Dark Downeast - The Still Unsolved Murder of Darien Richardson (Maine)

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

MAINE, 2010: In January of 2023, yet another year passed without justice for Darien Richardson and her family.You first heard Darien Richardson’s story on Dark Downeast in August of 2021. Since then, I’ve stayed in touch with Darien’s mother, Judi, and this case is one I keep coming back to, especially now that I’ve become a mother to a daughter.I’ve decided to re-release Darien’s story as an extended episode in hopes of furthering the Richardson family’s fight for answers, to support their advocacy for responsible gun laws, as well as bring awareness to their mission of helping those impacted by violent crime.To support Darien and her family, download the reward poster and share it on social media. You can also make a donation to Remembering Darien, the organization founded by Darien’s parents in her honor to help innocent victims of violent crimes heal and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of incomprehensible violence.The $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person responsible for Darien Richardson’s death still stands. As the ethical true crime content consumer that I know you are, share her story, say her name, and support this family’s fight for justice. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/darienrichardson  & darkdowneast.com/darienrichardson2 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

In January of 2023, yet another year passed without justice for Darian Richardson and her family. You first heard Darian's story on Dark Down East in August of 2021. I've stayed in touch with Darian's mother, Judy, since then, and this case is one that I keep coming back to, especially now that I've become a mother to a daughter. I've decided to re-release Darian's story as an extended episode in hopes of furthering the Richardson family's fight for answers, as well as bring awareness to their mission of helping those impacted by violent crime. To support Darian and her family, go to darkdowneast.com slash Darian Richardson and download the reward poster that you can share on social media. You can also make a donation to Remembering Darian, the organization founded by Darian's parents in her honor to help innocent

victims of violent crimes heal and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of incomprehensible violence. Learn more at rememberingdarian.org. The $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person responsible for Darian Richardson's death still stands. Please, as the ethical true crime content consumer that I know you are, share her story, say her name, and support this family's fight for justice. It can happen to anybody. No one ever says, yeah, we knew it was going to happen. Everyone thinks it won't happen to them. Everywhere. But it does. Gun violence can happen anywhere and everywhere.

Judy Richardson knows too well that gun violence can happen to anyone. And she also knows what it can take from a family. Judy has been a voice for victims of violent crimes and an advocate for closing the loophole that put a firearm into the hands of her daughter's killer. You'll get to know Darian Richardson through the memories of her mother. You'll hear about the happy, determined, kind, friend-to-all woman whose life was cut short,

and the frustrating dead-end details of her case that have left her family without answers for over a decade. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Darian Richardson's story, told by her mother, Judy Richardson, on Dark Down East. She was our first. She was our first baby. She was energetic. She was busy. She was always smiling. She was always smiling. She was very kind. She was a really good kid. She was a really good, fun baby and little girl. She basically stayed that way. She was very social, like a little too

social sometimes. I would worry about her. You know, she was really cute and like, hi to everybody. And those things you worry about as a mother. But, you know, she had a lot of friends and she just, she just constantly wanted to go do, you know, she was, she was a bundle of energy. I sat with Judy Richardson at her kitchen table in South Portland, at the same home she and her husband Wayne have lived for over 30 years. It was Darian's childhood home,

and the evidence of her presence there is still obvious. I think just about every shelf in the house had a picture of Darian and her sister Serena or the whole family together, I could just tell that this was a home with lots of love between its four walls. Love and memories. Her and her sister, because they were only 16 months apart, so they would get into mischief a little bit. One of the funny stories, they were just a little, I don't even know, she must have been five and her sister was four. They were in the room playing and we had a playroom and she came down and I'm like, Mom, look what we did.

She had put markers all over Serena's back and behind. That always embarrassed me. I'm like, what is this? What did you even think about that? And it's like, well, they thought it was funny. Little things like that. Cutting their hair. Play scissors.

I think every little girl does that, right? Even in her childhood, Darian was determined to do her best at everything she tried. From dancing to athletics, academics, and friendships, Darian put her whole heart into it all. Got her into dance, which she fell in love with. So she did ballet from I think first grade right up through her that she wanted to do on point, you know, so she stuck with it until she was in point shoes. She really liked that. And then in middle school, she switched to athletics. You know, she became, and I wasn't an athletic mom. I wasn't a sports person. And she came home from school, I joined the field hockey team. And I'm like, I don't know anything about field hockey.

It's like, what do I do? Stand and ask the other moms, so what's this game? But yeah, that's how she was. She wanted to be involved in everything. Darian set big goals for herself, and she went for them with impressive dedication. Going to college was one of her biggest goals. She wanted to go to Bowdoin because she was a swimmer. Swimming was her real, her best sport.

She swam from middle through high school, and she was on a team that broke the record still hold, actually, over there in the South Portland Rec Center pool. So I think that's why, but when they used to swim at Bowdoin, the meets, she's like, I want to go to this school. So that's not really probably something we can afford. But she really made a goal of it. She's like, she wanted to go, and I only found out later, actually, when she did go, that she had been writing them

and getting information and her everything in high school was about going being able to go to college like she's participated in sports she really focused on studying she had to have perfect attendance you know this was all her it wasn't coming from with us but and she she had a job and she volunteered because she felt those were all the things that would help her and I you know she was our first child so we really didn't know about like colleges and I she only applied to that one college and people were like she only applied to one college well what are you going to do if she doesn't get in I'm like I didn't what are you supposed to I didn't know you're supposed to apply to like eight colleges. But she applied for early admissions and she was accepted. She loved it.

She enjoyed Bowdoin a lot. She made a lot of lifelong friends there. Darian made friends easily and she always saw the best in people. She was like a magnet. People were drawn to her, and that was something from like little. You know, she had this bright, big smile, and she had that always, and she would just smile, and she had this, like, people just would, you know, come to her, and everyone, if you, everyone was her best friend. If you talk to her friends, everyone will say that she was my best friend. She studied sociology and education at Bowdoin College, and Darian knew she wanted to be a teacher and work with kids. That dream came true after she graduated in 2006 and landed a job at Wayne Fleet, a private school in Portland's West End. She worked there a full year, but budget cuts ultimately eliminated her position,

and so Darian went to work in the Portland public school system, where Judy also worked. The experience was different, though. At the time, it was a day treatment center, and what Darian really wanted to do was teach elementary school students. And she needed to go back to school herself for that certification. As she explored the programs at the University of New England, Darian was recruited to work for Aetna Insurance. And it was a great in-between until she could get back to teaching. She was recruited by some friends.

They recruited her to Aetna. So she left the schools in 2008 and had been working most of 2009. Everything was going good. She had an apartment. She had a duplex on Radcliffe Street. It was huge. It was actually bigger than our house. It had three bedrooms upstairs and a huge living room, dining room. You know, it's just huge. And the landlord lives next door.

And see, that was another thing. I really felt very safe. I'm like, wow, she's living with a million lords next door. And we knew her roommates, of course, and she was happy and things were going well for her. That summer of 2009, Darian started dating a guy by the name of Corey Gerard. That summer she had gone with a bunch of friends on a canoe or a raft down the Saco River, which everyone does in Maine, right? And that's where, so friends, and then they met mutual friends, that's where she met Corey. End of summer, beginning of fall of 2009, she met Corey, who was, told her he was a student at St. John's in New York City. And he, more than that, he told her he was in the ROTC program. And so he was younger than her. We didn't really know them, but her friends knew him. Everyone said, he's an okay guy.

They started seeing each other. And even though, so he was always in New York at college, but he started coming home a lot. And she was actually a little bit flattered by that, I think. Like, this guy's driving back to see me on the weekend. And I was saying, don't you think it's weird that if he's in ROTC, he can come home so much? But, you know, she wasn't that kind of, she didn't dwell on things. It wasn't anything serious to her. It was like, well, you know, whatever.

He's got a plan, he's doing his thing, and she was happy with her friends and her roommates. It was Darian's nature to see the good in people, to take them on their word and give them grace, even when others may not be quick to do the same. She just only saw the good, and, you know, she would, actually she'd say, well, you're just too critical. It's like, the good and, you know, she would actually say, well, you're just too critical. It's like, because I'm always thinking, well, what's this? Well, just, you know, she just took people for their face value. Darian was with Corey Gerard on the night of January 8th and the early morning hours of

January 9th, 2010, when her life and the lives of the entire Richardson family changed forever. It was over Christmas break, so Corey was supposedly home, and he was over at her house staying there because he was home school break, which we were at that point starting to question. And it was a work night. It was a Thursday night.

So she had to go to work in the morning. She went home, I guess, at like 9 or probably after dinner. And then they went to bed. Darian's apartment was on Ratcliffe Street in the Deering Highlands area in Portland, where stately homes built in the early 1900s have either evolved into multi-unit apartment buildings while still maintaining their historic charm, or have remained single-family dwellings for Portland's upper-middle-class families. It's off the bustling Portland Peninsula, but still tightly packed and densely populated.

By Portland's definition, Ratcliffe Street and the Deering neighborhoods are a safe place to live. Though really, there are very few areas a Portland resident might deem as unsafe. Undesirable, maybe, but generally it's a quote-unquote safe, low-crime seaside city. When people picture vacation land, rarely does that mental image include gun violence and shootings. But that night in January 2010 proved that it can happen anywhere, even in the safest neighborhoods. 1 30 in the morning, she felt like someone was there. Like she could sense the bedroom.

Her bed was close to the door. And she felt someone there, and she kind of sat up, and she saw a figure, and then she saw two figures. And she saw someone, like, she said they were feeling the wall for like a light switch and there wasn't one because it was an old house that you're going to have to go in and pull the string so the light didn't come on and what she had said to me was she thought she felt like they were leaving she thought once she goes they kind of backed out and I sat up like this and then she said it felt like

one of the guys pushed the other guy in. And then she put her hand up like that. She heard just like this noise, and she said this light, and she's like, no, they shot me. And I went, her hand went like that, and it blew off her thumb. And then so she rolled off the bed, and then another bullet hit her on the right leg, entering by her knee, and it traveled up and lodged in her hip. Corey was rolled off the bed, too, and apparently, but he didn't get shot. So they just opened fire, and no one really saw him.

The two other roommates, of course, woke up when they heard the running, but no one saw anything. The police came, the ambulance came. She was taken to Maine Med and was immediately put in surgery. And they were trying to repair that. She had like a hole in her whole thumb. So the doctor was, he said it was like shredded spaghetti, he told her. And she had this big apparatus, so they were going to probably have to graph.

That was a goal, future goal, was probably to graph that piece back in there through some other bone. But in the meantime, the poor thing had this big metal apparatus going through her. That was just one of the injuries. The other injury was in her hip, and they were leaving it, but she kept bleeding out. So she was in ICU for, I think, three days. And then they moved her to upstairs, and she bled out even more. She ended up, they had to give her lots of blood. And then they, I guess that was a bad decision, they said.

They put her up there, and then they just, they left her. The nurse left her, and her sister was with her, because we were in the hospital all the time. And she said she had to go to the bathroom. I'm like, but she hadn't gotten up yet. You know, she had been down in ICU. And her sister took her to the bathroom, and she just collapsed and bled out. I thought we were going to lose to them. We huddled in as a family, I guess. I just stopped working. They just said, take your time.

People I worked with knew Darian. She worked there, so everyone was just distraught about what happened. But every night we'd have supper together there, and we'd watch comedies. We'd watch in the office. You know, just trying to make her safe. Our goal was we just wanted to get her healthy. We didn't want to, you know, of course you have to deal with the investigation

and the police were up there and, you know, but she was also, she was physically in a lot of pain in her hand and in her leg. And she also was, she was traumatized. She was, like, I stayed with her every night. She was traumatized of the dark. She was traumatized if the door was open or if it closed or if a loud noise. She was, she was afraid that she was going to bleed out. And, like, she would literally say,

Mom, will you keep watching my leg all night? So I would stay up all night looking just to appease her because I just wanted to make her feel safe. So, yeah. Darian's recovery was physically and emotionally painful. So then they moved her to what was, they call a critical care unit where you get more, someone's right outside your room watching. And she was there for three weeks. Then they put her on bed rest so she couldn't get up anymore,

and that was the problem. So she had this whole, the doctors couldn't figure out why she kept bleeding out. They said there's so many arteries in your legs. They can't even see them on, like, she had MRIs and CAT scans, and they weren't sure. And the doctors were disagreeing upon, like, if we go in and just do surgery, that could be a big risk and she could die. Or if we, you know, we just wait and see.

It was just, it was crazy. So what they did was they packed the wound and just waited until it healed. And so then she stopped bleeding out. And then she had to have physical therapy and walk again. But that didn't really solve the problem. We found out later. Meanwhile, investigators tried to make sense of the home invasion and shooting. Who could be responsible and why? Early on, it appeared Darian wasn't the

intended target. And so police took a closer look at her boyfriend, Corey. The investigation compounded Darian's trauma. But just as she did with everything else in her life, Darian gave it her best effort. Corey wasn't around because his parents had him go to his sister's, which was in Boston. And so he wasn't really helping or cooperating with the investigation. But we were just, we weren't as worried about the investigation at the time because we just thought we'll deal with that when she's healthier. And then she can, you know, if we don't, you know, we didn't want her to have any more hurt and trauma.

And, you know, and it was hard for her to have the police come in when they're not yeah they're not always uh the nice but she was doing what she could like she was also bedridden so like she did she found things on a computer that like cory had put she turned things over to the police we had someone of cory's friends popped up once to visit and then was asking questions and she called the police and said, you know, you should go talk to this guy. But then I think they didn't investigate it as a serious thing at the time. It was just like, okay, yeah, just the shooting and everyone's all right. They thought it wasn't a priority, I guess. And it didn't seem to be.

Doctors decided to leave the bullet in her hip. There would be more surgeries, more physical therapy, more steps to her recovery, but as soon as she could walk, Darian was cleared to go home. I was very concerned about that bullet being in her, you know, then.

But they said, oh, she'll be fine. She was young. She was healthy. You know, just walking, physical therapy. But this was February, you know, so she got out at the end of January. It was very end of January. So she came home. We're here.

We're, like, trying to walk around the neighborhood in February. It's just freezing. Poor girl. She was doing the right thing. She was doing all the right things. She went and got, she was going to therapy, behavior health, and she was seeing a psychiatrist for meds for, like, anxiety, but it was tough. She, you know, one night she was crying in her room,

and I could hear her because, oh. I could hear her, so I went and got in bed with her. And, you know, I'm like, she probably did a lot of that. She just, and that's what she was saying she goes I just don't I don't know people are gonna think of me like nobody's gonna think of you and she goes I didn't know like she didn't know this part of Corey and she was like why was I so foolish that I you know I'm like you're not the first woman to be fooled by a man by any means, you know, and it happens all the time, you know, a lot. So yeah, people don't, you don't see what people don't want you to see.

And she's not that kind of person. So she, you know, I guess didn't, didn't think someone would be that way to her, you know. And so that always got me. It was a hard, hard thing. She was embarrassed. She was worried about work. You know, here she was. Actually, right when she was in the ICU,

the first moment I saw her, she goes, you've got to call work. Tell them I'm not coming in. I'm like, I will, but let's not even worry about it. But people by that time had seen it on the news. It was already on the news. Even in the most challenging moments, Darian's light shone through. I wasn't all of her about that. I think she was because she did stay positive.

And she's just like, I remember one that. I think she was, because she did stay positive, and she's just like, I remember one night, and I think she was home, we were talking about Corey, and I said, because she had, you know, and there's some things she didn't know about him, and she didn't know, like he would throw off some money, and he did other things, and I said, we were talking, and I said, were talking and I said I noticed that

she I'm like why aren't you angry about this like I was angry and she's like and she just looked at me and she goes I don't want to live my life that way and I'm like well you're right but you know I just I couldn't I at that I couldn't see it was, I had so much anger that I just didn't understand why she was angry. But what, you know, but she's right. What are you going to do, right? You just have to, she just moved forward. As Darian Richardson progressed in her recovery, the investigation into the home invasion and shooting stalled.

Detectives considered the scene at the Ratcliffe Street apartment. No signs of forced entry. Her roommates were never bothered or shot, and nothing was stolen. However, Detective Mary Ann Bailey of the Portland Police told the Press Herald in 2011 that they did uncover physical evidence of the crime inside the apartment, but she did not get into specifics.

Doing so could have hampered the case. So although he wasn't cooperating, investigators were learning more and more about Darian's boyfriend, Corey Gerard. He was involved with illegal trafficking of OxyContin, a prescription narcotic pain reliever. With that, they determined that the shooting was likely drug-related. But Portland police were clear, Darian herself was not involved. But that seemed to be the extent of the information that the investigation revealed, at least at first. Judy felt as if the case wasn't investigated as seriously as it should have been at the time.

It was a home invasion and shooting, but everyone survived. On the last weekend of February 2010, almost two months after that night on Ratcliffe Street, that would no longer be the truth. By the end of February 2010, Darian was feeling well enough to travel, and doctors gave her the thumbs up to fly. She said that she wanted to get over a little getaway. It was supposed to be like a long weekend. And they were going to fly out of Boston, and I took them to the bus. And they, I thought, we all thought it was going to be a good idea because it was freezing here.

She had had this traumatic experience. She'd been in the hospital for a month. And so we just thought it would be a good thing for her to be out in the sun and maybe go down, lay in a pool, go to the beach. And they did do that. Just have warmth, sunshine. And we thought it would be good for her mental health too, You know, and just to feel sort of normal and being, you know, so it wasn't that big of a deal, we thought. But I know the press made a lot about that, like flying, but the doctor said it would be fine. It wasn't a long flight.

It was from Boston to Miami. It was just a couple hours. And I talked to her a lot. So I thought, well, it's not gonna be that. It'll be fine. And they were going to come back. Sean was going to come back with her. And then, you know, you got the call that she collapsed there. So we got a call from the hospital. So they took her to the hospital, and they wouldn't tell Chandra anything because she's not family. And the guy kept calling us, and it was, again, it was like a Saturday night,

but it was in the morning, like it was 1 in the morning or something like that. Phone's ringing. And I answered the phone, and he just kept saying, your daughter's in the hospital, you have to get here. And he wouldn't give us information on the phone. And so I'm like, I just got Wayne up, and I got Serena up, and we have to leave. And so I'm packing a bag, and Wayne's calling the airlines to get us a flight there.

And, you know, we just's calling the airlines to get us a flight there. You know, we're like, we just, you know, we kept telling ourselves, we get there and she's just going to have to be in the hospital again and everything. And the doctor kept calling back, but he wouldn't give me information. And I'm like, do you know him in Maine? And he's like, and then. So we had flights out, and then we look out the window, getting ready to go, and there's cops coming at the door. And we knew the cop. So they had told, they sent, I guess when people die,

they send it to the town that they live in, and they send a fax or whatever to them, and they came over to tell us in person. It's awful. Judy spoke with the medical examiner in Miami, Florida. They spent hours on the phone together. She knew exactly what it was. It was how they healed the outside, but she was still internally bleeding.

I said, well, was it because she flew? It would have happened anywhere, which was shocking too. She was with so many arteries, and I could see where, even though they stopped outside, it was just like circling. And it caused a pulmonary embolism and it was very, very sudden. She probably didn't feel anything and all that. She was fine one moment and next not. And that's what, I mean, I could, she was strong to say that, yeah, she was fine and then it was just like, quick.

With her death, Portland police heightened their attention on the case. So this home invasion becomes a homicide. And the police go get the bullet. So the medical examiner, she ruled it a homicide actually when she did her report, but they went and got the bullet and came back. The bullet that the doctors left in Darian's hip would prove to be a key piece of evidence in moving her case forward, though it would take some time for the ballistics testing

to make the connection to another shooting, also in Portland, while Darian was still alive. According to reporting by Trevor Maxwell for the Portland Press-Herald, a man named Dadoy Butsitsi pulled up and parked his car on Mellon Street near Park Avenue in Portland in the late morning of February 10, 2010. His then-roommate, Serge Malongo, approached the car and through the driver's side window started punching Buzizi. A witness pulled the men apart and asked what the fight was all about. Malongo said it was, quote, something bad, unquote, that happened the day before. That evening, the men got into another altercation. It ended when Bucitsi shot and killed Malongo. Investigators compared the shell casings and bullets from both Darian Richardson's shooting death and the death of

Serge Malongo. The ballistics results revealed an important piece of information. Police discovered that the gun used by Bucicci to kill Malongo, a.45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, was the same gun the intruder used to shoot and ultimately kill Darian Richardson. Investigators traced the existing sales records and background check information for that firearm and located its original retail sale. But the trail stopped there. They had told us that they had traced it as far as to the make and manufacture original and then where it was sold retail

and then the guy that bought it they've talked to that was the owner of record that did a background check was then he had said he had sold it soon after he bought it and he didn't remember who he sold it to he didn't do a check he didn't even remember what day he sold it on.

So they were basically telling us, they were in this big room with the chief and everyone else, that there's nowhere else to go with that. If they could find out who they got the gun from, they might be able to connect a few pieces, but they were at a standstill. Portland police determined that the murder weapon was initially legally purchased, but then resold to an unknown buyer at a private gun show.

In this type of transaction, a background check and other documentation of the buyer is not required. Detectives pressed Bucicci for information, but he refused to give specifics about where the gun came from. He would only say that he got it from a friend, private sale, or perhaps just an exchange between two individuals, which meant no background check, no information. Then-assistant police chief Vern Malock told the Portland Press-Herald, quote, Butzitzi is currently serving 38 years in prison on murder charges. He has yet to reveal anything about the firearm or otherwise that would end the search for answers in Darian Richardson's murder.

Linking the gun from Darian Richardson's murder to the murder of Serge Malongo a month later was the most significant development in the case that first year and a half. As they approached the two-year anniversary of Darian's death, Judy and Wayne were frustrated, more so they were heartbroken. And yet, they continued on the search for answers for their daughter. The Richardson family announced a reward for information leading to an arrest in Darian's case in 2012. The funds came from family and friends who said they didn't want people to forget the kind, beautiful, full-of-life woman they loved. Similar to the unsolved cases I've covered before, darian's family are the ones leading the effort to keep her memory alive and her case active it shouldn't be the family's doing it that's just

way too much there's no one there for us there's no one there to help you navigate all this stuff it shouldn't it shouldn't fall on the families it's's just wrong. It's too much. And it's just sad and it's overwhelming and it's consuming. You have to do it because no one else is doing it. In November 2014, police arrested Darian's former boyfriend, Corey Gerard, on a charge of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of marijuana. As reported by the Portland Press-Herald, the charges covered a span of several months, from October 24, 2009 to January 8, 2010, the night of the shooting.

The gun he possessed was not the gun used in the murder. The Richardsons were hopeful that Corey's incarceration might bring out new information, that he might be motivated to speak and share anything he was previously withholding about the intruder or intruders who shot their daughter. Corey's frustrating because he has not cooperated. And, you know, why isn't he? Technically, Corey's still a victim because, you know, he was there. Well, why isn't he?

Why isn't he fighting to get this solved? Why isn't he doing anything? And he's still alive. It's unclear why it took five years for those charges to be brought against Corey, and if they had any connection to the investigation into Darian's murder. To this day, Corey denies knowing who broke into the firearm that would ultimately become the murder weapon in Darian Richardson's case was obtained by what Portland police referred to as a loophole. In Maine and at the federal level, there is no law requiring a background check on the purchaser of a firearm

if the seller is not a licensed dealer. Police Chief Michael Soschuk told David Hench for the Portland Press-Herald that if private sellers were held to the same standards as gun shops when it came to record keeping and background checks, it would make possible better tracking of owners, which would be a crucial element to solving a homicide such as Darien's. Soschuk stated, quote, you have a weapon that's been used in two homicides in the city of Portland. As safe as the city is, and as safe as the state is, that falls smack in the middle of the gun show loophole debate, unquote. The so-called loophole debate centers on this. Anyone who has refused the sale of a firearm at a gun shop after a background check can go to a private gun show, pop open

Uncle Henry's classified ads, or any other form of private sale avenue, and buy a firearm without submitting to a background check. Background checks and other records kept in the sale of firearms would give law enforcement better information when investigating a crime. It would not prevent all private exchange of firearms or stolen guns, but it could minimize the transfer of firearms without records, therefore minimizing dead ends in criminal investigations. To Judy and her husband Wayne, it's a no-brainer for similar requirements

to apply to all methods of firearm sales. Closing this loophole has been one of the focuses of their advocacy following the loss of their daughter. We have a background check system, so I don't know why we have a loophole like that. It doesn't make sense. My husband Wayne, he's a hunter and he's a gun owner. We had guns. The kids grew up with guns. Darian would shoot with her dad and go on small hunting trips. She lost interest. You know, we thought we knew stuff about guns, but we didn't know that you could sell a gun without doing a background check.

In 2021, LD-999 went before the 130th Maine State Legislature. The bill, if enacted, would impose background checks only on gun sales at gun shows and advertised sales such as newspaper classifieds like Uncle Henry's, Craigslist, and others. It differed from a previously rejected referendum from 2016 because it would not require background checks for sales or transfers between friends, families, and loans for hunting and sport purposes or in emergency situations. The bill was also known as Darien's Law. Judy and Wayne Richardson were the public faces of the proposed legislation. If a law of this nature had been in place in 2010,

it's possible that the firearm used to murder Darien never would have landed in the hands of her still unknown killer. Though it's still not known if the gunman could have passed a background check to obtain a firearm from a licensed retailer, it is known that he didn't have to. He bought or otherwise received the gun without one, because it wasn't required. The opponents of this background check requirement pointed to the fear that the government would overstep. David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, told NewsCenter Maine, quote, there has to be a registry or some kind of database to ensure or enforce a position like that, and that scares a lot of people that

the government would know exactly how many firearms you own, where you live, and all that, unquote. Supporters, including the bill's sponsor, Representative Talbot Ross, maintained that the bill did not overstep, quote, it does not compromise our state's proud sporting heritage. It is, in fact, an incredibly small price to pay to save lives. Unquote. 82% of Maine's registered voters were in support of Darien's Law. However, LD-999 did not become law. Darien's Law, Lost in the House, 6777. It can happen to anybody. So we've been working on this issue for 10 years,

and I've never met anyone that said they knew it would happen to them. Everyone we know from the big mass shootings that are well publicized to people like us that were shot in a single incident, no one ever says, yeah, we knew it was going to happen. Everyone thinks it won't happen to them everywhere. But it does. Gun violence can happen anywhere and everywhere. Gun violence is happening here in Maine. And the numbers have increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Portland Police Department issued a news release on July

29, 2021, concerning ongoing investigations into multiple incidents of shots fired across the city. The release says, quote, while crime overall in the city declined last year and that downtrend continues again this year, there has been an extremely concerning increase in the use and discharge of firearms, unquote. Judy told me that there's a toll to gun violence and shootings that's not always recognized or understood until you walk through it yourself. There's death and loss, absolutely. For survivors, there's trauma, recovery, lifelong complications. That's the reason why they've used their voice to advocate for others. It's not just people that die from gun violence. It's like, and we learned that too.

Like Darian was going to be living with lifelong issues. She was going to have psychological issues for years. She was maybe going to lose that thumb. That was going to affect her work, her leg. You know, she was going to have lifelong physical issues. We know people that live with bullets and they move. As you age, you have to have further surgeries. You can't put a timeline and a figure on that, and people forget that.

People read, oh, there was a shooting and they survived non-life threatening. Anytime you shot with a gun, it could be life threatening. They can't say that. We, we have to do better. Darian's killer is still out there. We already lost the most important thing. And then, and now they can't, you have to have this hanging over your head. And, and you worry, you know, for a long time.

You worry about your other children. Am I worried about my daughter who looks like her sister? Because you don't know, right? We don't know the total story, really. Darian Richardson's homicide is still an unsolved case with the Portland Police Department. Now, it seems the case depends on certain individuals speaking up about what they know to connect the final pieces of this puzzle. We don't know if the guy knew and he's withholding that, but he can legally say that, right?

He legally did nothing wrong. But when you find out a gun you sold was used in two murders, are you going to tell? Are you going to help? Are you going to be fearful? I don't know. Maybe he truly doesn't know, but maybe he does. And that's just wrong.

So it's still at a standstill on the investigation, and it's all new police now. Most of the people that were originally involved on our case have gone from the department. You know, I do a lot of calling and emailing, keeping it out there. They asked us to put up a reward, and we did, and we don't have money, and we put up a reward, and then they asked us to increase it, reward and we did and we don't have money and we put up a reward

and then they asked us to increase it and we did. But then where is that? Do they advertise it? Do they use it? I don't know. I don't think it was investigated all that seriously at first. And they really just need to re-look at everything and just start over. You know, they have a gun. They have stuff, I would imagine. I don't know. I've asked for the file. I've asked to see everything.

I've still yet to see it, so I'll keep asking. The Richardsons continue their mission and advocacy in honor of Darian. Whatever forward motion they can inspire for safer, more responsible gun laws, whoever they can touch with her story, whenever they can support those who have experienced violent crime and loss, they do it. They have found meaning and purpose in that work. Judy and Wayne created Remembering Darian

to help innocent victims of violent crimes heal and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of incomprehensible violence. The non-profit organization is committed to advocating for victims and their families, as well as providing emotional support and resources required to help those affected by violent crimes find justice and peace in their healing journey. One of the reasons we started her foundation was because she was saying that like she had, she lost everything in one night. She couldn't work. She luckily worked for Aetna. She had a good insurance, but she's like, mom, what do people do?

Like she can't go back to her apartment. Her roommates couldn't go. Everyone, that disrupted everybody. That disrupted three people. She had to come home and live with us, which what if we, what if this happened to someone who doesn't have family or have room or have, you know, the means to support. People don't even, they discount the financial costs of things like gun violence and other violence. Everything is taken from you. You have to, you know, you start over. Everything was taken. Education was an important part of Darian's life. And so they honor her legacy with scholarships in Darian's name each year. We also do a scholarship. We've done a scholarship every year, so we're pretty proud of that one too because we've given so much money to kids.

Education was really important to her, and she really wanted to be a teacher. And she herself got a lot of scholarships. She went to a very expensive school. We couldn't afford it. And I remember watching her write those notes. I didn't have to tell her any of that. She would write thank-you notes to the people.

And I thought that was the first thing we did, was put up a scholarship we're proud of her all the time we're always proud of her I was proud I was a proud of her that whole thing about how she navigated her education I was proud of her just always we were really proud of her after the shooting and how she tried to work through it. We were always proud of her. Wherever you are right now, in your car on your way to work, getting your steps in on the treadmill,

churning through household chores while Darian's story plays in the background, I want you to pause and consider this. We cannot take lightly the trauma that can resurface when a family chooses to share the story of the loved ones they lost. When you listen to Darian Richardson's story, when you listen to any story on Dark Down East, I hope you are moved to take action, even tiny action, to support the families at the heart of each case. People need to know the emotional side. And when we started doing it, we didn't even realize it.

It was more like we were connecting. When Darian first was shot, all we wanted to do was talk to someone else who experienced it. And it is different. It it's different than I mean child loss is the worst thing a parent can go through but it is different if it's violent or if it's you know by another person and it helps to talk to other people but it is emotional you take on everybody's story and you know what it's like and people have to you really have to that's how that's what empathy is. We don't want sympathy.

I don't talk or post about things because I want people to have sympathy for me. It's not it at all. I want people to know what it's like and that others know. And if you're going through it, someone else knows what it's like. I didn't have that when it happened. I didn't know anybody here that had that happen. And that's an important thing, to talk with someone that understands really.

Share Darian Richardson's reward flyer on social media. Seek out your own learning on the background check loophole and the issues central to this case and others. It's the least we can do for Judy, for the Richardson family, and the surviving loved ones of victims of violent crimes. Darian is absolutely everywhere you look in the Richardson home. Judy handed me a framed poem that Darian wrote her as a gift one year. Her neat and curly cursive handwriting described all of her favorite things about her mother, and the words were surrounded by a collage of mother-daughter photos that she cut and pasted together. Judy smiled down at it as if it were the

first time she had ever read the words. She was always happy. She was the kind of person that, that's just her demeanor. She was happy. She lived in the moment. Could be even reading a book at Darien Daring Oaks one afternoon, which is something she would do sometimes. Oh, today I'm going to go and read a book and sit in the sun. Just

little things. I try to be more like her now, like living in the moment. I was never like that living in the moment person like she is, or appreciating all the, I mean, as much as she was. You know, like she just really was happy all the time. Even when what happened to her, she tried. She really put on a brave face, and it was remarkable to me.

And just her, she really cared about society, you know, sociology major and, and people and her friends and, and she loved life. And she's like, she didn't want to miss a moment of it. The family and friends of Darian Richardson are offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person or persons responsible for her death. Anyone with information regarding Darian Richardson's murder is asked to contact the Detective Division of the Portland Police Department at 207-874-8479 or at portland-police.com. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Source material for this episode is listed at darkdowneast.com. Judy, thank you for sharing your memories and stories of Darian with me. Be sure to follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts

and turn on automatic downloads in the top right corner of the app so you never miss an episode. If you listen on another app like spotify same thing be sure to hit follow that's the easiest way to support this show and the cases i cover for photos and more information visit darkdowneast.com and follow along on facebook and instagram 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 am not about to let those names or their stories

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