Dark Downeast - The Murders of Joan Gray Rogers and Bernard Ewen (Vermont)

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

For almost fifty years, the murders of two people in the tiny northern Vermont village of Hardwick have gone unsolved. The rumors in town ran almost as rampant as the fear, but whether any of the chatter about what happened to the victims is true remains to be seen nearly five decades later. If you have information relating to the 1977 homicides of Joan Gray Rogers or Bernard Ewen, please contact the Vermont State Police. You can text VTIPS to 274637 or submit a tip via the form linked in the description of this episode. View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/joangrayrogersandbernardewen 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

For almost 50 years, the murder of two people in the tiny northern Vermont village of Hardwick have gone unsolved. The rumors in town ran almost as rampant as the fear, but whether any of the chatter about what happened to the victims is true remains to be seen nearly five decades later. I'm Kylie Lowe, and these are the cases of Joan Grey Rogers and Bernard Ewan on Dark Down East. Archie Parkhurst had been waiting hours to catch a glimpse of his best friend, 64-year-old Bernard Ewan. It was almost three in the afternoon on Saturday, July 16, 1977, and Bernard should have left his downstairs apartment hours ago. Bernard was retired, but there was nothing about him that enjoyed an idle weekend. He was a constant figure in the small town of Hardwick, Vermont, walking everywhere and anywhere, usually with his beloved radio in one hand

and a walking stick in the other. If you ever found yourself in a conversation with Bernard, clear your schedule because he loved to talk, and many said you couldn't get a word in edgewise with him. But that was part of his charm. Always friendly, always social. That was Bernard Ewan. According to reporting by Jean Novogrodsky for the Rutland Daily Herald, Archie lived across the hall from Bernard in the Bemis block on Main Street in Hardwick. The three-story weathered gray building was home to about 20

apartments that sat above a few commercial units on the first floor. A general store, a dress shop, a discount shop, and it made up a large part of the village center. The building had been the target of several break-ins over the previous few months, anywhere from four or five all the way up to 20, depending on where you got your data from at the time. In January of that year, there was even a bomb threat at the building, though a bomb was never found. The owner of the building had petitioned for police patrols along Main Street to cut down on criminal activity, but the town was lacking in law enforcement resources as it was. Hardwick

Police was a two-person department plus the chief, but then a patrolman injured his back, which made the entire force for the roughly 2,200 residents just one officer and the chief. So when Archie had heard some strange noises coming from the direction of Bernard's apartment earlier that day, he didn't dare stick out his head to see what was going on in the halls, given the break-ins at the building. But now, hours later, without any sign of Bernard, Archie's worry mounted. Were those sounds coming from his friend Bernard's place?

He decided to go take a look and see what had Bernard hold up for the better part of his Saturday. When Archie tried the door to Unit 5A, he realized it was locked, so he went to the back of the building where one of the windows to Bernard's apartment was open. He hoisted himself up onto the porch and over the windowsill inside, but Archie knew as soon as his feet hit the ground that his friend was not okay. One glimpse of Bernard

laying on the kitchen floor and Archie flung himself back out the window to call Hardwick's chief of police. When Chief Michael Lawson arrived at the apartment, he found Bernard Ewan in his kitchen and an unusual scene around him. Mary Beausoleil reports for the Boston Globe that there was a folding metal chair on top of a table, and a slipper or shoe was caught in part of the chair. The chief noted that it looked like a crack in the wall or a section of torn wallpaper was taped, perhaps as a makeshift repair. At first glance, the scene might have told the story of an accidental death. Perhaps Bernard was standing on the folding chair on top of the table to reach the area of his wall in need of a patch.

Bernard could have slipped, or the chair could have partially folded, and then Bernard fell to his death, losing a shoe on the way down. But as the chief looked closer at Bernard's body, he noticed something odd. Bernard had bruises on his face and neck, bruises that didn't seem like they could have been caused by a fall off a chair. Chief Lawson picked up the phone to call Vermont State Police. Bernard's injuries were simply too suspicious to make assumptions about what had happened there in apartment 5A. That this could be a murder in his small town was at the back of the chief's mind. As the state police investigation into Bernard's death began to unfold,

Archie told investigators about the noises he'd heard earlier in the morning. He said around 5.30 a.m. he heard groaning and moaning, and he now believed that they were coming from Bernard's apartment. Another neighbor who lived above Bernard's place also reported a commotion of some kind in the middle of the night. The investigation revealed that Bernard had spent the day before, Friday,

July 15th, the same way he usually spent his days. He walked around town and at one point stopped into Merrill Electric to replace the batteries in his radio that he always carried with him. Around 5.30 p.m. that night, Bernard was seen at the IGA grocery store on Main Street just down the road from his apartment. He cashed a state rent rebate check for $138. Those were his last known movements before his body was found the next morning. Knowing he likely still had that cash on him or in his apartment, police searched for the money to determine if it had been stolen. Now, this is one detail that no one has been able to agree on throughout the years, whether or not the $138 or any portion of the money was found

during a search of Bernard's home. Several early reports said that nothing was taken from Bernard's apartment. Other sources said anywhere from $5 to the entire $138 cash check was unaccounted for among Bernard's things. So, if the money was indeed missing, was this a robbery gone wrong? Or was this an accident despite the suspicious bruising on Bernard's neck and face? The chair with the stuck slipper and the table nagged at investigators. Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Eleanor McQuillan was called to the scene, and then Bernard's body was transported to the state police morgue later that night. An autopsy would examine the suspicious bruising and determine if Bernard's cause of death

was something other than a fall. Even without an official cause and manner of death determination yet, Hardwick residents were already understandably shaken by the circumstances of Bernard's passing. But it was only the beginning of what would become one of the darkest weekends in the town's history. The same night Bernard's body was transported for a complete autopsy, a man named Clayton Gray walked into the Hardwick Police Department. He was there to report his daughter missing. The last time anyone had seen 39-year-old Joan Gray Rogers was around 8 p.m. on Friday night, July 15th. She dropped one of her teenage sons off at the Idle Hour Theater on Main Street in Hardwick

for the 8 o'clock showing of a horror film called Day of the Animals. It's a very 70s production that tells the story of a world where the ozone layer is so severely depleted that UV exposure causes animals to become highly aggressive. There are attacks by rats and mountain lions, and one character wrestles with a grizzly bear and loses. According to a UPI report by Jennifer Small published in the Bennington Banner, Joan was supposed to pick up her son at the end of the movie, which had a total runtime of 97 minutes. But as the movie let out around 9.40pm, her son was left waiting. Joan never showed, and she didn't turn up at her father's house at any point that night either. Joan and her husband, Earl Rogers, had been separated for at least two

months, and she'd filed for divorce that spring, so she was staying at her father Clayton's place in the village in the meantime. However, despite the pending divorce, Joan continued to work on the family business with Earl, a 265-acre farm about four miles outside of the village, in an area called the Number 10 District. It was just past the landfill, which small-town people will know is as good a landmark for navigation as any. The Rutland Daily Herald reports that Joan and Earl had owned and run the farm for about six years. Source material describes the farm as average, and it made enough money to support Joan and Earl and their two sons. Joan was in the military before they started the family farm, as was Earl. They were both

members of the American Legion auxiliary and they liked to socialize at the post in Hardwick. Joan was known as a hard worker and someone who made friends easily, though she was not the kind of person who found herself at the center of attention. She was more quiet and reserved, in contrast to the man she married, who was older and more likely to command a crowd down at the American Legion post. That Saturday morning, July 16th, Earl called Joan's father, Clayton. Joan should have been at the farm by now to help with the day's chores, but she never showed. Not showing up now to two appointments was extremely out of the ordinary. Clayton waited

a few hours for Joan to turn up with an explanation, but by 8 p.m., when there was no sign of her, he spoke to Chief Lawson to report his daughter missing. The chief was just a few hours into the Bernard Ewan investigation at that point, but he knew that one person dead and another missing was cause for immediate concern. Joan's friends and family began searching for any sign of Joan and her truck. Then on Sunday morning, as the assistant chief medical examiner was beginning an autopsy for Bernard at the state morgue in Burlington, the phone rang at her office. She was needed back in Hardwick for a second suspicious death in 24 hours. Around 10.15 a.m. on Sunday, July 17th, Joan's friend and a former employee of the family farm,

Willie McAllister, was out with the search party scouring hayfields when he found her. Joan's body was partially nude except for a tank top that was pulled down exposing her breasts. A bra was wound tightly around her neck. Next to her body, a pile of clothes was neatly folded and her purse was found at the scene too. About a hundred feet away from her body just down a hill was Joan's pickup

truck. Soon, the otherwise quiet farmland was crawling with state police investigators. The crime scene van had relocated from its post outside the Bemis block in Bernard's apartment, now to the much different landscape of the Rogers family farm. According to reporting by the Hardwick Gazette, Jones' body was found in a hayfield on a section of property that was leased by the Rogers family from out-of-state owners. The area was accessible by a less than half-mile walk through the woods from the other parcels of land farmed by the Rogers. Joan's truck, found in a gully, was transported to the crime lab for analysis. In that era, investigators would have been looking primarily for fingerprints to see who else may have been inside her truck, or if she herself drove it to that spot.

With processing at the scene underway, investigators also began interviewing Joan's family and friends and anyone in town who might have seen her after she dropped her son off for that movie on Friday night. Police spoke with Joan's estranged husband, Earl Rogers, at least once, but there's limited information about what he may have said during that interview and any subsequent conversations he might have had with investigators. All that's reported in the source material I've been able to uncover

is that one witness placed Earl at the American Legion post on the night Joan was last seen alive and that Earl was free to go after answering the investigator's questions. Another witness, a neighbor near the farm, reported seeing Joan driving her truck down the road towards the family farm sometime after 8 p.m. on Friday. One man, who said he was very intoxicated that Friday night, also claimed he saw Joan as late as 11.30 p.m., but he couldn't remember where or what context due to his condition at the time. Yet another witness reported seeing a gray truck speeding away from the area where Joan's body was eventually discovered.

Investigators followed up on every lead, but were stymied pretty quickly. After at least 100 interviews and three polygraphs, one of which was reportedly administered to a woman, the state's attorney's office leveraged another rare investigative tool to drum up some new information from witnesses in Joan Rogers' case. A secret inquest was held to compel certain individuals to give statements under oath regarding anything they knew about Joan's murder. A secret inquest is just that, secret. And so who the State's Attorney's Office was questioning and what they said or didn't say

was kept under wraps. In fact, the investigation from this point forward was pretty much locked down. Between the gag order in place that prevented investigators from saying anything about new developments in either case, and the super-secret inquest, there was little for locals to go on. The residents of Hardwick were left to fill in the blanks for themselves. What began as an expected amount of fear with Bernard Ewan's death became an uproar. Two people in the small town turned up dead under suspicious circumstances within the same 24-hour span. The building rumor and fear was that both of the murders were perpetrated by the same person who could be lying in wait to pick another victim. Even though there was no confirmation or evidence to prove a connection yet,

Hardwick's police chief, Michael Lawson, said they were operating on the assumption that the cases were somehow connected until something proved otherwise. When the autopsies came back, it seemed the rumor was only given more credence. Dr. McQuillan found that Bernard died by manual strangulation. As for Joan, because of the state of decomposition due to the hot, humid weather that weekend, it was difficult to determine her precise cause of death. However, the assistant chief ME determined that Joan's bra around her neck was indicative of strangulation by ligature. Investigators did not find any evidence that Joan had been sexually assaulted. So both Bernard and Joan had been strangled, and both deaths were ruled homicide.

It's no surprise that the town took the information and ran with it. Soon, Hardwick police were overrun by phone calls with frightened residents, asking if the rumors about a third and fourth body were true, or that other residents had been beaten and strangled, that the town was the target of a serial killer and no one was safe. The rumors, by the way, were not true. There were no other suspected homicides in Hardwick in the days and weeks that followed. But the community was on edge, and law enforcement worked to calm their fears while working tirelessly to figure out what exactly happened on the night of July 15th after Bernard and Joan were last seen alive. In a Rutland Herald article by Gene Novogrodsky, both Chief Lawson and a Hardwick officer spoke vaguely about a quote-unquote troublesome element in town. They said these people were in their

20s, but some were also older. Most of them lived at home and didn't work and stayed out until two or three in the morning. The officials wouldn't say whether or not anyone within that troublesome element might have had something to do with the death of Joan Rogers or Bernard Ewan, but they hinted it was something that the investigation was looking into. Skirting the gag order a bit, the Hardwick police officer said he had a feeling something was about to happen in the cases. Chief Lawson was also optimistic

that arrests were coming soon. But state police, who were heading the investigations, apparently did not share in the Hardwick PD's optimism. Sgt. David Reed said that he'd be surprised if anything happened in either case after the inquest. According to Kevin Duffy's reporting for the Rutland Herald, after several weeks of no progress, police decided to call in some help to make sense of the tips and leads they were getting in Joan's case. Dr. John W. Hesse Jr. of Burlington, who is billed as a truth and deception expert, was known for his unconventional and arguably controversial investigation techniques. Dr. Hesse used hypnosis and truth serum alongside lie detector tests to help solve

cases. Truth serums such as sodium thiopental or sodium amytol are drugs that were historically believed to lower inhibitions and make people more likely to speak truthfully. However, the reliability of information obtained under the influence of these drugs is highly questionable, and their use raises significant legal and ethical concerns. Generally, any information or statements obtained while using these so-called truth serums is not admissible in court. Nevertheless, Dr. Hesse was a go-to practitioner in the field, and so he spent nearly all summer helping state police

narrow down the field of suspects and weed through the numerous witness statements. That witness, who said he was under the influence of alcohol at the time he saw Joan around 11.30 p.m. on Friday night, July 15th, he was hypnotized to see if he could recall any more details about the sighting. Unfortunately, the hypnosis made the man sick and he couldn't continue. Any other information the truth and deception expert was able to uncover during this time in Hardwick isn't publicly released. Several months passed with little progress, but by the fall of

1977, local police were ready to answer the biggest question in both cases. Chief Lawson told Dirk van Sustern for the Burlington Free Press that the murders of Joan Rogers and Bernard Ewan were not related, and the timing of their deaths was simply a bizarre and terrible coincidence. He stated that one of the deciding factors in ruling out a connection was that the circumstances surrounding each case were different, and that the means of strangulation, Manuel and Bernard's instance, and Ligature and Jones were also different enough to deem them separate, albeit similar, events. In October, Caledonia County State's Attorney Dale Gray said simply that there had been nothing new in the cases for three months and that there would be no arrest

unless someone walked in to confess to either killing. About six months later, though, in April of 1978, the state's attorney confirmed that investigators had identified two suspects in the murders. Even still, the pessimism remained. There wasn't enough evidence to make an arrest in either case. In July of 1978, when the one-year anniversary of that terrible weekend arrived, the new police chief who covered both Hardwick and the nearby town of Greensboro said that, in the old days, maybe they could have taken a suspect to court for Joan's murder, but it wasn't going to happen now. They just couldn't build a strong enough case. Over the next few years, the original investigators on both Joan and Bernard's cases began to leave the area or retire from law enforcement entirely. It wasn't long before

the names of the two victims were all but erased from public consciousness. The fear that once gripped Hardwick faded away. The firearms and door locks they bought in a panic were unused, and the cases went cold. With the gag order that was once in place long since lifted, though, a few new details about the original investigation began to surface. The Hardwick Gazette reports that more than one witness called for questioning during the inquest refused to answer for fear of self-incrimination. Other people interviewed as part of the Rogers case lawyered up. Later, in Bernard's case, the original cause of death was challenged and independently reviewed by another pathologist. Apparently, investigators still had a few questions

about whether Bernard was actually strangled and his death truly a murder and not an accidental fall. But that second opinion upheld the original cause and manner of death as manual strangulation and homicide. However, it seemed now that the leading opinion about the motive for Bernard's death being robbery was back up in the air. The latest information from the state's attorney was that there was no evidence Bernard's cash was missing from his apartment. This flip-flopping motive in Bernard's

case had made way for a rumor over the years. If Bernard wasn't targeted for his money, then why else would a killer seek out this kind, friendly guy who didn't have an enemy in the world? Speculation grew that maybe on the night he was killed, Bernard saw something he wasn't supposed to see. A rumor around town that endured for years after the murders was that maybe Bernard Ewan saw who killed Joan Rogers, and that same killer tracked Bernard down to make sure he could never go to police with what he'd witnessed.

The theory is propped up by Bernard's own habits. He didn't have a car, and he walked everywhere. Long distances didn't faze him. Walking four miles out of town on the rural farm roads where Joan was later found was not a stretch for those who knew Bernard and his ways. If it's true Joan was killed Friday night sometime after 8pm when her truck was reportedly last seen driving towards the family farm,

and Bernard's death was sometime before 5.30. when the noises in his apartment stopped, then it's within the realm of possibility that the same person killed both people. But lacking any confirmation of either Joan or Bernard's precise time of death and other key details about the circumstances of their murders, it's really hard to suss this theory out. As you've heard, investigators have been pretty firm on their stance that the cases are not related in any way. According to Mary Beausoleil for the Boston Globe, no one ever placed Bernard near the Rogers farm or on the road leading to it on the night Joan was murdered. Police maintained that it was nothing but a very large and devastating coincidence.

So, if they are not connected, then who are the suspects police hinted they'd identified but couldn't charge? Lacking any real substance in Earl's case, it's challenging to venture a guess. But in Joan's case, there's the soon-to-be ex-husband. What about Earl? Was he a suspect in her death? In the year after Joan was killed, Earl sold the family farm and moved into the village with their two sons. Then he moved about 15 miles away to South Albany, but a few years after that, he moved back to the farm that he and Joan once owned together and into a trailer on the property. He sometimes helped out the new owners of the farm. Sources show that Earl eventually lost touch with at least one of his two sons, and then he remarried in 1986 and had a few more kids with

his new wife. He lived out the rest of his life in Hardwick. He tended bar at the American Legion Post. He drove a school bus for local schools. He worked for himself as a carpenter until his health failed. And then Earl died in 2006. His obituary, by the way, does not mention his late wife, Joan. If Earl was ever a suspect in Joan's death, he's never been publicly identified as such. But there are plenty of circumstances that would make him a likely suspect. You can't really ignore the fact that they were in the middle of a divorce, that Joan's body was found on land where they farmed together, and a witness saw Joan's truck driving towards the farm on the night she was killed.

But there are other things, too, that make you wonder about Earl. Sources state that the day before Joan was killed, she paid a visit to her lawyer in Barrie, Vermont. The lawyer later told the Boston Globe that the Rogers divorce was amicable, but there was no hope for reconciliation. It was over, over. So Joan and her lawyer had drafted up a property agreement, but there was no hope for reconciliation. It was over, over. So Joan and her lawyer had drafted up a property agreement which would leave Joan with $30,000 after the divorce.

The only public comments about Joan I've seen from Earl Rogers came in 1982 and he said the opposite of Joan's attorney. Regarding the divorce, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding and that he and Joan were about to get back together, never mind what Joan's divorce lawyer had to say on the subject. The detail about Joan having a divorce agreement ready to go was apparently news to him. Earl had his own theory about who killed his wife, but he wasn't about to disclose the suspect.

If police ever identified the person, though, Earl said he'd kill them before they ever went to trial. None of the source material I've been able to find discusses a possible motive in Jones' murder. But again, in that piece by Mary Beausoleil in the Boston Globe, comments by a friend of Joan's alluded that she may have had a crush on someone who worked on the farm, the same guy who found her body, Willie McAllister. Willie was hired to work on the farm about two years earlier when Earl was recovering from an injury. He told police that he and Joan became friends just in the few months before her

death. So then, if Earl Rogers is a possible suspect, was jealousy a possible motive? I don't know. Just like I don't know if there is any hard evidence against Earl. I don't know if investigators processed Joan's truck and found Earl's fingerprints, for example. But his fingerprints in her truck might not have been a red flag anyway. They were married and they still worked together on the farm each day, so it seems reasonable that his prints could have been there. Investigators haven't said one way or another if any physical evidence, fingerprints, DNA, or otherwise exists in either

Joan's or Bernard's case, all that's clear now is that the families of both victims have not yet received the answers they deserve. In 1997, as the 20-year anniversary of Joan Rogers and Bernard Ewan's murders approached, Joan's twin brother, John Gray, decided to do something about the fact that his sister's death had gone without justice for two decades. Nikki Parker reports for the Hardwick Gazette that John Gray had tried everything he could think of to get more attention on his sister's case throughout the years. He called up unsolved mysteries and America's Most Wanted, but the TV crews never came to town. So he decided to offer up a substantial financial reward to get people talking again. He hoped $10,000 would shake out tips and leads that had evaded the investigation

and finally tie together whatever loose ends still remained. Through the summer of 1997, reward announcements ran in Hardwick newspapers. In December, John increased the reward to $20,000 for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who murdered his sister. But if any tips came in, they weren't enough to make an arrest or close the case.

So a few years later, other members of Joan's family decided to take a different approach. In November of 2000, a photo of Joan Rogers ran in the obituary and memorial section of the Hardwick Gazette. It was a portrait of Joan in her military uniform with a short poem. Unlike any other poem I've seen published in this kind of tribute before, it reads, quote, The time has come, the time is near, to exact revenge from the one you feared. We love and miss you, Penny, Tom, and Colleen Gray, end quote. A week later, a second photo and another poem, quote, Now I lay me down to sleep and dream sweet dreams because the creep who strangled you on that summer day

will very soon be going away. We love you, Penny, Tom, and Colleen Gray. End quote. In December of 2000, about a week before what would have been Joan's 63rd birthday, a photo of Joan's headstone was paired with a third poem. Quote, there will be no birthday candles, no birthday cards or cake. And the last time that I saw you was in 77 at your wake. And your killer still lives in Hardwick. Lately, we take turns watching him every day. Because the only gift we can give you now is to make sure he's put away. Love forever, Penny, Tom, and Colleen Gray.

End quote. It's clear Joan's surviving family members have a hunch about who is responsible for her death, but to this day, no one has been arrested or charged with any crimes relating to her murder that summer weekend in 1977. As for Bernard Ewan's family, his daughter Cheryl began advocating for his case around 2008. According to reporting by Thatcher Motes for the Times-Argus, Cheryl had only just reconnected with her dad about a year before he was killed. Bernard was separated from his wife and didn't see his children very often, but when Cheryl turned 18, she showed up at his door and reintroduced herself. Bernard welcomed his daughter into his life

and they spent time together forming a new relationship right up until his murder. Cheryl started to think more and more about her father's death after her mother and two of her brothers passed away. The following year after Cheryl reached out to police to learn more about the status of the over passed away. The following year, after Cheryl reached out to police to learn more about the status of the over 30-year-old investigation, state police began actively investigating Bernard's case again and put out a news release seeking information and tips.

It's around this time that one big discrepancy in Bernard's case was finally cleared up. Vermont State Police stated that the investigation showed robbery was the motive in his murder. About four years later, in September of 2013, Bernard's case remained open. So Cheryl and her sister Carolyn announced a $5,000 reward to spur leads in their father's unsolved murder. That money was never claimed, and Bernard's case remains unsolved. Bernard's daughter Carolyn said in 2009, quote,

I just miss him. And whoever has any information, I mean, they don't know the pain that you're in. I don't know how anyone could do this to a person and why. Someone, please come forward, end quote. Two murders in the same 24-hour span were committed by two different people in the same tiny town, both of whom have evaded justice for decades. Two families still wait for long overdue answers. If you have information relating to the 1977 homicides of Joan Gray Rogers or Bernard Ewan, please contact the Vermont State Police. You can text VTIPS to 274637

or submit a tip via the form linked in the description of this episode. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on 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?