Jeffrey Streslin was the Senior Assistant Attorney General and head of New Hampshire's

Homicide Unit in 2007. He told the Boston Globe in a story about Joseph Horik's book, quote, No matter what people think, or their opinions, what matters to the state is to have admissible evidence that we can use in court to prove someone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. End quote. The case still seems to be waiting for that admissible evidence to reveal itself 50 years later. The unsolved case of Anne Saradelis and Diane Campagna would become a catalyst for the pursuit of a cold case unit within the New Hampshire State Police. State Representative Peyton Pete Hinkle of Merrimack also heard Joseph Horrocks speak about the cases at a library event. The details of the still-unsolved double homicide of the girls from his town motivated Pete to set up a meeting

with the Attorney General and a detective with the state police for an update on the investigation. According to reporting by Karen Lovett for the National Telegraph, after those meetings, Hinkle felt that the cases could potentially be taken to a grand jury for an indictment, pending enough evidence to support it, but, it just seemed a matter of the state not having resources to devote to cold cases. Hinkle wanted to see a cold case unit in New Hampshire, saying that it was in the state's best interest to do something about the unsolved cases, and it was a shame that families like Anne and Diane's were still waiting for answers. Hinkle filed a bill to establish a

New Hampshire cold case unit in 2008. After filing the bill, many family members of unsolved homicide victims reached out to him, showing their support for the cold case unit, including the families of Maura Murray, Kathy Lynn Gloddy, and Molly Bish. Some of those family members agreed to appear at a hearing for the bill in the spring of 2009. Joseph Horik would also testify in favor of the bill. In July of 2009, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed the bill establishing a cold case unit in New Hampshire. The unit remains to this day, with a bill signed in 2019 adding two new detectives and two new attorneys to the unit. The New Hampshire cold case unit has had some solves and has made progress in other cases since its formation in 2009, including solving the state's oldest homicide,

that of Everett Delano. But Anne Saradelis and Diane Campagna's names remain on the list of over 100 unsolved cases in New Hampshire. In 2023, this case will reach a staggering 50 years since the two young teenage girls were found in the woods of Candia. While half a century is a long time, it doesn't mean answers are impossible. To quote my fellow podcaster Sarah Turney, cold cases are solved every day. Like the case of Rita Curran in Vermont, solved with advanced DNA analysis more than 50 years later. There is hope. I reached out to both the New Hampshire Attorney General's office

and the New Hampshire State Police in preparation of this episode. I wanted to know if they had an updated stance on Joseph Horrocks' accusation and his decision to name his own personal suspect. Michael Garrity, the Director of Communications and Legislative Affairs for the State of New Hampshire Department of Justice and Office of the Attorney General, first told me, quote, We would not comment on any potential investigative leads in open cases, end quote. I followed up again, asking if the case is being revisited or actively investigated in 2023 as the 50-year anniversary of the homicides approaches. Garrity told me, quote, this is still an open cold case investigation, which remains

with the Attorney General's Office and the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Units. While we cannot discuss any investigative steps that are being taken or that are intended to be taken at this juncture, we encourage anyone with any information regarding this investigation to please contact the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit through the Department of Justice TIP form or at 603-271-2663. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources cited and referenced for this episode are listed at darkdowneast.com. Please follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. And if you could, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I love to hear what you think of the show and what you

want to hear next, and reviews are really the best way to support this show and the cases I cover. If you have a personal connection to a case and you want me to cover it on this podcast, please contact me at hello at darkdowneast.com. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and homicide cases. I'm not about to let those names

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