Dark Downeast - The Suspicious Death of Christopher Roof, the Stacyville John Doe (Maine)

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

MAINE JOHN DOE, 2010: For years, he was known only by the name stitched into the blue and white striped knit hat he was wearing. Chris, the Stacyville John Doe.Now, nearly 11 years later, the man known only by his first name has his identity back, thanks to a woman who heard his description on a podcast and trusted her gut.This is the story of Christopher Roof, told with the help of Sydney Copp and Alex MacDougall, on Dark Downeast. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/christopherroofFollow @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.

For years, he was known only by the name stitched into the blue and white striped knit hat he was wearing. Chris, the Staceyville John Doe. Now, nearly 11 years later, the man known only by his first name has his identity back. Thanks to a woman who heard his description on a podcast and trusted her gut. Nobody else is making this connection to my knowledge. If this is him, I got to be the one to call it in. And as news of the new development broke, one Northern Maine reporter started digging

into the case. He discovered that this wasn't the first unexplained disappearance and death in the family. But I decided I would just do some digging. You know, I basically stumbled upon it. I was like, wow, this actually goes pretty deep. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the story of Christopher Roof, told with the help of Sydney Kopp and Alex McDougall on Dark Down East. On November 4th, 2010, deer hunters were walking the wooded area off Route 11 in Stacyville, Maine. The woods were quiet, save for the sounds of boots on leaves and the breath of men in their blaze-orange eyes trained for movement in the forest. Staceyville lies at the foot of Mount Katahdin in Penobscot County, but it's almost close enough to throw a rock into a rustic county.

For anyone who grew up and went to school in Maine, you were likely assigned Don Fendler's book Lost on a Mountain in Maine, which documented his days, well, lost on a mountain in Maine, until he was found in Staceyville. On that November 4th morning in 2010, someone else was found in Stacyville, too. The deer hunters had found the badly decomposed remains of a middle-aged man. Game wardens and state police detectives worked together to investigate the scene, and the remains were transported for autopsy the next day. Officials said there were no signs of foul play as they began to compare his description to missing persons reports in the area.

Twelve days later, with no positive ID made through missing persons reports, Maine State Police chose to release the full description of the remains in hopes that someone would recognize the man. He was believed to be in his 50s, and was 5 feet 9 inches tall and about 150 pounds. The man was wearing a blue and white plaid button-down long-sleeve shirt from Vineyard Vines, a pair of St. John's Bay khakis with a 33-inch waist and 30-inch inseam, and a brown St. John's Bay khakis with a 33-inch waist and 30-inch inseam and a brown St. John's Bay canvas jacket. His shoes were New Balance, size 10, and near his body was a black briefcase containing three empty bottles of juice and water, two bottles of bug spray, and a brown sweater.

Then there was the hat, a blue and white striped knit beanie with the name Chris stitched in all capital letters on the brim. The Bangor Daily News published a photo of the hat. It was distinctive and probably homemade by the looks of it. Maybe someone would recognize it. But a month passed, and nobody did. While the description did generate some leads, police told the Bangor Daily News that they had nothing solid to identify the man. A year later, still nothing. Then-state police spokesman Steve McCausland told Jen Linz at the BDN, quote, There has been no new information in the case that I am aware of.

There are no significant leads. Unquote. For over a decade, the man known only as Chris, the Staceyville John Doe, remained unidentified. No one came forward to identify his remains. Media coverage faded out after 2012. Meanwhile,

300 miles away in Concord, Massachusetts, people were asking, where is Mr. Roof? The Facebook group popped up in January of 2011. The first post on it reads, Do you all remember Mr. Roof? He was a substitute teacher in middle school and high school. Well, we got this email this week, I work at Alcott, from Doc Furry saying, He's missing and no one, family or friends, has seen or heard from him since August 30, 2010. There are a few teachers looking for him.

He last lived in Nashua, New Hampshire, but they are unable to find a missing persons report because of some nonsense. They said he had fallen on hard times and was preparing to be homeless. The real estate company that ran his apartment said that he had turned in his apartment key at the end of August. They had nothing but good things to say about him, as did the people at the Peddler's Daughter, a local restaurant where he frequently ate. I know you are all busy, but since we all live and work all over the place, just wanted to say keep your eyes open, just in case. Or keep him in your thoughts.

He was a really nice guy. As the membership grew, the feed of posts was filled with concerned comments. Someone said they'd actually seen Mr. Roof in Nashua in the summer of 2010, and he looked to be carrying on in good spirits, they said. But one question that kept surfacing in the flurry of activity in the group was why he was never reported missing. If his family hadn't seen him since August of 2010, and this was now January 2011, as the first post noted, why didn't they file a report? Now before your mind begins swirling, let me pause you right there. In our world of true crime podcasts and Netflix specials and bingeable content,

we might be quick to assume nefarious motivations there. But from what I gather, as it relates to Mr. Roof's disappearance and the lack of a missing persons report, it's very well possible a disappearance was something he chose. Members of the group considered what Mr. Roof would have wanted. Someone wrote, It's moving to see everyone's concern and memories of Mr. Roof, and it is certainly alarming that he has disappeared. At the same time, I think we should consider the possibility that he doesn't want to be found.

If we publish an ad or write letters to Nashua newspapers expressing concern and or publish an article in the Concord Journal about his disappearance, noting that his former students are concerned and remember him fondly, the news will get to him if he wants to, assuming he's safe, that is. Concord, Massachusetts, where Christopher Roof was from, was also the hometown of Henry David Thoreau. Among Thoreau's many celebrated and notable works was his book, Walden. The simplified description of that text is that Thoreau lived in a cabin in the woods for two years, two months, and two days, reflecting on simple living among nature.

Thoreau writes, quote, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came Did Mr. Roof follow in the steps of the man his hometown was most known for? It was all just conjecture, theories, questions asked by people concerned. The posts were frequent in the first few days of the group, and then years passed with nothing. One comment here and there over a decade asking for updates, but there were no updates to share. Until September 2021. I am an educator in Vermont. I teach middle school and I grew up in Concord, Massachusetts in the First Parish Church, which was also Mr. Garouf's church. And it was a very community upbringing there. It wasn't very religious.

Unitarians can sort of believe whatever they want, but it was very steeped in the town's history. And it was just, it was another sort of community spot for me and my family. My dad sang in the choir. He still does. And so I always knew him as a church member, you know, so for as long as I could remember.

Sydney Kopp also remembers Mr. Roof as her favorite substitute teacher, from kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade. We just loved having him as a teacher. I mean, it was just like, Oh my God, Mr. Roof is here. And he just was so kind and caring and we could get away with things. And he was really nice about it. And, you know, so we definitely took advantage of his kindness as kids with a substitute teacher, but he just was always really good hearted. And, you know, we, we didn't love having him so we could take advantage of him, but he just was always really good-hearted and, you know, we didn't love having him so we could take advantage of him, but we, you know, just, he just was the best. He just

was the greatest guy that, you know, we could have if our regular teacher wasn't going to be there for a day. She first heard that her favorite substitute teacher hadn't been seen in months on Facebook. Sidney wasn't a member of the Facebook group dedicated to finding him, not yet. But as the Facebook algorithm is apt to do, the post landed on her feed anyway. We just, for like the three weeks that it was active, in January of 2011, it was just sort of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. Like, no way, not him. And he was so great. And a lot of just like outpouring of just thoughts and memories. And then some people were saying, you know, could we crowdsource and get a private investigator or should we call soup kitchens and shelters? And, you know, I think some of that did happen through the network

of people in the group. A reporter from the Concord Journal posted that she was working on an article about Christopher Roof, if she could get enough information about him. But this is kind of where the group's well-meaning efforts paused. But it was when the group wanted to go public and, you know, get a story for the Concord Journal, I think, that somebody did reach out to the family and that the family had, you know, asked that the group not go public because knowing his character, he was a guy who liked to go walking in the woods, who maybe wanted to go into the woods and live alone at this point in his life. And so it just wasn't out of character necessarily, even though, even if it was a little bit, you know, confusing or mysterious. I don't think anybody in the group, you know, kind of pushed back, you know, like obviously we're going to, the family knows him way better than any of us would have. So, you know, we respected that.

Still, her missing substitute teacher stuck with her. The group activity fizzled out, and the years passed. But Sydney would Google Mr. Roof's name every once in a while to see if maybe he'd popped up somewhere, if new works had been published by his name. She was searching for Christopher Roof, but what she didn't know to search for was an unidentified John Doe, until the John Doe's description found her. Well, it was, you know, 10 plus years since the group had been formed,

since the flag was raised. And I was listening to the podcast True Crime BS by Josh Hallmark. And I was, I mean, I was on season four. This is, I was very invested in his reporting about this other case and this other crime or series of crimes. And so this came up totally, I mean, I don't know, randomly is the word, but it was, it was toward the end of an episode. Again, I'm in season four. The only thing that really made me think about him was the description of the clothing.

The way that they started describing what was then termed the Staceyville John Doe as maybe having been from higher means. So it was sort of like, oh, okay. And then they described the clothing and button down and the khakis and sort of like, yep, yep, that checks sort of as I'm thinking in my head.

This could be, I don't know, maybe he you know, maybe he went to Maine, maybe to Mr. Roof. And then talked about his new ballot sneakers and his dress socks, which just seemed like something Mr. Roof would have worn. Or maybe he did. And I have that memory in my head. I don't know. It just felt right. And then the Chris hat and the satchel with a sweater in it and, you know, cranberry juice and water. It all just seemed very, you know, benign, very almost like, I don't know, innocent in a way of just the character of Mr. Roof.

It was just sort of his uniform, his sort of demeanor just fit these clothes. Sydney Kopp had a gut feeling about it. But I think like anyone might feel in this unique situation, she wasn't sure if she should act on that gut feeling right away. So it took me, though, many months before I actually called the Maine State Police because I felt like this is too random. This podcast is about a totally different thing. It has nothing to do with Mr. Rue for my search in any way, but it just felt like maybe this was the missing puzzle piece. There's no way to tie this unidentified person, this Stacey Vildo, to him because he's not reported missing.

There was no way of making that connection. So I finally kind of convinced myself, and talking to other people and sharing this hunch that I had, I got enough encouragement that I was like, nobody else is making this connection to my knowledge. If this is him, I got to be the one to call it in and make the tip, even if I felt a little uncomfortable and I felt like it's kind of a, you know, a long shot. Certainly felt like a long shot. But I just eventually, I just felt like I had to.

I mean, if it was him, I had to call it in. In all the unsolved cases I cover, I share ways to take action and to report tips and information that could help solve a case. But I've never really spoken to anyone who has submitted a tip. I was curious about Sydney's experience.

Did they take her seriously seriously or was she dismissed? The pleasant surprise was that, I mean, the first, when I called in, first you're talking to a desk sergeant who's just taking a message. So, you know, I don't remember exactly what I said, something along the lines of, you know, I think I have information to identify this John Doe. And I think they asked a little bit and I might've said something about a podcast. And so right there, I'm like, gosh, I hope, I hope they take me seriously. Cause you know, the true crime world is blown up in terms of popularity and the amount of content out there. So we did another follow-up interview and like immediately he he was on the phone trying to find out whether you know this address and this phone number for Christopher Roof living in Massachusetts seemingly was him but I had given him I given the detective his

sister's name and so he said to me all right I, I'm going to call this number. And you know, if it's him, I was like, great. If it's him, case solved. Like, wow. Like he's alive and well, that would be amazing. But he said, if it's not him, I'm going to call his sister. So he followed up with me. The detective followed up about an hour and a half later and texted me and said, I just spoke with his sister and she hasn't heard from him since August of 2010. And she's coming to Maine at the end of the month and we're going to get a DNA swab from her to see if it's a match. Just like that. That was like within, that was like within two hours of speaking to the detective.

It was already on, you know, it was taken obviously immediately seriously and enough that his sister agreed to participate. So everything just worked out, you know, better than I could have expected in terms of taking my, I-a-podcast tip and actually moving on it. The sister of Christopher Roof gave her DNA sample, and it was compared to the profile of the Stacyville John Doe. However, Sidney told me that the type of DNA collected from the remains could not be compared to Christopher Roof's sister. Instead, they needed a brother or a parent to provide a sample. Christopher Roof's brother was able to send his sample to Maine for testing. Meanwhile, a forensic anthropologist also examined the bones for further confirmation of the identity.

And it was a match. Staceyville John Doe was Mr. Christopher Roof, substitute teacher and church member from Concord, Massachusetts, last seen in August of 2010, just over two months before his remains were found in Staceyville, Maine. Christopher Roof had his identity back, and Sidney Kopp played a crucial role in it all. Maybe it was sadly satisfying. Obviously, it's like, yay, mystery solved, but it's not really cause for great excitement or celebration other than, you know, now we can put together a memorial and we can celebrate his life and we can talk more about who he was and read his poetry.

And I just know that the people who loved him are happy to have closure and to be able to, I think, mourn and, like I said, celebrate who he was to all of us. If you take anything from this story, let it be this. The importance of speaking up, of trusting your gut, of calling the tip line, even if it takes a few months to feel confident in the information you believe you have. Maybe it doesn't lead to anything, but what if it does? What if that detail, however inconsequential it may seem, could be the missing piece that brings closure to a family still searching for answers? The detective said, you know, we have to follow up on every tip. I mean, they do. So I don't think we would have ever solved this had you not called it in. He gave me a lot of credit and I give him a lot of credit. Christopher Roof was born on April 24, 1951 in Concord, Massachusetts. His education and career was dedicated to literature and creative writing and poetry.

His biography on the Concord Library website notes that he was a teacher at his alma mater, Emerson College, as well as at Concord Carlyle High School, and a Sunday school teacher at the First Paris Church in Concord. Christopher Roof self-published many books of children's poetry, as well as a coloring book, and he edited several books by Bill Montague. The poetry, though, that's what left a lasting impression on Sidney Copp. So this one is called The Gift. Today is my birthday. What is this? A present with a card to Chris. It's on the table near my bed. The box is white. The ribbon's red. I open it and seconds flat. An hour glass. Well, fancy that. I take it out. Upon the base, there is the image of a face. Its whole

expression, saturine. The craftsmanship is very fine. Without a doubt, the face exhorts. The glass possesses four supports. Upon the upper part, I read this proverb, and I quote, take heed, for time is ever on the wing. It is an interesting thing. I hold the object in my hand. I turn it over, watch the sand go streaming down the golden grains,

diminishing till none remains. For kids, you know, the cadence and the rhythm and the poetry of it was very sort of easily palatable. I don't know, you know, it's sort of like, oh, it's fun. And it's, but as I read it now, of course, I see much more like the spirituality of his deep sense of nature and, and just life in general. He just, he leaves the impression of sort of a sage inner calmness. And just, he just exuded that to us, like kindness.

And if we got out of control, the worst thing he'd say was hooligans, you know, so just this sweet man, but obviously with a lot of depth that we as children could not know. The positive ID of Christopher Roof in Stacyville, Maine in mid-September 2021 came at a particularly busy time for crime headlines both locally and nationally. We were coming off of the media blitz surrounding the Gabby Petito case, and were still watching and waiting as Dog the Bounty Hunter searched for her former fiancé Brian Laundrie. The remains of

Annalise Heinig were discovered in Falmouth after nearly two years of searching. Two separate discoveries of human remains at landfills in New Hampshire and Maine were keeping state detectives busy. And amongst it all, the Maine State Police announced, via a short press release, the news about Christopher Roof. The cause of death was listed as undetermined. And that was really it for details. The story landed on the desk of Holton Pioneer Times journalist Alex McDougall. He was tasked with learning more about the man who finally had his identity back. How this story ended up on my radar is the Maine State Police basically, once they ID the body as belonging to Christopher Roof, they basically just put out a

small press release statement saying, you know, we've ID'd the body as Christopher Roof from Massachusetts. And it doesn't really include any more information other than that. So then my editor took it to me and said, can you find out more about this case? You know, can you find out anything? And so I just didn't really give me any leads to work with, but I decided I would just do some digging. You know, I basically stumbled upon, I was like, wow, this actually goes pretty deep. In the next episode of Dark Down East, Christopher Roof's cause of death remains undetermined. And so does his mother's death decades earlier. I'll speak with Alex McDougall of the Bangor Daily News and Holton Pioneer Times about the discoveries he made while digging into the case of Christopher Roof. And we'll take a look at a case from away, the undetermined death of Christopher Roof's mother, Marcia Moore. all highlight several active searches for missing Mainers, and together, we will boost the signal for the families still looking for their loved ones.

Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Source material for this case is listed at darkdowneast.com. Thank you to Alex McDougall and Sydney Kopp for your help in telling these stories. 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, same thing, hit follow. That is the easiest way to support this show and the cases I cover. And if you would like to leave a review or a star rating, that is a huge help. For photos and more information on this case and others, visit darkdowneast.com and follow along

on Facebook and Instagram at Dark Down East. 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.