Dark Downeast - The Murders of Malcolm, Elizabeth, and Page Jennings Part 2 (New Hampshire)

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

When investigators in Alachua County, Florida discovered the remains of two people among the charred ruins of a burned down shack and a letter in a nearby car that seemed to explain the entire scene, police in two states thought they were on the brink of closing a multiple murder case that started all the way north in New Hampshire. But as experts attempted to identify the two people found in that shack, doubt started to poke glaring holes in the case.If you haven’t already, go back one episode and listen to Part 1 of this series. You’ll want to hear where this case all began in Jackson, New Hampshire. The NAMI HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. Call 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email at [e-mail] Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 / For TTY Users: Use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 1-800-273-8255Línea de Prevención del Suicidio y Crisis: 1-888-628-9454 View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/malcolmelizabethandpagejenningspart2 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

When investigators in Alachua County, Florida, discovered the remains of two people among the charred ruins of a burned-down shack and a letter in a nearby car that seemed to explain the entire scene, police in two states thought they were on the brink of closing a multiple murder case that started all the way north in New Hampshire. But as experts attempted to identify the two people found in that shack, doubt started to poke glaring holes in the case. If you haven't already, go back one episode and listen to part one of this story. You'll

want to hear where this case all began in Jackson, New Hampshire. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Malcolm Elizabeth and Paige Jennings, part two, on Dark Down East. It was January 28th, 1985, and the Alachua County Sheriff's Office had just received another phone call about a suspicious car in a field off State Roads 236 and 93 in High Springs. Even though the first searches for the vehicle in previous days turned up nothing, Deputy Sergeant Danny Brown was dispatched to the area for another look around. And this time, he was able to locate the car in question. According to a report by Deputy Sergeant Brown contained in the New Hampshire State Police case file, an abandoned blue Fiat was parked in the middle of the field. As the officer peered through

the windows, he could see that the keys were in the ignition and there were two sets of clothing, men's and women's, neatly folded and stacked behind the seat. He also noticed an envelope sitting on the dashboard in front of the steering wheel. It was addressed to the Gainesville Police Department Bureau of Homicide. Brown checked the car and found the back left door unlocked, so he reached in and grabbed the envelope. His report states that when he opened the envelope, he discovered a several pages long, handwritten letter inside, dated January 18th, 1985. He only briefly scanned it, but that quick glance was enough. The letter said that just

beyond the spot where the car sat was the charred rubble of a shack, and inside were the remains of two people. The person who wrote the letter claimed responsibility for the deaths of those two individuals. Across the field, about 100 feet away, Deputy Sergeant Brown could see a clearing in the tree line with evidence of a fire that had long since burned out. Numerous trees surrounding the area were burnt nearly 40 feet up from the ground. When it was fully engulfed, this was a massive, hot fire. Upon closer inspection, the deputy found two human skeletons, one larger and one smaller, burned so completely they were reduced to fragments and dust. What remained was on top of and beneath some sort of metal wire structure, perhaps the remnants of a couch or mattress or

maybe an old gate, with both of their skulls positioned on the same end, like they were laying down next to each other. Also below the metal structure were charcoal briquettes. Scattered around the bodies were two one-gallon fuel cans, a melted but still recognizable shotgun, a sprayer of some kind, and another set of responded to the report of a suspicious car. He called for additional support at the scene, and soon, the area was teeming with investigators. Dr. William Maples from the University of Florida assessed the scene for the medical examiner's office. Only small pieces of bone remained, and those bone fragments sustained severe damage from the fire. It was impossible to identify who the bones belonged to just by looking at them. Determining whose remains they were was going to be a delicate process. But investigators believed the car and the letter found inside gave them a place to start. The license plate on the blue Fiat came back as registered to Daniel Michael Daniels of Gainesville, Florida. Several receipts and ID cards found inside the car also

belonged to Daniel Michael Daniels, and that was one of the names signed at the end of the strange letter. The other was Paige Jennings Daniels. The letter reads as part confession, part suicide note, and it is among the most disturbing pieces of evidence I've ever personally reviewed for a case. In it, the author, Mike Daniels, describes the plan he supposedly made with his fiancée, Paige Jennings. Paige's parents didn't approve of their relationship, so they decided that the only way they could be together forever was to be cremated beside one another so their remains couldn't be separated. But first, he would go to New Hampshire to kill Paige's parents

and then return to Florida to kill Paige before setting fire to the shack. Then he would kill Paige's dog, and finally himself. Mike claims in the letter that the whole thing was Paige's decision, and he followed her wishes because he loved her. The letter claimed that they first discussed murdering Malcolm and Betty Jennings together, but ultimately decided that Paige was going to wait for him in Florida while he traveled to New Hampshire alone, staying at motels along the route, selling their belongings as he went, before finally arriving in New Hampshire to carry out the killings on his own.

Mike wrote that he was worried he'd get caught with the inn on a main road and the fire drawing attention to the scene, but he managed to get back to Florida with Paige's dog, Chelsea, to carry out the rest of the plan. The next part of the letter seems like it was written in real time. The penmanship is more hurried and slanted than the lines before it. Quote, She is waiting now, and I must do what I can't believe I'm going to do, but I must do for us and her. End quote. The handwritten text skips a line, and when it picks up again, the cursive script is more tidy, like it was on the first few pages.

Mike goes on to explain how he killed Paige, first attempting asphyxiation with his own hands twice, but then used a large stone to hit her in the right side of the head. He describes how he readied the wood under the platform where Paige's body lay and decided to tie his own hands up so he wouldn't fall from that same platform once he too was deceased. Quote, This is the only reason why there may be rope marks on me if they don't burn off or something. End quote.

He explains that whoever investigated the scene would also discover the ashes of two dogs around them. One was Paige's first puppy that died a year earlier, and the other would be her dog Chelsea. He concludes the letter saying it's time for him to finish the plan. He writes, quote, Paige was the most beautiful lady in the world, but at times a devil. I feel that just because she had so many things working against her, pressure, that finally made us do this last step, end quote. The letter is signed, goodbye, D. Mike Daniels for Paige Jennings Daniels. Below the signature is one final line. It reads, I am going to start the fire with 21 $100 bills, for she is just 21 plus 16 days."

With the letter's reference to a double homicide in another state, Florida authorities contacted New Hampshire State police to inform them they believed they found the remains of Paige Jennings and Daniel Michael Daniels, and further analysis by a forensic anthropologist was underway to confirm that tentative identification. Two New Hampshire investigators and Chris Jennings, Paige's brother and Malcolm and Betty's son, all flew to Florida at that point. On January 29th, 1985, Chris walked back into his apartment in Gainesville for the first time in more than a week.

And when he did, he found a bizarre collection of items sitting on his table. According to case file documents, there was a typed note, apparently, from Mike. There was also a United States atlas opened to the page was a typed note, apparently, from Mike. There was also a United States atlas opened to the page with a map of New Hampshire, and a route from Florida to Jackson, New Hampshire, clearly marked on the pages. Next to the atlas and letter were two newspapers, an irregular copy of the January 8th, 1985 edition of a weekly newspaper published in Conway, New Hampshire

and an issue of the Gainesville Sun dated January 18th, 1985. Finally, Chris found two Polaroid photos of Paige's dog, Chelsea. They were taken inside Chris's apartment. The letter from Mike was also dated January 18th, 1985, the same as the letter found at the scene of the fire. It was short, just one paragraph with several disjointed and poorly punctuated sentences, but the message seemed to be that Chris telling Paige and Mike to move out of his apartment was the final straw that pushed them to carry out their plan.

Quote, Paige is so bitter that this is the only way she can see how we can be together forever. Cremation. Call the police. They have some letters and information for you or whatever. End quote. Both of the notes, believed to be written by Mike, were apparent confessions to the murders of Malcolm, Betty, and Paige Jennings. But was it that simple? The letters, the clues, everything seemed laid out a little too perfect. So both New Hampshire and Florida investigators started piecing together a timeline of Daniel Michael Daniels' movements and analyzing the evidence he left behind. The blue Fiat registered to Daniel Michael Daniels was actually reported stolen from Corpus Christi, Texas on January 5th, 1985.

The VIN had been filed off and altered to match the title of a silver Fiat that Mike bought for cheap a few weeks earlier on December 23rd, 1984. That was one scheme Mike was known to pull, buying a junk car to get the title and then stealing the same make and model and registering it in his name with the title from the first car. So it was the stolen blue Fiat that Paige and Mike drove off in on January 11th, 1985, when Chris told them to move out of his apartment. Now, January 11th and the day before January 10th are crucial dates in the timeline of this case. Police learned that on January 10th, both Mike and Paige checked into the Gator Motor Inn in Gainesville and rented the room for two nights.

But the next day, Mike informed the front desk at the motel that he actually didn't need the room for a second night. Paige wasn't with him when he checked out. Around 5 p.m., the manager went to check the room Mike and Paige rented and found a bag sitting behind a chair. It had a bunch of knives inside. The manager stored the bag in case the guest returned to claim it. As for Paige, she was at work until 4 p.m. on the 11th, but after that, her whereabouts are unknown. Police spoke to a friend of Paige's who said that he was supposed to meet up with her the next morning, January 12th, to talk, reportedly about the issues she was having with Mike. But Paige didn't show up for that planned meeting.

And she didn't show up for work later that day either. Paige also had a previously scheduled job interview on January 13th, but she was a no-show there too. The 13th was the day Mike called Chris to say he and Paige were in Miami and they were getting married. But as police started sifting through the evidence in the blue Fiat, they learned that the Miami story couldn't have been true. Hotel receipts in Mike's car showed that at least Mike was on a road trip north and very far away from Florida by the 13th. There was a receipt for the stay at the Best Western Hotel in Savannah, Georgia on January 11th, the Ramada Inn in Brattleboro, North Carolina on January 12th, the Bridgeport Motor Inn in Fairfield, Connecticut on January 13th,

and finally, a receipt for a hotel back in Gainesville dated four days later on January 17th. When investigators spoke with staff at all of the hotels, they said Mike checked in alone. He didn't have a woman or anyone else with him. The hotel receipts corresponded with X's on that map found inside Chris's apartment, showing a route between Gainesville and Jackson. So Mike checked into the motel in Connecticut around 10.30 p.m. on January 13th. Obviously, he was not in Miami marrying Paige. It's unclear how he spent the day of January 14th,

but the letter found in the blue fiat mentions selling things in Hartford. Hartford is an hour from Bridgeport, so maybe that's where he was. By January 15th, the day before Malcolm and Betty were found murdered, Mike was seen in Portland, Maine, about a three-hour drive from Connecticut. The owner of Rare Coins and Precious Metals on Marginal Way in Portland later told police he remembered someone by the name Daniel Daniels coming into the store to sell a few pieces of jewelry. The name stood out to him because he hated when

parents gave kids the same name twice. According to a report in the case file, the shop owner, John Colby, remembered Daniel Daniels as an older man with grayish hair and curly bangs hanging down over his forehead. It was very obvious to John that the man was wearing a wig or a hairpiece, which made John keep a close eye on him as he perused the shop. When the man finally approached John at the counter, he was sniffling like he was trying to stop himself from crying. He explained to John that his daughter died in a skiing accident, and he wanted to sell all of her jewelry so there would be nothing left to bring up painful memories of her. John assessed the jewelry and made the man an offer just for

the gold pieces, but the man told him to take all of it anyway, even if John couldn't pay him for it. He insisted he didn't want anything to bring back memories of his daughter who died in a car accident. But wasn't it a skiing accident? His story changed, but John didn't question it. The man believed to be Daniels was there for about 45 minutes, and John ended up writing him a check for $317.21. Employees at the bank next door to the coin shop said Daniels immediately cashed the check and then he left the building. John didn't note the exact time Daniel Daniels was at his shop, but he estimated it was sometime late afternoon on the 15th. Jackson is less than a two-hour drive from Portland, so Daniel Michael Daniels was definitely close enough to the location of the murders on the afternoon before they were committed.

As police were tracking the movements of Daniel Michael Daniels in the days leading up to the murders of Malcolm and Betty, they also learned from receipts in his abandoned car that before Mike started his road trip north, he rented a small unit at Atkins Mini Storage in Gainesville on January 11th. Investigators obtained a search warrant for that unit, and the first thing that greeted police when they opened the door was yet another note. This note just said that whoever found it should contact the Gainesville Police Department. It was sitting on top of a cooler, next to a Willie Nelson cassette tape and two Polaroid pictures. One of the photos was of Paige standing inside a wooden coffin-type box. The other was of Mike laying down inside a similar wooden coffin-type box. Those Polaroids were later determined to be from their time in Alaska.

The coffin-type boxes were for transporting fish and just happened to look like a casket. Also inside the storage unit, police found an orange jacket covered in what looked like blood and a large cardboard box containing strips of cloth, some white tape, and a lot of dog hair. There were also records from an animal hospital in New Hampshire for Paige's dog Chelsea, some clothing, a few books, a box full of 12-gauge buckshot, a key to Chris Jennings' apartment, and an open box of trash bags. Police connected those trash bags to a receipt in Mike's car, showing he bought them at a Winn-Dixie in Florida. With that, plus a hotel receipt for a hotel in Gainesville, police were able to place

Mike back in town by 5 p.m. on January 17th. The next day, January 18th, was the date on the letter in the car and Chris's apartment, and supposedly the day he killed Paige and himself, but apparently not before making a few more arrangements. Mike wrote a third letter dated January 18th, 1985. This one was sent to his friend Bonnie in Arizona, along with $250 in cash. Mike told Bonnie to use the cash any way she saw fit, but he had one request. He wrote that he had a car parked in a storage lot in Tucson, and it contained his and Paige's personal belongings. Mike tells Bonnie she can have anything she wants and there was some valuable stuff in the car, but she'd also find a cigar box filled with letters to him from Paige. He asked Bonnie to burn the letters without reading them. At the end of the letter to Bonnie, Mike writes again of the plan he and Paige are prepared to carry out. Quote,

tonight we are cremating ourselves due to pressure she can no longer bear and we both don't want to live without the other. Please try to understand and do this one last thing for me. Love and goodbye, Mike." When Bonnie received the letter, rather than obey Mike's wishes, she called Arizona police. The letter and all of the items inside Mike's car were eventually turned over to the ongoing investigations in Florida and New Hampshire. Each piece of evidence, every crumpled hotel receipt, and seemingly arbitrary personal item, and the numerous witness statements were all coming together like an intricate puzzle. But what would the final picture look like? And did it align with the story Mike told in his letters? As the identification process of the two sets of skeletal remains trudged forward, so did the analysis of all the evidence. And while a few answers were simple,

police were left with still more questions concerning the biggest elements of the case. Let's break it all down. First, timeline. Investigators had a verifiable timeline of Mike's movements between the day he and Paige moved out of Chris's apartment, January 10th, the estimated date and time of the murders in New Hampshire between late January 15th and early morning January 16th, and the day Mike returned to Florida, January 17th. But was it physically possible that Daniel Michael Daniels made it all the way from Florida to New Hampshire and back to carry out the murderous plan he laid out in the letter? Technically, yes. The case file includes estimated travel time between Jackson, New Hampshire, and Gainesville, Florida, at 26 hours. That's if Mike drove the total distance of roughly 1,300 miles at an average speed of 50 miles per hour. The fire and murders were

discovered in Jackson around 5 a.m. on January 16th. Two receipts put Mike in Florida as soon as January 17th, at least by 5 p.m., when he checked into the hotel in Gainesville. That was just about 36 hours after the fire was reported in Jackson. So yes, New Hampshire investigators determined Mike could have killed Malcolm and Betty and then driven back to Florida by the 17th. But the timeline that raised more questions for investigators was that of the apparent murder-suicide. All three letters Mike left behind, the one in the car, the one in Chris' apartment, and the one sent to his friend Bonnie in Arizona, are dated January 18. Bonnie received her letter from Mike on January 25, before the skeletal remains were discovered in Florida,

but it was postmarked Monday, January 21st. If it was dated January 18th, and Mike really did die by suicide that same day, why was there a three-day delay in the postmark? The 20th was a Sunday, so probably no mail going out that day. But why wasn't it stamped sooner if he sent it on January 18th,

the day he claims he died? There's something else, too, that adds to the questions about the alleged day of Mike and Paige's death. Remember that black bag of various knives Mike left behind at the Gator Motor Inn when he checked out without Paige on January 11th, and how the manager kept the bag in case someone came back for it? Well, Mike did go back for it. On either January 18th or January 20th. The manager couldn't recall which day it was. This discrepancy is incredibly frustrating, and I can only imagine how investigators felt about it at the time.

Because if Mike really did pick up the bag on January 20th, it meant his suicide confession letter dated January 18th, the one where he seems to narrate in real time killing Paige, and then the moments before he ended his own life, it was all a farce. He couldn't have died by suicide on January 18th if he was still alive to collect his things from the hotel on January 20th. And if it was all one big fabricated story, then did Mike really kill Paige Jennings on January 18th too? The last

time anyone saw or heard from Paige was January 11th. She got out of work at 4pm that day, but missed plans to meet up with a friend on the 12th and every scheduled appointment after that. It raised concern among investigators that the friend Paige was supposed to meet up with said she wanted to talk about issues she was having with Mike. Did something boil over and result in homicidal violence? And then Mike believed he had no choice but to kill Malcolm and Betty and concoct this fictitious scheme to what, cover his tracks, only to die by suicide himself? And if this really was a plan they concocted together, why didn't Page sign the letters too? Sometimes it's easy

to discern which theory in a homicide is more plausible. Occam's razor, the simplest answer, is usually the correct one, kind of thing. But both sides of this razor left investigators flabbergasted. The identification of the two sets of skeletal remains in the burndown shack could clear it all up, though, once those bones were determined to be Paige and Mike. The double homicide case of Malcolm and Betty would effectively close with the likely suspect deceased. But things are never that simple.

Over the next several years, conflicting conclusions from multiple experts had investigators doubting that Daniel Michael Daniels was actually dead. Forensic anthropologist Dr. William Maples conducted the first analysis of the remains found in the burned-down shack in High Springs, Florida. Dr. Maples later shared his work on this case in his 1994 book titled Dead Men Do Tell Tales. He describes in detail just how little he and the other pathologists had to work with. The bones were burned so completely that many of them were nearly reduced to powder.

Further complicating things was the fact that all the fragments of the remains were mixed together in a single body bag, both of the human skeletons and the canine too. Dr. Maples writes, quote, When I finally opened the vinyl bag, I was overwhelmed. Inside, totally commingled and crushed, were approximately 10,000 bone fragments, not counting bone that had been reduced to ash and particles of sand. In my entire career, I have never seen such an impossible chaos of fragments, some broken by the fire to begin with, some broken even further by careless handling, all tumbled together in a hopeless, brittle welter of dust, cinders, calcined bone,

stray teeth, and sand, end quote. Dr. Maples explains that each human bone burns differently, with a unique splintering pattern as they heat and crack, be it crescent moon or checkerboard squares or some other shape. These telltale patterns allowed Dr. Maples and students at the University of Florida to identify where the fragments belonged and put them back together using model airplane glue. Detailed photos from the scene helped to reconstruct the remains exactly as they were first discovered. Though the total process would take over a year,

Dr. Maples determined early on that one set likely belonged to a 20 to 25-year-old female and the other was a 45 to 60-year-old man, which was consistent with Paige Jennings and Daniel Michael Daniels, aka Glideral Meek. Dr. Maples identified pellets from buckshot ammunition embedded in a section of the male skull and traces of lead in the lower bone jaw. He suspected that the barrel of a shotgun was inserted into the man's mouth before it was fired. This was consistent with the burned shotgun and spent casing found at the scene. Florida investigators had requested medical and dental records for Paige and Mike,

aka Glide, so they could compare those to the remains. Paige had multiple x-rays from two knee surgeries, dental records, and other imaging in her medical file. But all they could obtain for Mike was a few dental charts and a set of six x-rays from a chiropractor in Arizona. The case file indicates that a lower right molar found in the ashes appeared to match Paige's dental records. But that's where the first clues that would help identify the remains stopped. According to Dr. Maple's book, he reconstructed a five-inch portion of the female tibia found in the fire, which was in 36 different fragments. He knew from conversations with a surgeon that Paige injured her knee when she was 17 and had surgery to repair it. The surgeon said

she performed the Hauser procedure during the surgery, which would have left recognizable marks on Paige's tibia even after it healed. But the reconstructed tibia didn't have those knee surgery scars. As for the male skeleton, another stray tooth found at the scene matched Glyderal Meek. But there was a tooth notably missing from the remains too. Mike's dental records showed

he had a gold filling that didn't turn up anywhere during the first searches. Dr. Maples writes that it's unlikely it melted since dental gold had a melting point higher than what the fire at the shack could have reached. So where was it? Months later, in June of 1985, after painstaking reconstruction and review of the partially cremated skeletons and several return trips to the scene of the burned-down shack to search for additional bone fragments, Dr. Maples issued a statement that he could not conclusively identify

either set of remains as Paige Jennings or Daniel Michael Daniels. Dr. Curtis Mertz, a forensic odontologist called in specifically to analyze the dental remains, agreed. While some teeth found at the scene were consistent with records for both Paige and Mike, Dr. Mertz could not identify the remains based on that evidence alone. He also couldn't account for how the teeth got there. If the remains were not those of Paige and Mike, where were they? And whose bones were investigators looking at? What started as a distant cloud of doubt became an all-encompassing storm when Florida police, following up with Mike's friend Bonnie in Arizona, found a matchbox inside his abandoned vehicle there.

In that matchbox was a stray tooth belonging to Daniel Michael Daniels. Why was he carrying around his own tooth? Surely not for the tooth fairy. That's when a wild theory began to emerge. Did Mike stage his own death, salting the scene with a tooth he pulled from his mouth to lead investigators towards a quick conclusion when in reality, the remains belonged to an unknown victim?

Were he and Paige in hiding somewhere after pulling off an elaborate and deadly scheme to eliminate those who stood in the way of their love? Many versions of this theory, all built on the same doubts, made their way into the media and speculation absolutely spiraled. Without a positive identification of the double murder suspect, Daniel Michael Daniels, aka Clyde Earl Meek, was entered into NCIC, and New Hampshire authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in June of 1985. In August of that year, the FBI issued its own warrant for Mike on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. With that, a suspected killer, once presumed dead,

became the subject of a nationwide manhunt. The case file shows that the New Hampshire Department of Safety sent notices to police in places where Daniel Michael Daniels had a known connection, including New York, Montana, Minnesota, Delaware, Illinois, Alaska, Washington, and even outside the U.S. in Vancouver, British Columbia. The notices warned that a murder suspect could be at large in their jurisdiction. Yet months dragged on without any verifiable leads. If Mike was really on the run somewhere, with or without Paige, he was doing a good job of flying under the radar.

Not that far of a stretch for a guy who was known to change his name, steal cars, break into homes undetected, and had even escaped police custody at least once. For all the information they were lacking, though, there was one conclusion that investigators were comfortable sharing with the public as the search for Mike continued. Attorney General Stephen Merrill in New Hampshire said in an AP report published by the Valley News in July of 1985 that based on the evidence at the time, they'd determined Paige Jennings was not involved in the death of her parents, Betty and Malcolm, and that Mike acted alone in committing the double murder. Updates over the next several months were far and few between. And actually, after reviewing over 700 pages of the New Hampshire State Police case file,

it seems like any major activity in the investigation fizzled out by the end of 1985. Most of the interview transcripts are dated January and February of that year, with very little happening until the arrest warrant was issued and the notices sent to other states in Canada. I tried to obtain a case file from Florida investigators to see what was happening on their end when things appeared stagnant up north. However, I was informed that due to retention protocols and the age of the case, the Gainesville records were destroyed. In March of 1986, Chris Jennings sent a letter to Florida Governor Bob Graham, urging him to motivate investigators and move the case forward.

According to an AP report in the Naples Daily News, Chris wrote that Florida authorities had a, quote, lackadaisical attitude, end quote, when it came to solving the case. Dr. William Maples writes in his book that at the time, he and his students at University of Florida were working behind the scenes, continuing the painstaking process of assembling and identifying the remains. Their early hunch was that the female skeleton was Paige Jennings, but they hadn't yet reached 100% confidence. The tibia from that skeleton

gave Dr. Maples and the other forensic scientists a lot of trouble for a long time. Since the surgeon who had operated on Paige's knee told them early on she used the Hauser method, and the tibia did not show the telltale signs of that method, they couldn't confidently say that the female body was Paige Jennings. About a year into the effort, Dr. Maples decided to contact the surgeon again, this time asking to view the records she had relating to Paige's surgery. When he looked over the notes, he learned that the surgeon had remembered incorrectly. She used a different method to repair Paige's knee, one that did not leave any marks behind on the tibia.

The lapse in memory caused them to all but rule out Paige at first, but now they began looking for other evidence to rule her in. The possibility remained that it was Paige's skeleton after all. The identification was actually relatively quick after that. Dr. Maples and the team compared several other x-rays to bones at the scene. Finally, Dr. Maples concluded that what remained of a female fibula, tibia, and palate incontestably belonged to Paige Jennings. More than a year had passed by then,

a year of an open case file rife with speculation and theories fueled by doubting investigators in New Hampshire and a nationwide manhunt for a man who claimed himself to be dead and burned, right next to the now-confirmed remains of Paige Jennings. Mike's lack of medical records made it difficult to conclusively identify any of the reconstructed bones as his. Dr. Maples returned to the male skeleton dozens and dozens of times, willing it to reveal something new, until finally one day, it did. During one particular examination, Dr. Maples identified an irregularity on a fragment of rib bone. It was a small but distinctive section of calcified cartilage, nearest to what would have been the breastbone. The x-rays from Mike's visit to a chiropractor in the 80s showed his rib cage, but Dr. Maples hadn't closely scrutinized the darkest of the shadowy areas of the images in

previous assessments. He pulled them out again, this time with an ultra-bright hotspot light bulb in search of this one unusual section of cartilage. And there it was. The contours, irregularities, and unique shape of the burned and calcified fragment lined up perfectly with the images of the ribcage that belonged to Glide Earl Meek, aka Daniel Michael Daniels. There weren't any metaphorical confetti cannons going off with this breakthrough, though. It wasn't enough to assuage all the doubt in the case, especially not the abundance of it still held by Attorney General Stephen Merrill in New Hampshire. He was anchored to the theory that Mike staged his death and was on the lam somewhere. Dr. Maples writes in his book that he felt like New Hampshire authorities

viewed him and other Florida investigators as quote-unquote hicks, unqualified to make such a weighty determination. Much like the missing marks on Paige's tibia, Mike's missing gold-tooth inlay remained a thorn in the side of the case. They hadn't found it after multiple past searches of the burned-down shack, but Dr. Maples decided to do one more search. He had to be sure. And if they found it, maybe that would be enough to end the speculation that Daniel Michael Daniels was still alive. Dr. Maples and three archaeologists from the University of Florida

once again sifted through every last granule of sand beneath the site of the fire, this time using ultra-fine 1 16th inch mesh, but no gold tooth. The previously discarded piles of dust and sand that were sifted with 1-8th mesh during earlier searches were bagged up and brought to the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory where they were sifted yet again, this time with that 1-16th inch mesh. It was in those discard piles that a graduate student named Heige finally struck gold. The gold tooth inlay left behind on the mesh of the sifter was nearly perfect,

unmelted and undamaged, except for a bent pin. When the forensic odontologist Dr. Mertz compared it to the dental charts for Glyderol-Meek, there was no mistaking. It was the elusive gold tooth that they'd been looking for all along. On October 16th, 1986, Dr. Maples and Dr. Mertz released their findings in a joint statement. The two sets of remains in the burned-down shack in High Springs, Florida, recovered on January 28, 1985, were those of Paige Jennings and the man who went by Daniel Michael Daniels, aka Glide Earl Meek. Death certificates were issued the next day, October 17. The cause of death for Paige Jennings is listed as homicidal violence of an unknown nature. Mike, aka Meek, died by apparent suicide, a shotgun wound to the head.

That could have been the end of it. It was in Florida, at least. The Alachua County Sheriff's Department closed the file, but New Hampshire investigators kept the case open. Even after a year and the opinions of multiple forensic anthropologists, odontologists, archaeologists, and other scientists, Attorney General Stephen Merrill would not close the double homicide case of Malcolm and Betty Jennings. Stephen Merrill remained the Attorney General in New Hampshire until February of 1989. When he left office, the case of Malcolm and Elizabeth Jennings was still open, but inactive. In an Associated Press report published in theed questions, he explained, came back to a few details that he just couldn't reconcile despite the conclusion by Florida authorities.

First, the quote-unquote suicide note. Merrill referred to it as more of a letter, referencing its length and bizarre contents. He said that he felt like it was, quote, written in Hollywood, unquote, and not by a man about to take his own life. And then there was that tooth, not the gold one, but the stray tooth they found in Mike's other abandoned car in Arizona. Merrill said, quote, no adult carries a tooth around with him unless he intends it to be used to salt a crime scene, to show evidence of his own death, end quote. Even though Chris Jennings hoped Merrill would close the case before he left, the two death certificates issued in Florida were enough for him. Chris said in an interview with Nancy West for the New Hampshire

Union leader that at that point, quote, it's like saying Elvis is still alive, end quote. And just like Elvis, there'd been a few reported sightings of Daniel Michael Daniels in the preceding years, which no doubt spurred on those who still harbored doubts about his death. But the sightings never panned out. The following year, the new Attorney General John Arnold and the state's chief medical examiner Dr. Roger Fossum reviewed the case file and the evidence and the conclusions of Dr. Maples and Dr. Mertz. Both said they were convinced Paige Jennings and Glider O'Meek were dead,

but planned to further review the case before making a final determination. In October of 1990, Sergeant James S. Noyes of the New Hampshire State Police was assigned to review the Jennings case by the Attorney General's office. In his summary and recommendation dated December 4th, 1990, Sergeant Noyes concludes that based on all of the evidence, all the active warrants for the arrest of Clyde Earl Meek should be canceled. Paige Jennings and her boyfriend, a suspect in her murder and those of her parents, were indeed dead. What's more, he was certain that Mike killed Paige before he left Florida on January 11th and not January 18th as the suicide confession letter claimed. This was not a plan made in collaboration, he decided. For motivations unknown, Mike murdered Paige, and then went on to kill almost her entire family. Though his report effectively closed the case,

Sergeant Noyes allowed some questions to remain unanswered. He lists the missing evidence, Mike's black bag of knives and a Polaroid camera that were never recovered. But maybe Mike sold those or disposed of them, as he did Paige's jewelry. Sergeant Noyes also acknowledges the bizarre nature of Mike's long suicide note and its gravitas, reflective of a man who always wanted to impress people. There were many instances of quote-unquote over-explaining in the letter too. For example, how Mike wrote that he bound his own hands so he wouldn't fall off the platform once dead. Quote, this is the only reason why there may be rope marks on me if they don't burn off or

something, end quote. Why include that detail? It's just one of the many elements of this case that will likely never make sense to anyone but Mike. From Sergeant Noyes' summary, quote, Nothing in life is absolute. In police work, we deal with what has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is this writer's belief beyond any reasonable doubt that the perpetrator of the Jennings homicides, Glide Earl Meek, is dead, and that his remains were recovered in High Springs, Florida in 1985. After almost six long years, the case of Malcolm and Betty Jennings was finally closed. Chris Jennings was the sole survivor in his immediate family. Some investigators, including Dr. Maples and Sergeant Noyes, have theorized that Mike intended to kill Chris too, but those plans were thwarted when Mike arrived at Chris's apartment only to

find that Chris was still in New Hampshire, laying his parents to rest. I reached out to Chris Jennings as part of my reporting on this case, and unfortunately didn't hear back. But I read about how during the summer of 1990, Chris honored the lives of his parents with a jazz festival in Jackson Town Park. Malcolm and Betty loved jazz music. He told the crowd of nearly 500 people, quote, don't you doubt for one minute that Betty and Mal are enjoying every minute of this, end quote. I also learned through old newspaper reports

that Chris eventually sold the inn where his parents once lived and worked. He returned to the inn from time to time to chat with the new owners and grab a meal. It was like saying hi to the memory of his family, he said. Chris told Nancy West of the union leader, quote, I've learned to live off the positive. I had a lot of bitterness towards my sister for a lot of years, but I've come to grips with it.

I miss her more at times than my parents. We used to go skiing or go out in the fall to throw a football. She could throw a football farther than any female I've known in my life. Not a day goes by that I don't remember. They are always on my mind." End quote. 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?