Dark Downeast - The Murders of Luella Blakeslee and Debra Lee Horn (New Hampshire)

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

NH COLD CASES, 1969: Are the cases of Susan Randall, Luella Blakeslee and Debra Lee Horn connected?This episode examines the cases of Luella Blakeslee of Hooksett and Debra Lee Horn of Allenstown. If you haven't listened to The Case of Susan Randall on Dark Downeast, start there.If you have information regarding this case, contact the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit at [phone], [e-mail], or leave a tip. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/nhcoldcasesFollow @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.

As of this episode's original air date, no one has been charged or convicted of any crimes related to the murder of Luella Blakeslee and Deborah Lee Horn. It was early in the evening on July 4th, 1969. The town of Hooksett, New Hampshire was amping up for patriotic celebrations, and Luella Maria Blakeslee was getting ready for a date. Luella had been in an on-again, off-again relationship with her boyfriend of three years. That's who she told her father she was going to see on that pleasantly warm 4th of July night. George Blakeslee wished his daughter well on her way out the door, and she waved goodbye. Luella Blakeslee would never return. But she wasn't the only missing person in the small towns just outside of Manchester, New Hampshire in 1969. Just a few miles down the street from

the Blakeslee home, a family was going on six months of searching for their 11-year-old daughter. What happened to Luella Blakeslee and to Deborah Lee Horn? Could their cases share one critical connection to the murder of Susan Randall two years later? I'm Kylie Lowe, and these are the stories of Luella Blakeslee and Deborah Lee Horn on Dark Down East. 29-year-old Luella Blakeslee moved from Massachusetts to Hooksett, New Hampshire to live with her father after her mother passed away. Luella was intelligent and beautiful. Her academic career was decorated.

She was valedictorian of her high school. She studied at Tufts University and at the Sorbonne in Paris. When she moved to New Hampshire, she got a job as a French teacher at Dairyfield, a private school in town. Luella loved to travel, and she had done a fair amount of it in her young life. It was a passion that she shared with her brother, Kenneth Blakeslee. The relationship she was in was rocky, if not toxic. Luella's brother Ken would later tell the New Hampshire union leader that his sister confided in him. Her boyfriend had grown increasingly overbearing, insistent that they get married, despite her refusal to accept his proposal. Luella wrote in her diary about the challenges of dating a man who seemed to have two sides to his personality.

In the six months leading up to that 4th of July night in 1969, a darker side emerged. The diary entries were written in a sort of code. Luella mixed French with English, pouring her deepest inner thoughts through her pen onto the pages of that diary. She cared about her boyfriend, but she was beginning to fear him. That fear seemed to spark from the day police showed up at the Derryfield School where she worked. They wanted to ask Luella where her boyfriend was on the morning of January 29th, 1969. Two months before that July 4th night, in May of 1969, Ken visited his sister and father in Hooksett. He served our country in the U.S. Air Force, but he returned to New Hampshire on emergency leave to check on their father after his heart attack.

While Ken was visiting, Luella revealed just what she'd been dealing with in her relationship. Ken listened as Luella told him she was being stalked by this boyfriend, that he was violent and aggressive towards other people, and that he would toy with her. He would take Luella's beloved dog, King, from her home, and Luella would search for her dog for hours. When she'd return, there was King tied up in the yard. Luella wanted out of the volatile relationship and Ken promised to help her get away, far away. He would be discharged from the Air Force that July and he'd return to care for their father so Luella could jet off to live with friends across the globe to put real distance between herself and the unpredictable man she

was with. According to reporting by David Duffy for The Lowell Sun, on the evening of the 4th of July 1969, George Blakeslee returned home around 11 30 p.m. and he noticed that his daughter Luella was still out. Perhaps she spent the night with her boyfriend or went on to a friend's house. He tucked in without another thought, but the next morning, Luella still hadn't returned. Her red Volkswagen sat unmoved in the driveway. On July 6th, 1969, Ken Blakeslee received a call from his dad, just a few days shy of his discharge. His sister, Luella, was missing. About 35 minutes southeast of Hookset is a little town called Sandown, New Hampshire. The town website boasts that it is one of only two Sandowns in the world.

The original Sandown on the Isle of Wight in England is its namesake. I wish I could tell you that newsworthy events rarely occur in the small town of Sandown, New Hampshire. Small towns have that air of safety and simplicity. And that was my first assumption when I started researching the quaint community. When I say Sandown is small, I mean it. Today, just about 6,000 people call Sandown home. But according to U.S. census data, Sandown's population in 1960 was just 366. By 1970, a decade later, it doubled to a whopping 741 residents. From everything I've seen, Sandown is beautiful. The Zorvino Vineyard looks like a place I'd like to spend some time sipping a generous pour with friends. While the most recognizable structure in town,

the old Sandown Meeting House, reminds me that we're never as far from our historic New England origins as we may feel. But the headlines from decades past are in stark contrast to the feeling I get from the picturesque Sandown of today. In February of 1960, police were on the trail of a killer when they found a shoe belonging to the victim, Sandra Vallade, in a paper bag in Sandown. In 1968, 18-year-old Sandown resident Dale Kendall was arrested for the murder of his neighbor, 62-year-old Alina Ingrid Walker. And in 1969, another tragic headline popped the bubble of small-town security over Sandown, New Hampshire, once again. On Sunday, August 10th, 1969, three teenagers on vacation with their families in Sandown were hanging out in the thick wooded area off an isolated logging road. David, Vincent, and John were walking through the

woods exploring the secluded forest when they encountered something that didn't belong in the forest landscape. It was an abandoned car, a 1952 Plymouth, and it had been there for quite a while by the looks of it. The car sat 200 feet away from any sort of access road, and it certainly would have taken some careful navigation to land it in the precise spot where it was sitting, surrounded by years of dense growth and brush. The curiosity of three teens left to their own devices is an intoxicating thing to resist. There wasn't much hesitation before one of those boys reached for the latch of the trunk. At first, they thought it was a dummy, a mannequin. No one expects to find a real body in the trunk of an abandoned car, but that was exactly what they'd discovered. The earliest

reporting out of New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts publications noted the severe decomposition of the remains. Police weren't able to determine the identity of the deceased at the scene, beyond the assumption that it was the body of a young woman, possibly a child. Immediately, the speculation surrounding the identity of this person began. Police told the press that they had not ruled out that the body belonged to 29-year-old Luella Blakeslee, missing from her home in Hooksett since the 4th of July. Police found several items with the body, including a gold ring with an opal stone

and a silver earring, but no clothing. The next day, the speculation ceased as quickly as it began because with the help of dental records and those pieces of jewelry, The next day, the speculation ceased as quickly as it began, because with the help of dental records and those pieces of jewelry, the body finally had a name, and it wasn't Luella. The boys had found 11-year-old Deborah Horn. On the morning of January 29th, 1969, about eight months before the teenage boys would discover her body in the trunk of that car, Debbie Lee Horn was playing outside with her brother

while they waited for the school bus at their home in Allentown, New Hampshire. It was winter in New England, and so the driveway was iced over in patches, and one of those patches got the better of the tiny sixth grader. Debbie fell, and she landed hard. When she regained her footing, she put her hand to her neck. Her parents were getting ready for their work days when Debbie told them about her fall outside. She was in pain and she wanted to stay home from school. Debbie's dad took a look at his daughter. She seemed fine, but he agreed with his wife that Deborah could stay home that morning. Debbie's mom would come home for lunch and bring Deborah to school in time for her afternoon classes. Deborah watched the school bus drive away with her older brother on board

as she settled onto the couch with a blanket for some rest. When Mrs. Horn returned for her lunch break that day as scheduled, the only thing on the couch was the blanket. The breezeway door to the kitchen was left ajar

and Debbie's boots sat next to the front door in their typical spot alongside her winter jacket. Deborah's mother stood in shock for a moment, trying to grasp the reality of what she'd encountered. Just a few hours earlier, her daughter Deborah was fine, sitting on the couch, resting her neck from the fall. And now, her daughter was nowhere to be found. Without her jacket and boots, Debbie would have been wearing only a light jumper and house slippers, hardly the outfit of a child wanting to play outside while she was home alone. Without another moment's pause, Mrs. Horne called the police and her husband. Debbie was missing. The search for Debbie began swiftly. Investigators feared

that the young girl had been kidnapped, though they hadn't received a ransom call or any other indication that this was the case. Her parents made a very public plea for their daughter's safe return on a local radio station, speaking directly to their daughter's kidnapper, if that person was out there. Quote, Debbie's mother and father would like to request the prayers of each and every one listening to this broadcast. Only God in his infinite wisdom knows at this moment where and how Debbie is and why this sorrow has been allowed. Our word to the kidnapper is only this. May God forgive you as we through him have been able to.

Keep her safe and unafraid and please leave her where she can be warm and able to call her mommy and daddy. Unquote. The foot search for Debbie in the days following her disappearance was extensive. Hundreds of people from the town joined the formal investigative effort, scouring the snow-covered landscape for any sign of little Deborah Horn. The FBI waited in the wings, permitted to join the investigation only if kidnapping could be officially determined. Early on in the search, authorities believed they found something of note. Blood on the side of the

road two miles from her home. State Police Colonel Joseph Regan told the Boston Globe, quote, It may not mean a damn thing, but on the other hand, it may be very important, unquote. The blood had no connection to the case. The weather was relentless and beat down on the volunteers and officials who organized searches for Debra in a six-mile radius around her home. As the days rolled on,

they searched Bear Brook State Park. Snowmobilers wove through the remote New Hampshire trail systems, and police went door to door asking everyone they could possibly reach if they'd seen anything at all. A family friend set up a $10,000 reward for information in Debra's case, but after a week, the investigation hadn't generated a single clue as to what happened to Debbie Lee Horn and why. On February 6th, 1969, the general foot search was called off, while the Department of Fish and Game reported an under-ice search of the Merrimack River was too dangerous to continue. And then, on February 8th,

as the search effort slowed, a local newscaster received a bizarre phone call. The man on the line said his name was Sammy, and he told Ed Williams of WMUR-TV that he wanted $20,000 for the safe return of Debbie Horn. Police acted on that ransom call immediately, hoping that Debbie's story could have a better ending than what they all feared. But when detectives tracked down the man who called himself Sammy, they instead found 35-year-old Angelo P. Navarro.

He didn't have a clue about Debbie's whereabouts. It was a cruel attempt at extortion. He was arrested and charged. While the larger effort with hundreds of volunteers came to an end, Debbie's parents didn't stop searching. They didn't stop hoping and praying. With the snowmelt of the spring, state police and game wardens reignited their search of the New Hampshire wilderness, now spanning a 40-mile radius from her home in Allenstown, but still nothing. They wouldn't find a single trace of the missing 11-year-old girl until that August afternoon, when three teens, who weren't even looking, happened upon her body.

The owner of that abandoned car seems like a wise place to start for the investigation into the missing child found inside of it. That 1959 Plymouth was owned by a man named Duane Steinhoff, who lived about a thousand feet away from the site of the wheel-less vehicle. Duane told police he abandoned the car there between four and seven years earlier. Different sources reported different time frames. Investigators were able to clear Dwayne Steinhoff from their list of suspects pretty much from the outset. Although her body

was discovered inside of his car, they determined he had no involvement in the disappearance or death of Debbie Horn. The autopsy revealed that Deborah had an injury on the back of her head, but the medical examiner was unable to determine if that injury was related to her death or if it could have been the result of her fall on the ice that day. The autopsy also led investigators to believe that Debbie had been placed in the trunk of that car shortly after she disappeared, perhaps the same day. The investigation took some turns, leading police to run down leads and a possible connection across the border into Maine, where the body of another young girl, Mary Catherine Olenchuk, whose name you might recognize, was found in a barn in Kennebunk

the following year. Sergeant Lawrence Vigieu of the Maine State Police told local news outlets, quote, there is always a possibility that there is a connection between this murder and the Deborah Horn murder. There are some similarities between the two murders, unquote. Some media sources claimed that Deborah Horn was once a student of Luella Blakeslee, the missing teacher from Hookset. But this fact was never confirmed, and Luella's father George said he didn't know of a connection between Debbie and Luella as far as a teacher-student relationship goes. It's not altogether surprising that the media jumped on this rumored connection. It made it all the more sensational. And as humans, we seek out connections

to try to make sense of the unknown. But if Luella was Deborah's tutor at one point or another, it might explain something that detectives discovered while investigating Luella's disappearance. In a drawer of her dresser were newspaper clippings about Deborah Horn's disappearance.

Why? The possible reasons are only speculative. Maybe Luella kept them because Deborah was her student. Or maybe Luella kept them because of that day police showed up to ask her some questions about her boyfriend and his whereabouts on the morning Deborah Horn went missing. The public and news outlets pressed for more details in Debbie Horn's case, asking detectives if they'd found anything to connect her murder to the disappearance of Luella Blakeslee. Assistant Attorney General Harry Spalas told the Bangor Daily News,

It is possible there is a link, but I don't know of any at this time. Unquote. As the search for Debbie Horn became an intense homicide investigation, Luella Blakeslee was still a missing person. A year later, on July 5th, 1970, police told the Boston Globe that they were considering the very real possibility that Luella met with foul play. Chief Maurice Bouvert explained, quote,

we've even gone through her diary, but entries in it stopped a week before she disappeared. Nobody's giving up on the case. We'll work just as hard the second year as we did the first, unquote. Though police have floated other persons of interest and suspects, the investigation into Luella's disappearance has always centered on one man,

her on-again, off-again boyfriend, the man she told her father she was going to see on the 4th of July, a man who would later face charges in the murder of an 18-year-old woman hitchhiking home on a cold February night. That man, Luella's boyfriend, was Robert Breast. Two years after Luella Blakeslee disappeared, Robert Breast would walk into the Manchester Police Department, inserting himself into the investigation of Susan Randall's murder, telling the officer he'd been questioned before on things. A year after that, Robert Breast would be charged and then convicted of Susan Randall's murder. For 29 years, Robert Breast denied any connection to Luella Blakeslee's disappearance. In 1998, he'd have to start denying any connection to her murder. On May 9th, 1998, two joggers were out for some exercise in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, when they spotted what appeared to be a human skull.

When police arrived, they confirmed those joggers discovered human remains, a partial skeleton and a skull buried in a shallow grave. And those remains had been there for a very long time. The bones were sent to a forensic anthropologist in Maine for examination. Meanwhile, families of missing persons called in to learn if those remains belonged to their loved ones. Investigators collected DNA samples to test for familial connection. Along with the discovery of the bones were personal items, a handbag, a wallet, and a comb.

Detectives believed those clues pointed to one missing person in particular. Months later, in November 1998, DNA testing proved those beliefs to be true. The skeletal remains belonged to the Hookset school teacher, Luella Blakeslee, who disappeared 29 years earlier. Missing 29 years, as long as she was alive. The suspicion surrounding Robert Breast never ceased, and with the discovery and positive ID of Luella's remains, it only got more intense. Investigators learned that the area of Hopkinton where she was buried was a place Robert Breast knew well. His aunts lived there, and he spent lots of time there as a child.

Senior Assistant Attorney General John Kakavas told the Brattleboro reformer, Robert Breast denied any involvement in Luella Blakeslee's murder. He continues to deny it to this day. Time made it impossible for even modern science to prove anything conclusive about what happened to Luella the night she disappeared. But retired Hopkinson police chief Ronald Daniels, better known as Dana Daniels, worked her case for years. He is confident in his personal conclusion about who was responsible for Luella's disappearance and murder. In 1998, Dana Daniels told the Brattleboro Reformer, I still feel the way I felt 29 years ago.

If we had had a body, we certainly had enough evidence to go to a grand jury." Daniels told Breast he was their most likely suspect, that he was convinced Breast was responsible. He just needed a little more undeniable evidence to prove it. It's been 23 years since joggers came across Luella's burial site, and that evidence still eludes the investigation. 11-year-old Deborah Lee Horn's case also remains on the New Hampshire cold case list. While Robert Breast was publicly identified as someone police questioned in her murder,

he doesn't seem to be the primary suspect, and the connection isn't as clear or obvious as it is to Luella's case. But then I think back to the newspaper clippings about Debra's case in Luella's dresser drawer, and I start to spiral all over again. Was Debra Horn the victim of a serial killer operating in Maine and New Hampshire at the time? Is her case connected to the murders of other children in New England like Mary Olinchuk in Maine? Or was it Robert Breast? These are just a few of the questions investigators continue to ask these 52 years later. In 2013, New Hampshire State Police finally released Luella Blakeslee's remains to her brother, Ken.

He had them cremated, and Ken set his sister off on her world travels once again. The evidence and circumstances that ultimately led to Robert Breese's conviction of first-degree murder in Susan Randall's case are now sketchy, if I may use a non-legal term. The science that connected Susan Randall to Robert Breese's car is more or less discredited compared to modern-day forensics, and the DNA evidence tested decades after the fact is not 100% conclusive. Robert's endless petitions and appeals and proclaimed innocence may give some people on the outside of these cases a moment of pause. I mean, he was offered parole. They told Robert he could get out,

be with his family again, if only he'd admit guilt. But Robert refused. In 2013, from behind prison bars, Robert told the Boston Globe, quote, I didn't take the deal because I believed I would prevail and prove I am innocent. My wife has been married to me all these years. I am not going to bring disgrace on the family. Unquote. A man so steadfast in his innocence that he'd deny himself release has the potential to be convincing. If Robert Breast ever did get a new trial, as he's been seeking for decades,

this pile of doubt could sway a jury. And with so many of the original investigators and witnesses on the case now long gone, who knows what that trial would even look like or what the outcome would be. Now, I understand the right to a fair trial and due process. I understand not wanting to imprison someone who isn't truly guilty of a crime. I understand wanting to correct a miscarriage of justice. But was justice actually miscarried here i just keep coming back to one thing if robert breist is as innocent as he claims to be why is his name mentioned and not one but two other homicides in the same area of new hampshire within the same three-year span why were the remains of luella Blakeslee found near the home of Robert Breast's aunts, where he spent so much time as a child? Luella appeared to be following Deborah

Horn's case, with those clippings in her dresser drawer. Luella was last seen alive, heading out the door to be with Robert Breast. Are all of these really just coincidences? While we're on the topic of Robert Breast and coincidences, here's this. In August of 1969, less than two months after Luella disappeared and just days after the discovery of Deborah Horne's body in the trunk of an abandoned car, Robert Breast was arrested for allegedly assaulting a tourist in New Hampshire from France. According to reporting on the proceedings by Pat Grossmith for the union leader, two young French women were hitchhiking through town when Breast stopped to pick them up. With the two women in his car, he told them he needed to stop to check on his mother,

but when they got to the house, his mother wasn't there. One of those girls went to the bathroom, and while the other one was alone, Breast allegedly assaulted her. The other girl, realizing what was happening, perceiving the danger they were in, she ran from the house to get help from a neighbor. The police arrived, and Breast was arrested on aggravated assault charges. According to a single-column Bangor Daily News article on August 18, 1969, a man appeared in a Merrimack County courtroom for a hearing on a motion by the county attorney to have him committed to a

New Hampshire State Hospital for observation. Ten days earlier, that man was arrested on aggravated assault charges in connection with a struggle with a 19-year-old woman. Now, this particular article does not mention the suspect's name, likely because the charges were alleged at the time. But I'm able to make an educated guess that the suspect is Robert Breast, because the article goes on to say this, quote, State Police Lieutenant Leslie B. Menzi said the suspect had professed to be the fiancé of Manchester school teacher Luella Blakesley of Hookset, who disappeared July 4th, and during a telephone conversation with Menzies, has threatened to kill state police officers for bothering him. Unquote. Those assault charges were later dropped. The victim returned to France

and would not travel back to New Hampshire to testify against him. Is the fact that Robert Breast was arrested and charged with an alleged assault of a hitchhiking woman the same setup of the night he stole Susan Randall's life? Is that a coincidence? Or is that a pattern? Author Emma Bull once said that coincidence is the word we use when we can't see all the levers and pulleys. I'm hard-pressed to believe that the similarities and the circumstances in the cases of the hitchhiking French tourists and Susan Randall, of Luella Blakeslee, possibly Deborah Horn are mere coincidences.

We're just lacking the hard evidence, the levers and pulleys. But that's just it, right? That's why Luella Blakeslee and Deborah Horn have waited over 50 years and counting for justice of their own. I've submitted Freedom of Information requests to the New Hampshire Merrimack County Attorney's Office in hopes of learning more details about the circumstances of that alleged assault on the hitchhikers two months after Luella disappeared. It could mean one more connecting piece, one more element that stacks up to a final conclusion, one more shred of hope for the families that the man suspected in their murders stays right where he is. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East.

Source material for this episode, including reporting by Bangor Daily News, Nashua Telegraph, Berkshire Eagle, Boston Globe, The Times-Argus, the New Hampshire Union Leader, and New Hampshire Public Radio, they're all available at darkdowneast.com. Follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts and be sure to turn on automatic downloads in the top right corner of the app. If you listen on Spotify or another app, you can do the same thing. Hitting follow is the easiest way to support this show and the cases I cover. If you have a personal connection to a case or to a case I've covered, please reach out to 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 murder cases, I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.