Dark Downeast - The Suspicious Death of Patricia Wing (Maine)

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

MAINE, 1958: Patricia Wing hadn’t been seen in over 24 hours, not since the afternoon of Tuesday, June 3, 1958. As a 29-year old mother of five, it was highly unusual. Her husband Wendell and her youngest son Harvey were both home sleeping that afternoon, but Patricia left no clues, no indication that when she left the house that day it would be for the last time.The case that unraveled from that June afternoon would reveal secrets kept from spouses, an imperfect investigation in a small, rural county, and a compelling case by the defense that is still questioned to this day. Was it all an unfortunate accident? View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/patriciawingFollow @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.

The bloodhound's nose sniffed at the ground with furious concentration, tracing a path from the Wing's kitchen and out the back door of their home on Church Street in Oakland, Maine. But just as quickly as he caught scent of the trail, the dog stopped. At the edge of the pavement on Water Street, the trail disappeared. Patricia Wing hadn't been seen in over 24 hours. As a 29-year-old mother of five, it was highly unusual. Her husband, Wendell, and her youngest son, Harvey, were both home and sleeping that afternoon, and a sink full of dirty dishes remained from the lunch she'd just made for her four older children. But beyond that, Patricia left no clues,

no indication that when she left the house that day, it would be for the last time. The case that unraveled from that June afternoon would reveal secrets kept from spouses, an imperfect investigation in a small rural county, and a compelling case by the defense that is still questioned to this day. Was it all a big, unfortunate accident? I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Patricia Wing on Dark Down East. It was noontime on Tuesday, June 3rd, 1958, and all five of the Wing children were home for lunch. Their mother, Patricia Wing, made each of them their sandwiches,

and they ate them with gusto, and then the four oldest, James, Penelope, Michael, and Taffy, returned to school after their meal. As she always did in the afternoon, Patricia put her youngest, Harvey, down for a nap. Patricia's husband, Wendell Wing, was also home at the time, though he was asleep. I imagine her shushing the kids around the lunch table, hoping not to stir their sleeping papa bear. Wendell was a truck driver with main freightways.

His overnight hauls meant he had a nocturnal sleep schedule, and so after arriving home earlier that morning and briefly greeting his wife as she started her day, he turned in for some shut-eye. Just before 3 p.m., Wendell's eyes flickered open. He listened for his wife downstairs, but the house was noticeably silent. He rubbed the midday grogginess out of his eyes and lumbered down the hall, peeking into his son's bedroom. Harvey was still sleeping. And as he stepped into the kitchen, he noticed the first clue that something wasn't right. The sink. It was still full of dishes. Patricia was a particular

housekeeper. She never would have left dishes in the sink. He checked the rest of their home and looked outside, but there was no sign of his wife. Wendell phoned the police to report Patricia missing. Two days passed, and they didn't have a single clue as to where Mrs. During the early afternoon of Thursday, June 5th, 1958, residents of Martin Stream Road in Fairfield noticed a man walking, staggering really, on his way up the road. He was missing a shoe and his shirt and appeared to only be staying upright with the support of a stick in his hand. The man knocked on the door of one home and asked for some water and to use the phone, but the man inside, Roland Gagnon, turned him away. He then shuffled to the next house, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Labrie. He introduced himself, though somewhat incoherently, as Everett E. Savage Jr.

He was the vice president of the Parker Danner Company, a heavy equipment sales company based out of Massachusetts. He'd been with the company for 10 years and was assigned to the Oakland area for the previous two years. Angelina Labrie assessed the man. His clothing was coated in dust and stains, and though he appeared weak and a little lame, she said, he was polite. Angelina gave him a glass of water. As Everett explained, he was supposed to be home by Tuesday afternoon. Mrs. Labrie told Everett it was Thursday, and he asked, what has happened to Wednesday? The Labrees called Everett's wife to come pick him up, and as they waited, Everett continued talking. Mrs. Labree said that Everett explained he had left a friend in his car, and that he was still in the car,

though the vehicle wouldn't run because of a bad battery. Mrs. Savage arrived to pick up her husband soon after, with one of Everett's co-workers, Carl Colby. Upon first glance of her husband, Mrs. Savage was immediately concerned, and as he continued to ramble through his rough recollection of the two days prior, her worry grew. Mrs. Savage brought her husband home, but with his behavior and stories and physical condition, she determined he needed medical attention. Now, he'd been known to suffer from blackout spells from time to time, and while doctors were unable to find anything medically wrong with him in the past, this seemed to be a severe occurrence. Mrs. Savage brought her husband to the Augusta State Hospital, a facility dedicated

to the treatment of mental illness at the time. Everett was admitted-worker Carl, who had helped Mrs. Savage retrieve her incapacitated husband that afternoon, suspected that the company car he was known to drive might reveal more about where Everett had been the last 48 hours. And the car was still unaccounted for, but Carl assumed that if they looked where Everett was found wandering, they might be able to find it. He and another Parker Danner employee, Harry Jackson, contacted the Skowhegan police barracks and requested help searching for the green late-model Cadillac. State Trooper Eugene McCaffrey joined the pair on their search. The search for the car started in Waterville but expanded to Oakland, Fairfield, and the dirt roads of surrounding towns. Around 3.45 p.m. that Thursday, June 5th, the men were walking along a tote road just off the Horn Hill Road in Fairfield Center in search of the company car.

A tote road, if you're not familiar with the terminology, is a rough path cut into a heavily wooded area. It was once used in logging to transport supplies into the forest and lumber out of it. It's not unusual to come across these while exploring the great outdoors in the state of Maine, and while some may be easily navigated in a car, others are better left to exploration on foot or by ATV. About 75 yards down this tote road, they found the car they were searching for. It was idle and parked with the hood flung up. When they got closer, they realized the car was not empty. A woman appeared to be kneeling on the floor with her head resting on the back seat.

The men hollered to Trooper McCaffrey, who was lagging a bit behind, to come and take a look at what they'd found. It was clear this woman was dead. McCaffrey radioed the discovery into the Skowhegan State Police barracks. As first responders and detectives arrived on the scene, they determined that the woman had been dead 36 to 48 hours before they found her there. She had abrasions on her nose, eyes, and forehead, and significant trauma to her head and eye, which caused a cranial hemorrhage, according to the later autopsy. Oakland Police Chief Halton Grant, who'd been part of the search for the missing mother of five, identified the body as that of Mrs. Patricia Wing. Found in the car with her body was a man's

shirt and one shoe. Patricia was nude, except for a man's coat draped over her shoulders. The Horn Hill Road is eight miles from Patricia's home in Oakland. The wooded glen and dirt road was well known as a hush-hush lover's lane. A small shack nearby, with two dirty bunks and littered with trash, was of particular interest to investigators. However, it was difficult to determine if it was in any way connected to Patricia and whoever killed her due to the state that shack was in. The car's engine wouldn't start at the time of discovery, and so state police had it towed and impounded as evidence. The man found wandering and disoriented two miles away from his company car with Patricia's body inside, it's not that much of a stretch to connect Everett Savage to the death of Patricia

Wing. And so not one day later, the county attorney issued a warrant for the arrest of Everett Savage. When I first started researching Patricia's story, honestly, it felt like an open and shut case. But the more I dug, the more I uncovered. And the more I questioned what actually happened to the 29-year-old Maine mother, and who, or what, was truly responsible for her death. Everett was questioned while still in the hospital on the night of June 5th. It was certainly a different era of media. The Bangor Daily News published a photo of Everett in his hospital bed,

staring blankly into the camera with pronounced dark circles under his eyes. This bedside interrogation would later be called into question at his trial, the defense protesting the admission of Everett's statements in the hospital as evidence. He was in no shape to speak to police at the time. He was still dazed from whatever ordeal he'd endured over the previous two days. Anything he told police during that initial interrogation couldn't have been done in his right mind. Even one of the questioning officers admitted that Everett appeared confused. But the statements Mr. Savage made from his hospital bed fueled the state's case against him. As his wife sat beside him, Everett explained that there was a man's body in the car, a friend of his. But when Mrs. Savage

left the room, Everett admitted that he knew the body belonged to Patricia Wing. However, Everett stopped short of admitting he had anything to do with her body being there. He told authorities he didn't remember anything from that day or night, or why he was walking along the Martin Stream Road half barefoot and shirtless without any recollection of the previous two days. He certainly didn't remember killing Patricia, and he couldn't even account for his whereabouts between 5.30pm Tuesdaym. Tuesday, June 3rd, and Thursday afternoon of June 5th. Whether he remembered it or not, the evidence was compelling, and the state felt they had their man. After some delay due to his hospital stay and ongoing

treatment, Everett Savage Jr. was eventually taken into custody and awaited trial for the murder of Patricia Wing. The murder trial of Everett Savage Jr. began in October of 1958. During the trial, Somerset County Attorney W. Philip Hamilton detailed the connection and relationship between Mrs. Patricia Wing and her accused killer, Mr. Everett Savage Jr. Two summers earlier, not long after Everett began working in the Oakland area, he spotted a beautiful woman walking from her house in a bathing suit for a day by Messolonsky Lake. Not a single report about Patricia Wing could avoid mention of her obvious beauty, and so, captured by her appearance, Everett followed her and introduced himself, striking up a conversation. The relationship

between Everett and Patricia, the state said, sparked from that one-chance meeting on a Maine summer afternoon. But Patricia didn't know Everett by that name. A postal worker from Waterville testified for the state, explaining that the man on trial known as Everett Savage had a post office box under the alias Carl York. A letter addressed to a Carl York was found pressed between the pages of a book in the Wing home. Everett admitted to an intimate relationship with Patricia over the two and a half years since that chance meeting, but the family of Patricia Wing did not take lightly to the stories and allegations of the woman they knew as a loving wife and devoted mother of five. Patricia's mom told the Sunday Herald, quote, all you had to do was look at her hands to see that she was a homemaker. I know nothing about this affair with Savage. I think

it's just a mess of lies. He killed my daughter, and now he's trying to blacken her reputation to save his own skin, unquote. Patricia's husband Wendell told the same paper, quote, I know there'll be lots of stories going around. There always is when these things happen, but I'm not buying them. She was a wonderful wife and mother, unquote. The prosecution held that Mrs. Patricia Wing died as the result of a blow to the face and eye, leading to subdural hemorrhage and resulting in the inhalation of foreign matter in her throat,

ultimately causing asphyxiation. Their argument, however, had its weak points. They couldn't prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Everett himself delivered that blow to her face. They said only, quote, he must have struck her, unquote. In Everett's statements, including the vague and confused answers during that hospital interrogation, he told police, quote, if you say she was struck, I must have done it, as I was the only one there, unquote. That's not exactly a confession. Further, the state stretched for a motive for any such violence against her. They pointed to the position of her body when she was found, nude and kneeling in the back of the car.

They suggested it must have meant that she denied Everett a particular sexual act, which caused him to strike Patricia in anger. The defense sat with enormous patience, preparing to challenge the case that the state seemed so confident in presenting. This wasn't a crime of an angered lover, a quote-unquote love play slaying as the prosecution wanted the jury to believe, and if police had done their job well, the defense argued, they would have come to an entirely different conclusion as to what happened to Patricia Wing in the company car of Everett

Savage. In fact, they argued, this would not be a murder trial at all. Seasoned defense counsel Ernest Goodspeed Sr. called into question the competency of the police force responsible for investigating the crime. Quote, I think highly of the state police force, but I must point out that there is something wrong in the way we are investigating crime in the state of Maine today. Unquote. The missteps, he argued, were rooted in the initial crime scene processing and the first autopsy. When Carl and Harry, accompanied by the state trooper, first came upon the scene of the green Cadillac with Mrs. Wing's body inside, though not running, the ignition was switched to the on position, and the air conditioning controls were on and up. The windows were tightly shut. If the state pathologist conducting the autopsy on Patricia had known these circumstances, he would have known to test for carbon monoxide poisoning. That, the defense argued, was the true cause of death of the young mother of five. Goodspeed said, quote,

If there had been coordination between the investigative duties of authorities at the scene and the pathologist, there never would have been a charge of murder brought against Everett Savage, unquote. As reported by Len Harlow for the Bangor Daily News, Goodspeed used the ongoing World Series as a metaphor for the lack of coordination between the two agencies responsible for the criminal investigation. A ball, hidden to the outfield, landed between two fielders, allowing extra bases for the team at bat. If the two fielders had coordinated, they would have caught the ball. The defense went so far as to have the body of Patricia Wing exhumed for further testing to support their carbon monoxide theory. Their key witness, a chemist from Newburyport, Massachusetts, testified that Patricia's body contained 25%

saturation of carbon monoxide gas. That was even two and a half months after she died. I did my own surface-level research on this, as it's not detailed clearly in the reports and case documents I was able to obtain for the research of this case. And according to the Mayo Clinic Laboratories, concentrations of carbon monoxide greater than 20% are associated with symptoms of toxicity like headache, fatigue, dizziness, confusion, nausea, vomiting, increased pulse, and respiratory rate. CO levels greater than 50% are potentially fatal. The carbon monoxide poisoning, they argued, also explained Everett's own delirium and bizarre state when he stumbled onto the doorstep of homes nearby in search of water and a telephone. Mechanics also testified for the defense, and the theory of the car filling with carbon monoxide started to sound more probable. Two separate mechanics who inspected the Cadillac in question identified a few irregularities in both

the engine bay and the exhaust pipe, as well as a missing plug in the trunk of the car where the spare tire would be. A wrong-sized tube paired with a flange leading to an air duct meant that any gas from the engine would have likely been pulled into the cabin of the car by the air conditioning circulator. Further, a missing plug for a spare tire in the trunk lined up almost perfectly with two holes in the car's exhaust pipe. It wasn't hard to see how elevated levels of carbon monoxide would have found their way into the vehicle. The defense told a different story of two people engaged in consenting sexual acts with the windows shut and air conditioning cranked up. It was summer after all. The idling car could have been filling with toxic gas, and it led to rapid intoxication of both Patricia

and Everett. They argued that Patricia could have been alive for up to 12 hours after initially losing consciousness. The pathologist indicated this all could have been possible. Everett was able to exit the car, though in a confused blackout state due to the high concentration of carbon monoxide in his body. Everett himself took to the stand in his own defense, calmly detailing the events he could remember before his world went black for two whole days. He admitted to the location in the woods, that so-called Lover's Lane. It was their getaway spot for the few months before her tragic death, he said. They'd always parked there, windows closed and AC up during their encounters.

The last thing Everett remembered was Patricia's question, what time is it? To which he responded, four o'clock. And then, nothing. Nothing until he came to, still in a murky haze on that morning of June 5th, almost two full days later. But how did the defense account for Patricia's very obvious injuries, the scratches and abrasions on her face and the blow to her eye that resulted in a cranial hemorrhage? They didn't dispute that she had those injuries, but the defense offered, what would you do if you were stuck inside a vehicle filling with poison gas, with fading consciousness and not nearly enough awareness to get yourself out? You might thrash around. You might fall, climbing over the seats in search of oxygen.

You, in a state of confusion and distress, you might hit your head and sustain injuries similar to Mrs. Wings. The defense argued that although her face and head injuries were obvious and well-reported in the initial autopsy, quote, people don't ordinarily die that way, unquote. In the closing statement for the defense, Goodspeed addressed the behavior and choices of his client, not letting him off the hook for for the defense, Goodspeed addressed the behavior and choices of his client, not letting him off the hook for his infidelity, but asking the jury to recognize that a cheating husband is not by default a murderer. Quote, I hold no brief with and cannot condone Everett Savage, for his conduct was against the laws

of God and man and are repugnant to every good-thinking citizen. But there has been no evidence presented to find him guilty of murder. Unquote. The trial had become somewhat of a social event. Reporting in the Bangor Daily News noted that spectators called the courthouse to reserve seats prior to the jury's return with a verdict. Justice Harold C. Martin addressed the crowd saying, quote, this is not a football game, end quote. I found it odd that sports were a recurring theme throughout the trial. What with the defense and its World Series analogy? And it was bizarre to me that the jury asked for and was given up-to-date scores of the ongoing World Series

games by the judge himself, not once, but twice during their deliberations. Were they even taking this seriously? The crowd didn't cheer for the home team or make hardly a sound when the jury returned with their verdict. As reported by the Bangor Daily News, there was a low but audible sigh. It was the sound of disbelief or, perhaps, confusion. According to the jury, the state had not made their case for the murder charges against Everett Savage Jr. Instead, the jury found Savage guilty of aggravated assault and battery, a conviction that came with a two-and-a-half to five-year sentence. Now, the defense requested clemency for their client due to the fact that he was the sole provider for not only his family, his children and his wife, but also his own mother. The Parker Danner Company held Everett's position for him, apparently unconcerned that their vice president had just been tried for murder. Justice Martin wasn't having the clemency discussion though, telling the defense team that Everett had shown concern for his family four months and a few days too late.

The sentence was upheld and Savage went on to serve his time at the Maine State Prison. Everett Savage and his defense team petitioned for clemency of his two-and-a-half-to-five-year prison sentence for aggravated assault and battery, again pointing to carbon monoxide poisoning as Patricia Wing's killer. Not a fatal blow to her eye by Mr. Savage. Clemency, as explained by AmericanProgress.org, is a mechanism for granting a person convicted of a criminal offense relief from a court-ordered sentence or punitive measure. There are two main methods through which clemency can be given, pardon or commutation of sentence. A pardon exempts a convicted individual from any remaining punishment or future consequences stemming from a conviction. Commutations reduce an individual's sentence, either fully or partially.

Clemency is usually requested through a petition or an application process and can be granted for any number of reasons. The power of clemency is different by state, and in Maine, the power lies with the governor in a board of advisors. In August of 1959, despite dramatic pleas by Everett's wife that their family needed his financial support, Governor Clinton Clausen denied Everett Savage Jr.'s clemency. Everett continued to petition for his freedom throughout his relatively short sentence. Everett's final request for commutation was denied in August of 1960. However, by the summer of 1961, he was eligible for parole. He was released quietly sometime after. Mr. Wendell Wing, the widower of Patricia Wing, father to their five children, filed two suits in the years after the initial murder trial of

Everett Savage. One of those suits against the Parker Danner Company, stating in his complaint that the car owned and maintained by that company ultimately resulted in his wife's death. He was apparently agreeing with the defense that it wasn't Everett, but carbon monoxide poisoning inside Everett's car that killed her. He sought $22,000 in damages, arguing that the company was at fault for not properly maintaining the Cadillac driven by their vice president. Wendell Wing also sued Everett Savage as he sat in prison serving time for the assault and battery charges. Mr. Wing was after $150,000 in damages, over $1.3 million in today's money, for what the Bangor Daily News reported in February 1959 as the,

quote, loss of his wife's services, unquote. He was eventually awarded $6,500 in punitive damages. Just the wording of that gave me pause, whether it was Wendell Wing's wording, or from the complaint itself, or just how it was written in the newspaper. Loss of his wife's services. I hope Patricia was known, loved, and celebrated for more than her housekeeping and her child-rearing and her beauty. But that appears to be the only thing any report had to say about the woman who died under still-debated circumstances, far before her time. I won't ask you to forget everything you just heard about the case of Patricia Wing and the circumstances that may have contributed to her death in the backseat of that Cadillac. The evidence, the cases presented by both the state and the defense are compelling, and the carbon monoxide theory is convincing. Maybe Patricia

did die as the result of an accident. But I will tell you this, the name of another man comes up in articles and research related to Patricia Wing's case. And when I dug a little deeper into that man's name and his history, I couldn't ignore what I found. In the next episode of Dark Down East, the murder of Zenovia Clegg in New York City, Donna Kimme in Louisiana, and Shirley Kulin in Brunswick, Maine. The deaths of these three women and Patricia Wing are all connected by a suspected serial killer born and raised in Winslow, Maine, Charles E. Terry. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources for this case and others, including links to all individual articles, are listed in the show notes at darkdowneast.com so you can do some more reading and digging of your own. Following, subscribing, and reviewing Dark Down East is free, and it's really the best way to support this show. So pop open that Apple Podcasts app, open Spotify, wherever you listen, and follow, subscribe, and review.

You can always follow along with the show and learn more about each case at darkdowneast.com and on Instagram at darkdowneast. Thank you for supporting this show and following along. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and to help those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let their names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.