MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Last Night Out (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

One night in October of 2001, a young woman named Amy, and her friend whose name was Eric, were at a dance club in Portland, Maine. Amy was having fun, but Eric wasn't. He seemed bored and maybe a little annoyed. Amy tried to convince him to come out onto the dance floor to dance with her, but Eric wasn't interested. So, Amy wandered off to the dance floor alone. Eric watched her for a moment, then left for the bathroom. However, when he came back, Amy was gone. And 72 hours later, just about everyone in the state of Maine was asking the same question... where did Amy go?For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. One night in October of 2001, a young woman named Amy and her friend whose name was Eric were at a dance club in Portland, Maine. Amy was having a blast, but Eric wasn't. He seemed bored and maybe a bit annoyed. Amy tried to convince him to come out on the dance

floor and dance with her and have some fun and lighten up, but Eric said he wasn't interested. So Amy, determined not to let this ruin her night, she wandered over to the dance floor by herself. And Eric would watch her for a few minutes from a distance, and then he would leave to go use the bathroom. However, when he came back, Amy was gone. And 72 hours later, just about everyone in the state of Maine was asking the same question. Where did Amy go? But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Amazon Music Follow buttons home and swap out their Samsung The Wall IAB Series 146-inch Class 4K UHD HDR commercial monitor for a 13-inch black and white TV from 1995. Let's get into today's story. ["The Last of Us Theme"] I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we delve into the life of Alan Turing. Why are we talking about Alan Turing, Peter?

Alan Turing is the father of computer science and some of those questions we're thinking about today around artificial intelligence. Turing was so involved in setting and framing what some of those questions were but he's also interesting for lots of other reasons Afro. He had such a fascinating life he was unapologetically gay at a time when that was completely criminalized and stigmatized and from his imagination he created ideas that have formed the very physical practical foundation of all of the technology on which our lives depend.

And on top of that, he's responsible for being part of a team that saved millions, maybe even tens of millions of lives because of his work during the Second World War using maths and computer science to code break. So join us on Legacy wherever you get your podcasts. Some stories were never meant to be heard. Beneath the visible world of parliaments, politicians and civil servants lies an invisible state filled with secret operatives playing to very different rules. From Wondery, I'm Indra Varma and this is The Spy Who. This month we open the file on Noor Anayat Khan,

the spy who wouldn't lie. When Germany invades France, Noor and her family are forced to flee to Britain. But Noor decides she can't just sit out the war, so she accepts one of the most dangerous spy missions of World War II, a job that will put her deep into enemy territory. Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Wouldn't Lie early and ad-free with Wondery+. On Thursday, October 18, 2001, Amy St. Laurent stood in front of her clothes closet in the small main town of South Berwick. She had a big meeting coming up the next week at work, and she wanted to pick out just the right outfit. Amy was an attractive 25-year-old woman with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes who wanted to become a model. She'd even gotten some professional photos done. But when it came

to her job at Pratt & Whitney, which was an aircraft engine assembly plant, she wanted to be taken seriously. And that meant dressing professionally so that people didn't get the wrong idea from her looks and youth. But as Amy tried and rejected one outfit after another, she knew that the real reason she was making such a big deal out of this was to distract herself. She was trying to avoid thinking about the man who was coming to visit her that night from Florida. Amy had recently broken up with her boyfriend after living together on and off for five years.

She wanted to get married and have kids, but she realized that her ex, Richard Sparrow, was just not the one. She liked to travel and go to museums, and the longer she'd been with Richard, the more she realized he was just a homebody who didn't care much about any of those things. She felt like breaking up with him was the right decision, but it was still hard. But now that she had broken up with him, she was able to rediscover the joy of being single. And a few weeks ago, she'd taken a trip to Florida and she had met a handsome 27-year-old man named Eric Rubeight who had taken her out on his motorcycle. He'd even tried to kiss her, although Amy had politely declined.

Ultimately, Amy had a lot of fun with Eric, and so when Eric asked if it was possible for him to travel to Maine to visit her, she said yes. But Amy was not interested in a romantic relationship again, and she didn't want to lead Eric on. So she made it absolutely clear to him that when he visited in Maine, nothing romantic could happen between them, and he would have to sleep in the spare room. Eric said he was totally fine with that, but just in case, Amy had another safeguard plan for this visit that she didn't mention to Eric. Her ex-boyfriend Richard had offered to come over and hang out with them as a buffer, like a third wheel. And now, standing in her bedroom, thinking about how

potentially awkward this three-way dynamic was going to be, Amy hoped she did not make a mistake in either inviting Eric or inviting Richard. That evening, Eric arrived at Amy's apartment, and right away things got off to a bumpy start. Despite what he said, Eric did not seem thrilled about sleeping in the spare bedroom, and he was clearly annoyed that Amy's ex-boyfriend Richard was just at the house with them. And then on Friday, which was the second day of Eric's visit, Amy and Eric got into a little fight. By Saturday, October 20th, so the third day of Eric's visit, Amy was just tired of Eric's

constant grumpiness and disappointment. She'd been very clear with him that she did not want a romance, so Amy decided that for the rest of the time Eric was visiting, she would just go out and do the things that she thought they both would enjoy, and you know what, if Eric didn't like it, then so be it. So Amy took Eric to Boston to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, which was one of Amy's favorite places, and then afterwards they went out for a nice dinner. And Amy noticed Eric seemed to be having a much better time now.

So as they were driving back towards Maine, Amy asked Eric if he was up for stopping in downtown Portland, which is a city in Maine. But as soon as Eric said yes, Amy immediately began worrying that she was underdressed for a big night out on the town. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt with her company's logo on it. She considered going home to change first, but at the same time, she didn't want to dress too provocatively and give Eric the wrong message, so she decided she would just go as is. Downtown Portland is a really popular spot, especially at night, and so when Eric and

Amy got there, all the restaurants and bars that lined the cobblestone streets were packed, and mostly with young people. Amy suggested they stop at a sports bar, and Eric seemed interested, but as soon as they went inside, Eric began acting all disappointed again. Amy wanted to play a game of pool, like billiards, but Eric didn't, so Amy, determined not to have a terrible night, just went and found a couple of 20-something-year-old men named Russ and Kush who she could play with. Then the three of them would play, they would talk and laugh while Eric just kind

of awkwardly stood by drinking a beer and looking bored. After a while though, Amy started worrying that she was being rude to Eric. So she took him to get some pizza and even paid for his slices herself. Then she asked if he wanted to go to a cool club called the Pavilion that was partly inside an old bank vault. Amy hoped that the Pavilion would impress Eric, but as soon as they walked in, he got that annoying bored look on his face again, and he immediately said he didn't want to dance.

And at this point, Amy was just kind of over Eric, and so she left Eric standing in line for drinks while she headed for the dance floor all on her own. On Sunday afternoon, so the following day, Amy's mother, Diane Jenkins, drummed her fingers on her laptop inside of her South Portland home trying to burn off some nervous energy. She was getting concerned about her daughter. Amy had called her mother around 10pm the night before, and Diane could tell from the sound of Amy's voice that she was in good spirits. Amy had said that she and her friend Eric were driving downtown, and so she asked her mom if she wanted to join them for a drink, since she lived pretty close. But Diane was already in

her pajamas, so she said no. But after that, Amy had not called again, which was odd because the mother and daughter talked every day. Diane picked up the phone again and called her daughter's cell phone, but it went to voicemail for the fourth straight time. Diane wanted to think that Amy was just busy with her weekend guest Eric, but it had been hours and hours and Amy never ignored her calls for this long. So Diane picked up her phone again, but this time she called her ex-husband, who was Amy's father.

He lived close to Amy and took care of her cat whenever Amy was away for more than a few hours. But when Amy's dad picked up, he told Diane that he hadn't heard from their daughter either. And so Diane really started to worry that something could be wrong. The next morning, when still Amy had not called her mom, Diane called Amy's work. But the person who answered the phone call said Amy hadn't shown up, and she hadn't called ahead or emailed ahead to tell anyone why she was not coming into work.

At this point, Diane felt a full blown panic attack coming on as it dawned on her that her daughter truly had disappeared. And so Diane hung up on that call and then immediately called the police to report her daughter missing. That evening, which was October 22, 2001, Detective Danny Young flopped onto the sofa and flipped on Monday Night Football. It was the veteran detective's first night off since the 9-11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

For the past six weeks, Young had been investigating crimes by day for the Portland Police Department, and then by night, he and his bomb-detecting dog had been doing extra patrols, checking out the Portland Ferry for explosives, or checking out suspicious packages. And so at this moment, the detective's living room couch never felt so good. So when his phone rang a few minutes later, Detective Young wasn't sure if he even wanted to answer it. But he slowly did get off the couch and he picked up, and on the other line was a deputy sheriff from the county who said he needed Detective Young's help.

He told Detective Young that the daughter of one of his friends was missing after she'd spent the evening with a guy from out of town. The sheriff told Young that the woman's name was Amy St. Laurent, and her mother had already filed a missing person report in Portland, and her family had already gone out and begun putting up missing person posters all over the place. But police had not launched a full-scale investigation yet because Amy was an adult, and she had not been gone for very long. But this deputy was wondering if maybe Detective Young could help off the books.

Detective Young wanted to say no because he was exhausted, but Amy's disappearance felt oddly personal to him. He had a daughter who was not only Amy's age, but shared the same name, and like Amy St. Laurent, Young's daughter also loved going to the Pavilion nightclub. As the deputy sheriff told Young more about Amy and why her family was so worried, Young's gut told him something was wrong here, so he told the deputy he would look into this. After the call with the deputy sheriff ended, Detective Young called a supervisor to tell him he was going to investigate this Amy St. Laurent case, but the supervisor thought this was a bad idea, that it was a waste of time. A 25-year-old

woman disappearing after a night of partying was not exactly big news. Maybe she had a hangover, or maybe she met up with a guy and didn't want to come home quite yet. Ultimately, the supervisor felt like the chances that something bad had happened to Amy were pretty slim. Also, the supervisor pointed out that this was Detective Young's first night off in a really long time and he needed to take a break. But Young was adamant that he wanted to do this, and so after some convincing, his supervisor let him launch his own unofficial investigation.

Before Detective Young left his house, he called a sergeant at the police station. Since Amy's friend, who she was with the night she disappeared, Eric Rubright, was from out of town, there was a good chance he had rented a car. So Detective Young wanted the Sergeant to call the local rental agencies and see if any of them had a record of Eric renting a vehicle from them. And sure enough, the Sergeant quickly called Young back. Not only did the Sergeant know that Eric rented a Maroon GMC Envoy, but she also had another important piece of information. The car Eric rented was equipped with a GPS tracker, which meant the rental company knew

the vehicle's exact location in downtown Portland. Detective Young immediately sent some officers to stake out the rental car, and within an hour Eric showed up right around 10.30 p.m., and strangely, he wasn't surprised to see the police officers at all. He told them he'd already seen the missing person posters that Amy's family were putting up all over Portland, and he said he was concerned about Amy too. And so the officers would take Eric back to the police station to ask him some questions. By the time Detective Young got to the interrogation room late that night, his fatigue from six

straight weeks of work had disappeared. For the detective, it was like flipping a switch. The second he launched an investigation, it was the only thing he cared about, and he could focus like a laser beam no matter how tired he was. Eric was already sitting in the interrogation room, and the detective quickly sized him up. The first thing he noticed was how big Eric was. Eric had played semi-professional rugby, and Young thought how easy it would be for him

to overpower someone Amy's size. But the second thing Young noticed was that Eric seemed agitated, like someone who was afraid he was in trouble. And as Detective Young peppered Eric with questions, Eric's story began to sound pretty odd. He claimed that on the night Amy was missing, they were at the Pavilion Club, and then after the last call, which was sometime between 12.45 and 1am, Eric went to the bathroom. But he got stuck in a long line, and then by the time he got out of the bathroom, Amy

had taken off, leaving him alone. So he got in his car and circled the block once to see if he could find her, but when Amy didn't turn up, he decided that she would just have to find her own way home, and he left. But what made this story so hard to believe was that according to Eric, Amy had left her wallet, cell phone, purse, and car keys in his car. Detective Young was about to ask Eric to explain this when someone knocked on the door. Young frowned, but he knew nobody would interrupt unless it was really important, so he excused himself and stepped out of the room. And once he had, an officer handed him a phone, and when Young put it to his ear, he heard his sergeant's voice. The sergeant said he

was with three young men who had flagged down his patrol car to tell him they were with Amy the night she disappeared and they needed to talk to police right now. Detective Young told the sergeant to bring them in right away, but Detective Young had to get back to his interview with Eric, so he assigned other detectives to talk to the three young men and just report back to him. The three young men eventually arrived at the police station and they introduced themselves to the detectives. They were Russ Gorman, Kush Sharma, and their other roommate. And obviously Russ and Kush were the two young men that Amy had played pool with on the night she went missing.

And they would tell the detectives that recently a bartender had showed them the missing person poster of Amy and they instantly recognized her as the woman they had played pool with and so as soon as they saw it they left the bar and flagged down the first patrol car they saw. Russ was a charming guy who had very stylized hair. He had frosted tips which meant the ends of his hair kind of all throughout his hair were bleached blonde and he gelled his hair up. And although he'd only been in Portland for 18 months he was already a regular in the bar scene there and he would tell the detective that he and his buddy Kush had been

playing pool when Amy had come over and asked to join their game and Russ would say that actually he and Amy hit it off right away and he actually asked for her phone number but Russ made it clear he did not expect this to go anywhere because he watched as Amy literally went back to her date and so Russ and Kush just left and went to another bar. But then the two men went to the Pavilion nightclub where sure enough they ran into Amy again. This was around the time that Amy had gone to the dance floor on her own, she saw Russ and Kush and the three of them basically started dancing together.

And so Russ would tell the detectives that the three of them just danced all night. And then after last call, Russ said he wanted to keep partying, so he invited Amy to come back to their apartment. He told her they were going to have an after hours birthday party for their third roommate, and he wanted Amy to join them. And so she agreed, and they all got to the apartment at around 1 15am. But the birthday party never really materialized, and Russ could tell Amy was really bored, and so eventually he just asked Amy if she wanted a ride back home.

And Amy actually said that she wanted a ride back to the pavilion because then she could go find her date, Eric, and he could give her a ride home, and if for some reason she couldn't find him, her mom's house was right nearby and she could just walk there. So at about 2am, Russ dropped off Amy right outside the pavilion on the curb and then after watching her head towards the pavilion, Russ just drove home and stayed there for the rest of the night. And when detectives spoke to the other two roommates, they would tell basically the exact same version of the story.

The detectives were excited. It sounded like Russ may have been the last person to see Amy alive, and so they rushed to tell Detective Young what they had learned. Detective Young was still talking to Eric when the detectives knocked again on their door, and when Young stepped out and they told him what Russ and the roommates said, a new theory popped up in Detective Young's head. He wondered if maybe Eric saw Amy get dropped off by some other guy and maybe that sent him into a jealous rage. But when Detective Young walked back into the interview room and sat down, he said nothing to Eric about what he had just learned. Instead, he asked Eric to go over all of his actions

after Amy had left the club without him. Young wanted to see if he could maybe catch Eric in a lie. Eric claimed that after he realized Amy was gone, he just drove himself back to Amy's house and then let himself inside using Amy's key. But when he didn't find Amy inside, he said he felt weird about staying in her house all alone, so he slept outside in his car. The next morning, Eric said he left his car and went back inside of Amy's house to use her shower and also to drop off all her belongings she'd left in his car, and then afterwards he said he did leave an angry note pinned to her apartment door, and then he left her coat outside right on the hood of her car and he dropped her keys onto one of her tires. And that was the end of his weekend.

When Eric stopped talking, Detective Young couldn't help but feel like this guy's story just seemed totally off, and soon he would have yet another interruption that would confirm his suspicion. Suddenly, another detective called Young out of the interview room to tell him that Amy's neighbor had called her local police department on Sunday with her own concerns about Amy's safety. She'd seen Amy's expensive coat on the ground beside her car on Sunday morning, so she had knocked on Amy's door to see if she was okay. But it wasn't just the coat that made the neighbors nervous.

On Friday night, the neighbor had seen Eric angrily peeling out of Amy's driveway, and when the neighbor actually asked Amy what was going on, Amy said Eric was furious with her because Amy didn't want to have sex with him. So, when this neighbor saw the coat on Sunday morning, and then she knocked on Amy's door and Amy didn't answer, this neighbor went and got Amy's keys from the landlord, and when she went inside and realized it was empty, she called the police. Detective Young had never in his life had so many witnesses volunteer to help out on a case, and every single witness story really seemed to point the finger at Eric.

And it was easy to imagine Eric being mad after driving all the way to Maine from Florida only to be rejected, and the neighbors story was especially damning for Eric, because it meant that Eric was already enraged that Amy wouldn't sleep with him the day before Amy had left him for two other guys at the pavilion. And Detective Young thought Eric's story about driving to Amy's house and sleeping in his car on a night when the weather was in the low 40s so nearly freezing outside was nonsense. But when Young went back in to question Eric about all of this, Eric did something very unexpected. He said he had proof that he drove to Amy's

apartment late on the night she disappeared. Then he pulled out a receipt from a gas station, which was located on the way to Amy's apartment. And Eric told Detective Young that if this receipt wasn't enough, he also had a witness. On his drive to Amy's, he had to pass through a toll, but he didn't have any money. And the toll taker had basically taken pity on him and let him through anyway, and so as a result of that, Eric was confident she would remember him. By now, Detective Young's head was spinning. This was the most chaotic interview he had ever conducted.

Usually, investigators had to hunt for tips, but tonight they were pouring in too fast for him to even keep up with. The detective felt like Eric really was his best suspect, but Russ had been the last person to see Amy alive, so he couldn't be ruled out yet. But this actually wasn't even the biggest question that Detective Young faced. Because Amy's disappearance actually wasn't officially a criminal case at all. Amy was an adult, and she'd only been gone for two days. Her friends and family were obviously worried, but as of now, there was no evidence that any crime had even been committed.

Amy might actually be just fine. Some of the other detectives thought Detective Young was kind of overreacting. They thought Amy was going to waltz in any minute wondering what all the fuss was about. The next morning, so three days after Amy disappeared, police went to her apartment to go look around. They found the key to her apartment sitting on the tire of her car, exactly the way Eric had described. But when they found Eric's angry note he had left inside, they discovered that it was much nastier than Eric had said it was.

In the letter, Eric asked Amy very angrily where she'd gone, with a choice curse word thrown in. It was very clear Eric must have left feeling very mad, chucking Amy's coat as he left. When they searched Amy's apartment, the police took her computer, her mail, her answering machine, and even her diary. And as they flipped through the pages of her diary, they found pages of Amy's deepest thoughts, her struggles, her fears, and her hopes. But there was one name that kept coming up over and over again in this diary. It was Amy's ex, Richard Sparrow.

In fact, she'd started this diary the day after she had broken up with him. So that day, the police picked Richard up at his house, they drove him to the station, and they put him in the same interrogation room where Detective Young had just questioned Eric the night before. And when Richard told the detective that he had slept over at Amy's place on the first night that Eric was visiting, Young felt his heart start to race. It was hard to imagine a more awkward or potentially explosive arrangement than having an ex-boyfriend sleeping on the couch while Amy's new man slept in the guest room.

It was the type of situation where you could understand one or both of these men getting really mad. But Richard would tell Detective Young that truly he was on friendly terms with Amy and that he had only stayed in her apartment on Friday as a favor to her after she begged him to. And also on the night that Amy disappeared, Richard said he went out in South Berwick with friends and then went home, an account that Richard's roommates all confirmed, which meant he was very likely many miles away from Portland when Amy went missing.

So this interview with Richard really had Detective Young turn his sights back towards Eric and Russ, the two men who were chasing Amy on the night she vanished. Hello, I'm Emily, one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. Some of them hit the big time overnight, some had to plug away for years, but in our latest series we're talking about a man who was world famous before he was even born. A life of extreme privilege that was mapped out from the start, but left him struggling to find his true purpose. A man who, compared to his big brother, felt a bit, you know, spare. Yes, it's Prince Harry. You might think you know everything about him, but trust me, there's even more. We follow Harry and the obsessive, all-consuming relationship of his life,

not with Meghan, but the British tabloid press. Hounded and harassed, Harry is taking on an institution almost every bit as powerful as his own royal family. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad free on Wandery Plus on Apple podcasts or the Wandery app. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast.

Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders, and our recent rundown of the Murdoch Saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction.

Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus short-hand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. The Wondry Plus

As the days went by with no word on the whereabouts of their daughter, Amy's parents became increasingly desperate. On Thursday, October 25th, almost a week after Amy disappeared, her mother Diane went to the media and offered a $35,000 reward for information that would lead to Amy's safe return. And by now, Amy's case was no longer an off-the-books investigation by Detective Young. This was now a full-scale police operation. As a reminder to himself of just what was at stake, Detective Young put a photo of

Amy on his desk. By now, Detective Young was pretty sure he knew which one was responsible for Amy's disappearance, but he couldn't prove it. So for now, he was just going to treat Eric and Russ like equal suspects. When Young had checked both men's backgrounds, he was just going to treat Eric and Russ like equal suspects. When Young had checked both men's backgrounds, he'd found they both had criminal records. Russ was on probation for theft, and the night he gave Amy a ride, he was driving with a suspended license, and facing the prospect of having his license revoked entirely. Eric had some minor drug offenses on his record, but more alarming was his ex-girlfriend in Florida had a restraining order against him.

Weirdly, her name was also Amy, and she even kind of looked like Amy St. Laurent. Police had begun a much more aggressive search for Amy. Sheriff's deputies retraced Eric's route from the nightclub back to Amy's apartment, checking anywhere that somebody might be able to hide a body, but they found nothing. Police in surrounding communities looked through abandoned buildings, and they searched the train tracks and highways and the edges of the harbor. National Guard helicopters searched from above, and detectives even spent their own time looking for Amy on weekends.

But no one could find any trace of Amy. Meanwhile, both primary suspects left town. Eric went back to Florida where he lived and worked, while Russ went to Alabama since he had family there. Usually Detective Young would want to keep his suspects close, but in this case, he was actually happy that both men had left. He figured the killer might relax once he was away from Portland, and maybe he might confess something to somebody close to him.

Five weeks later, there was still no sign of Amy and everyone at this point feared she was dead. Officers who had initially been skeptical that Amy was even in trouble were now drawn into the case out of real concern for the young woman. They'd learned so much about Amy during the investigation, not just the details of the last few days before she vanished, but the details of her life, how kind she was, and how spontaneously generous. One couple told police that Amy gave them money out of her savings one Christmas when

they didn't have money to buy presents for their kid. Another friend told police that Amy one time had paid for a plane ticket so the friend could fly home to celebrate her parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Amy even took a leave of absence from work to stay at a friend's bedside when they were in a coma in the hospital. Some of the officers began referring to Amy as quote, our Amy, almost like they were her father. Detective Young found himself constantly looking at that photo of Amy he kept on his desk, and whenever he looked at her, he felt like she was looking back at him, pleading with him to help her. And as time dragged on without any breakthrough, people in Portland began getting scared that a killer was literally on the loose among them.

And you gotta remember that this was around the time right after 9-11, so Americans at this time were very much on edge. And now Amy's disappearance had only made the paranoia much worse for people in Portland. As the lead detective in the hunt for Amy, Detective Young felt like so far, he was letting the public down, especially her family. But he didn't really know what else to do. Without a body, he had no crime scene and no evidence, and so he was totally stalled.

And that's when Detective Young got an unusual offer. A lieutenant from the Maine Warden Service named Pat Dorian thought he might be able to help find Amy. Every year, Dorian and his team found over 300 lost hikers, mostly people who got turned around inside of Maine's vast forests. Even though they'd never looked for a dead body before, the lieutenant thought the wardens might be able to apply their expertise to this case. Detective Young wasn't sure that a bunch of game wardens could help, but winter was coming, and once there was snow on the ground, finding a body would be much more difficult if not impossible.

So Detective Young told the lieutenant that yes, he would like his help. So on Monday, December 3rd, which was six weeks after Amy had vanished, Detective Young squeezed into a crowded conference room at the police station and took a seat at the conference table. Detective Young's team sat on one side, and Lieutenant Dorian's on the other, all of them looking over a table full of equipment, computers, and mapping programs. Detective Young began by showing the wardens all the places the police had already searched. But Dorian really wanted to know more about the suspects, so his team could get a better

sense of where either man might go to dispose of a body. So Dorian asked questions like, how familiar were they with the woods and the outdoors? And were they the kind of people who would feel comfortable hiking into an unfamiliar area. Detective Young decided he would just focus on the one suspect he was pretty sure was responsible for Amy's disappearance, which by this point he fully expected was a murder. It was a gamble what he was doing, but in his experience, Young had seen that the more focused a search is, the better the results.

So for hours, the people at this table, Dorian, Young, their teams, discussed every detail of the case, and about the one suspect that he was focusing on. But a question from the wardens caught the detectives by surprise. Did their suspect have access to a shovel? And surprisingly, despite all their interviews and questions, none of the detectives had any idea. So immediately after the meeting, Detective Young asked other investigators to find out whether the suspect had a shovel.

And right away, word came back that the suspect did have a shovel, and in fact, he had borrowed this shovel recently. Five days later, at 6.30am on December 8, 2001, a new, massive search for Amy began. 100 officers and 45 Maine search and rescue volunteers fanned out across southern Maine along with cadaver dogs that are trained to smell dead bodies. But after hours of searching, the team found nothing. The cadaver dogs indicated that they smelled something a few times, but it turned out to just be nothing but dead animals. Then, around 1pm, searchers turned down a side road off the highway that had been used to haul

gravel to expand the road. At the end were trails that let off into the brush and some debris from deconstruction. With snow closing in, the searchers spread out in a line shoulder to shoulder and marched into the woods just as they had at other potential burial spots. And after about 30 minutes of this, one of the searchers ducked under a branch and they came upon a spot where the earth seemed to have been pressed down and kind of smoothed over. So the searchers brought over the dogs, and right away the dogs were barking and pointing at that spot on the ground

Searchers immediately yelled out for detective young to come over and when he did come over and he looked down at the spot He could see there were some pine needles that have been thrown over this area almost like to disguise it and so it seemed very likely this was a burial spot and Sure enough when searchers got their shovels and began digging in that spot, they would uncover Amy's badly decomposed body. The next day, Sunday, December 9th, the medical examiner conducted Amy's autopsy. And from this autopsy, it was clear that Amy had been beaten and shot. But there wasn't much other physical evidence to go on.

There were no fingerprints or DNA from the killer on the body. In fact, her body was so decomposed that the medical examiner needed Amy's dental records just to confirm it was really her. Five days later, on Friday, December 14th, Amy's family held a memorial for her at a funeral home in South Portland. 25 white candles surrounded a photo of Amy, one for every year of her life. Beside the memorial sat a bouquet of pink roses, just like the flowers that her father would give her every year for her birthday. Detective Young would have loved to be at Amy's service, but he couldn't go because, at that very moment, he was in his car driving south on his way to pick up the killer.

Even though the killer had left the state, detectives had kept a close eye on him. And when Amy's body was found, they finally got their break. Because the killer had believed police would never find the body, and so when they did, the killer panicked. He called someone and he confessed to the crime. Finally, all the pieces fell together, and for the first time, Detective Young knew what really happened to Amy. In the early morning hours of Sunday, October 21st, the killer asked Amy if she wanted a ride home.

At least, that's what he told her he was going to do, because in reality, the killer had other plans in mind. When Amy got in the car, the killer kept staring at her. He thought she was absolutely stunning, and he was sure that if he could just make the right move, something might happen romantically between them. So he turned on the radio, found a good song, and began to drive. Eventually the killer got onto the highway, at which point Amy told him he was going the wrong way. The killer told her that he was just going to take her for a moonlit walk, it was gonna be great.

But Amy said she had no interest in that and just wanted to be taken home But the killer wasn't prepared to do that So he pulled off the highway to a secluded spot and he turned to Amy and said please just give me a chance Then he told her how pretty she was and how attracted he was to her Hoping this might make her want to stay out longer with him But it only made her more agitated and she eventually demanded to be taken home right now And at first the killer did begin driving back on the highway as if he was gonna take her home made her more agitated, and she eventually demanded to be taken home right now. And at first, the killer did begin driving back on the highway as if he was going to take her home, but then he turned down a side road, at which point Amy began screaming at

him to turn around and bring me home right now. The killer could feel anger boiling up inside of him to the point where he just couldn't control it anymore, so he pulled the car over on the side of the road, he put it in park, and then he turned and just wound up and punched Amy. Stunned, Amy leapt out of the car and just began running. But the killer had more than just fists to hurt Amy with. He grabbed a gun from under the seat and then ran out after her. And when he caught up to her, he couldn't contain his anger.

He hit her again across the face with the gun, splitting her lip and chipping her tooth. Then he hit her for a third time, this time hard enough to break a bone in her face? Amy tried to fight back, but her killer was much stronger, and he knocked her to the ground and pinned her down. They struggled for a while, and at some point the killer tore at Amy's clothes and sexually assaulted her, and then when he was done, he grabbed his gun again. He knew if he were to let Amy go, he'd get in big trouble, so instead he put that gun to the right side of Amy's head and he pulled the trigger.

The killer knew he needed to hide the body now, but he knew he couldn't do much in the dark, so he dragged her body into the nearby forest where she was out of sight and then he left her for the night. And then the next day he returned with a shovel and he buried her. Even before Amy's body was found, Detective Young had already begun to suspect one person much more than anybody else. Detectives actually managed to find surveillance video of Eric at a gas station alone at 1.36 a.m. on the night Amy went missing, just as Eric had claimed. They also found the Turnpike toll-taker, who remembered taking pity on Eric when he couldn't pay the toll.

And so with all that corroboration, police didn't think it was possible for Eric to have returned to Portland to pick up Amy by 2am, the time Russ said he had dropped her off. But police had a harder time verifying Russ' claim that he had driven Amy from his apartment to the Portland nightclub and then returned home in just 25 minutes. Russ' roommates had vouched for him, but their stories didn't hold up. His roommate claimed he knew Russ came in around 2.25am because he was in the middle of writing an email to his aunt when Russ walked in, but when police looked through his emails, there was no record that he actually sent any email to his aunt.

And police could not find a single person who actually saw Russ drop off Amy at the pavilion. Instead, police found evidence that Russ was lying. He got pulled over by police on the night that Amy went missing at around 314 a.m. for not dimming his high beam lights. So clearly he hadn't come home quickly and then stayed home like he had claimed because here he was out and about at 314. Then after Amy disappeared, police found that Russ had borrowed a shovel from his mom's boyfriend and the location of her body where she was buried, it was found less than four-tenths of a mile from Russ' mother's house.

And in addition to all that evidence, Russ actually just confessed the entire crime to his mother after news broke that Amy's body had been found. On Monday, June 30th, 2003, Russ Gorman was convicted of killing Amy and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Amy's mother would go on to found the Amy St. Laurent Foundation, which was set up to help educate women and children of all ages in awareness, prevention, and techniques to protect themselves in dangerous or life-threatening situations. The organization is still active today. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. Those are Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, and Runful.

Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts and you will find all of them. Also, there are hundreds more stories like the one you listened to today, but in video format on our YouTube channel. Our YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin, go check it out. So that's gonna do it, I really appreciate your support, until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.