Murder In America - EP. 9 MAINE - The Mysterious Abduction & Murder of Pamela Webb

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash America for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash America. In today's episode, we are heading to the East Coast to tell you guys about one of Maine's most mysterious unsolved murders and the possibility that this one murder could be connected to a web of death. This is the story of Pamela Webb. You're listening to Murder in America. It's the summer of 1989 in a town called Winthrop Maine. Winthrop is known for its beautiful scenery, especially its lakes, that become filled with tourists in the summer months.

In fact, the population of Winthrop almost. doubles in the summer with people coming from all over the United States to enjoy the beautiful scenery. On this particular summer in 1989, the story of a local woman named Pamela Webb would change Winthrop Maine forever. Pamela was 32 years old, a beautiful young woman with luscious brown hair and luminous brown eyes. She was well known within her community and everyone had a good thing to say about her. She was extremely close to her family and even closer to God. One thing that everybody knew about her was that she was deeply religious. And Pamela was in a really good spot in her life in 1989. She had just purchased her first home on a few acres of land and she was very proud of herself and her

independence. She had worked really hard throughout her life and had even been working at a company called Digital Equipment Corporation for 13 years. And it was one of the nation's most popular computer companies at the time. The company had several branches throughout the United States and she worked at the Augusta location about 20 minutes east of Winthrop. It was at this very job that Pamela met a man named Josh Cloud. Now, Josh actually worked at the Massachusetts branch of the company, about three hours away from the branch in Augusta. And one day, at the beginning of that summer in 1989, Josh had to commute to the Augusta

branch for work, and during this commute, he ran into Pamela. The two were immediately infatuated with each other, and soon after they met, they decided to take the next step and make their relationship official. The only problem was Josh lived about three hours away from Pamela in a town called Mason, New Hampshire. But Pamela was in her 30s now and she was ready to settle down and she really liked Josh, so the long distance wasn't an issue for her. In fact, over the eight weeks the two had been dating, she frequently made the three-hour drive from Winthrop to Mason, just so that she could spend time with Josh. And that was exactly what Pamela planned to do on the weekend of July 1st, 1989. It had been raining in Winthrop and Pamela wanted to get away for the fourth of John.

July to spend some time with Josh. It was a Saturday, and on that fateful day, Pamela had gotten a late start. She was running so late, in fact, that she was planning on getting to Josh's house around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. Josh and Pamela talked on the phone before she left, and as they were talking, Pamela was busy running around the house trying to get everything packed away for her getaway. She grabbed her purse, some clothes, her Bible, and even her pet beagle named Thumper, who was going to join her on the trip. And Pamela wasn't too concerned about getting to Josh's place at a decent time because she'd actually taken a few days off of work for the occasion and planned on being with him until Wednesday of that week. Before she hung up the phone, Pamela told Josh that she was

going to head over to see her niece and nephew before she left so that she could tuck them into bed. This was something Pamela loved to do because she was really close with her family and she knew she wasn't going to see them for a few days. And I'm sure that Pamela's family was glad that she made the decision to stop by that night because this brief interaction would be the last time that they saw her alive. After kissing her family goodbye, Pamela and her dog thumper got back into her 1981 Blue Chevy pickup and started the three-hour drive to Mason, New Hampshire. During this drive, Pamela had to drive on Maine's turnpike, passing a near city called Bidford. And in order to get on the turnpike, you have to purchase a ticket. According to records, Pamela purchased her turnpike ticket

at 9.52 p.m. that night, meaning she'd be arriving to Mason a little after 1 a.m. But 1 a.m. rolls around and then 2 a.m. and she still hadn't shown up at Josh's place. And this was very unusual for Pamela. She wasn't wanted to take detours or to not tell anyone if she was running late. As the hours pass, Josh becomes increasingly more concerned because Pamela still hasn't shown up at his house. So he eventually decides to call the police to report her missing at around 10 a.m. the next morning. And the dispatch likely had no idea in that very moment of the mystery that would lie ahead of them. One thing that both dispatch and Josh didn't know was that a state trooper named Jeffrey Haas had noticed Pamela's Chevy on the southbound shoulder of the turnpike at around 1135

the night before. Haas noted that the emergency flasher lights were on, but he didn't see anyone around the Chevy. He did see a spare tire lying against the truck, and that the tailgate of the truck was lying open. And for some reason, Officer Haas didn't stop to check it out. I don't know protocol on these types of situations for cops, but I can't help but think about how this case could have turned out differently if law enforcement had started working the case right then. Instead of stopping, Officer Haas kept patrolling the turnpike, and it wasn't until 2.30 a.m. when he saw the Chevy again in the same spot that he finally stopped to check out the situation. So Haas parks by the Chevy, gets out of the vehicle, and makes his way towards the scene. and what he discovers is something that will stick with him forever.

Pamela Chevy had a flat tire, and there was a spare tire lying against the tailgate. But there was no sign of Pamela. Even more concerning to Haas, there were two large puddles of fresh blood and an earring on the ground by the Chevy, indicating that there had been some sort of struggle. At this point, I'm sure Officer Haas knows that this is a lot bigger of a situation than he had originally regarded it to be. and he's trying to piece together what happened to the driver of the vehicle. He shines his flashlight into the car, and he sees Pamela's purse, her ID, and her little dog thumper, who was visibly shaken, sitting in the front seat.

After discovering the vehicle, an all-points bulletin was issued for Pamela Webb. Police plastered a picture in the media and told the public to be on the lookout for a 32-year-old woman, around 5'1, 100 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a sweater, denim skirt, and white sneakers with pink accents. They later find out that over 70 people had called in about her broken down Chevy on the side of the road, but not one of those people had seen what happened to Pamela. As law enforcement arrived to investigate what was now a crime scene, they noticed that none of Pamela's valuables were stolen, so they were able to rule out a robbery.

Bit by bit, the crime was beginning to seem a lot more sinister in its intent. Investigators immediately started gathering the evidence at the scene and sent it back to their labs in Augusta. evidence included samples of blood found on the pavement near the Chevy, and they wanted to test the blood to see if it was Pamela's, but they ran into a pretty big issue. They didn't know Pamela's blood type, and they were having a hard time figuring out what it was. But investigators didn't have any time to waste, and while they were busy trying to figure out her blood type to see if the blood on the road was Pamela's, they started conducting a massive search for her. State police, helicopters, and canines covered over 20 miles of nearby land looking for Pamela, but the search yielded no

results, no breaks in the case, and no body. Investigators concluded that sometime between 10 and 11.30 p.m., Pamela realized that she had a flat tire, so she had pulled her Chevy over and gotten out to change it. In the middle of her changing her tire, they believe someone most likely stopped and approached her, willing to offer her a helping hand. And it was then that the phantom perpetrator assaulted Pamela in such a violent way that it had caused her to bleed profusely, before forcing her into their vehicle and escaping down I-95 without a single witness to the crime. Pamela's uncle, Carlton Webb said the following in the wake of his niece's disappearance. She is a real nice girl, a deeply religious girl.

She's awfully trusting, maybe too much so. She's more likely to accept the help of others than a lot of people. And unfortunately, the world is a harsh place for people as trusting as Pamela. Individuals don't always reciprocate kindness like Pamela did. In fact, oftentimes people enjoy deceiving others, whether it's for their own gain or to cause pain to others. And in Pamela's case, it was almost her blind faith in humanity that made her turn her guard down in order to allow a monster to get close. A monster whose only intent was to cause harm.

On July 18, 1989, a little over two weeks after Pamela had disappeared, two men noticed the smell of decay along a highway in Frickonia, New Hampshire, a community about three hours away from where her truck had been found. As the men followed the smell into the wooded area along the highway, they began to grow nervous. What were they about to stumble across? Roadkill? A deer carcass? As they approached the source of the scent,

I think both of these guys knew deep down what they were about to find. They approached the smell, taking long strides through the grass, hoping that they would find a rotting animal. But instead, they discovered a badly decomposed human body. The temperatures were high that week, so the body was in rough shape. Such bad shape, in fact, that at first glance, it was impossible to tell who the body had belonged to. But the shirt and skirt on the remains matched the clothing.

Pamela was wearing on that faithful night when she had disappeared. And later on, dental records would confirm that this Jane Doe was indeed 32-year-old Pamela Webb, the missing woman from Winthrop, Maine. Everyone was devastated to hear about Pamela's body being found. I mean, of course they wanted to find Pamela, but they had still been holding on to hope that they would find her alive. After an autopsy was done, investigators found out that her cause of death was in fact homicide, but they were unable to figure out how she died because of how badly her body had decomposed. Her skull had evidence of soft tissue indicating that her death was most likely caused by some sort of head injury, possibly even blunt force trauma. The only thing that they were able to put on her death certificate

was that she died the night she was abducted. It was an unspecified homicide of a violent nature. It's also important to note that a bunch of the bones found on Pamela's lower body were missing. But I wasn't able to find any record that investigators suspected any sort of dismembering, so it's most likely that her missing bones were taken by animals. After the discovery of the corpse, Pamela's family took what was left of her body back to Maine so that they could finally lay her to rest. And the Winthrop community really showed their support on that tear-filled day, packing about 500 people into the city's biggest church named St. Francis Xavier Catholic.

And obviously, every funeral is sad, but it's always especially tragic when the funeral is for a young person. someone whose life was ended before it ever truly had begun. Pamela's service was difficult to get through for everybody involved. At the funeral, her pastor talked about how strong her faith was, saying, imprinted in my mind is the picture of her Bible lying on the truck seat. That to me is a symbol we should take comfort from God's love, as Pam did. And there were many people that did find comfort in that thought, that Pamela was now with God, including her own family members.

After the discovery of Pamela's body, her sister said, If Pam were here, she would probably forgive her abductor. This statement was also mentioned at the funeral because everyone agreed that it embodied exactly the kind of person that Pamela was. Forgiving, trusting, and kind-hearted. After the funeral, there was a burial service, and there's one picture that I viewed while doing research on this case that really stuck out to me. And it's a photograph of Pamela's boyfriend that she had been dating when she died, Josh Cloud. He was the very last one to leave the gravesite, and a photographer captured a picture of him standing by her casket,

and it's just a really heartbreaking photo. The emotions seemed to transcend the medium of photography and speak directly to the viewer's soul. Almost like the photo is a living, breathing being. You can feel Josh's pain just by glancing at the photo. Pamela's mom went on to tell reporters, we're hanging in there, as they say. At least we don't have to wonder what is happening to her.

I don't know how other people who have someone missing do it. I don't know whether I could do it. She later said that she felt comfort in the support that she had in all of Maine, and even the state of New Hampshire, where her body had been found, saying, I have a basket of cards. Some people even sent cards before they found her. And even though the family was glad that Pamela's body had been found and that they were able to put her to rest,

they would never truly be able to find peace until her killer was found and brought to justice. Law enforcement worked tirelessly over the next few months trying to find answers. And since there were no witnesses and the evidence at the scene wasn't very helpful, investigators decided to plug some of the details of Pamela's case into an FBI database called the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program to see if there were any other homicides in the U.S. that seemed similar. Now, there was one case that really stuck out due to strange similarities, and that was the case of 22-year-old Jane Barroskey. On August 6, 1988, about a year before Pamela's abduction,

Jane, who was actually seven months pregnant at the time, had stopped at a gas station for some snacks on her way home from the county fair. The gas station was closed that night, but apparently they had a vending machine on the outside that she had been using at the time to buy herself a soda. I don't think that Jane expected that pit stop that night, a very short stop to grab something refreshing for her drive, would lead to something horrific.

Let's set the scene. It's a dark warm night in August on a somewhat isolated road in New Hampshire. Cars only pass by every few minutes. The darkness in the area is penetrating and almost breathes with a conscious sort of gloom. Jane is alone and had just gotten her soda from the vending machine. As she's walking back to her car, she suddenly notices a Jeep parked next to her vehicle that hadn't been there before when she had initially parked. The windows are dark and she can't really make out if someone is still in the car or not.

And suddenly a strange chill seems to fill the night air, riding in on the thick coattails of the breeze. Seeing this dark phantom car makes Jane a little uneasy, so she hurries up and quickly gets into her own vehicle. As she does this, she notices that the man in the Jeep had gotten out of his vehicle, and was slowly beginning to approach her driver's side window. She watches as the shadowy figure steps right up to her driver's side window, cutting through the darkness of the night. He then leans down to ask her if the payphone is working. But before Jane even has the chance to answer his question, the man grabs her and drags her out of the vehicle. He mentions something about how Jane had beaten up his girlfriend,

but Jane was pregnant, and she definitely hadn't gotten in any fights recently. He then asks her if she has Massachusetts license plates, to which she replies, no, they're New Hampshire. She thought that this question might make him realize that he had the wrong girl, but to Jane's horror, instead of letting her go, this phantom man proceeds to stab her 27 times. It's in his car and leaves, assuming that Jane was now dead. After he drives away, Jane gets back into her car and works up the power to drive to her friend's house, even though the man had cut through her jugular vein and knee tendons,

and it stabbed her in the kidney and lungs. And miraculously, her baby survived, and so did Jane. Now, Keene, New Hampshire, where this took place, is about 140 miles away from where Pamela was abducted, which admittedly is a pretty good distance. But there was another case. This time of violent crime that happened in Cornish, New Hampshire, about an hour away from where Jane had been stabbed, and this case seems to connect Jane and Pamela. The woman in Cornish, New Hampshire, never revealed her name to the media,

but this violent crime happened after Pamela's abduction. And the details of this third case seem eerily similar to the details of Pamela's. This new crime could even possibly give investigators new ideas as to what happened to Pamela that night. And this third case of the Cornish woman, the victim had been driving on the road when a man pulled up next to her and told her that she had a flat tire and needed to pull over. The woman continued to drive because she didn't feel comfortable, and when she didn't give into a sick game, the man got angry and proceeded to drive her off of the road.

When the woman's vehicle came to a stop, the man quickly got out of his truck and started violently pulling at her locked door handles, demanding and screaming that she needed to get out of her car. Terrified, the woman kept her doors locked, sealing herself in, and refused to listen to this mysterious evil man. If the woman had done anything differently in this situation, if she had done anything differently in this situation, if she had pulled over earlier when the man had suggested or even failed to lock her car doors as quickly as she did. This woman may have wound up dead. Luckily for her, as the man is attempting to remove her from the vehicle, a random motorcyclist approaches on the road and stops nearby because the man's truck was sitting idle blocking the road.

After the person on the motorcycle pulled up, the phantom man quickly rushed back into his truck and sped down the road creeping back into the night. When the woman eventually gathered her wits and got back out to look at all of her tires, she observed that not a single one of them were flat. Could this have been the man who attacked Pamela? Maybe this was how he abducted his victims by acting like the nice guy, making vulnerable women traveling alone believe that they desperately need to stop and tend to their vehicle. Maybe he saw Pamela on the side of the road that night in July of 1989 and saw an opportunity to strike,

almost as if his next victim had been hand delivered to his front door, gift wrapped with a pretty little bow on top. Now, both the Cornish New Hampshire incident with the woman who had escaped from the help of a motorcyclist and the incident in which Jane got stabbed after getting her soda happened on I-91 at locations only about 40 miles away from one another. So there's a good chance that the two incidents were connected. Pamela's abduction happened on I-95, a few hours away from I-91, but it's still possible that all three incidents could be connected

because there are only a few major roads that connect these two interstates. My guess is that this killer has or had a very transient lifestyle, maybe a trucker of some sort, who frequents these roads often, or some sort of roaming, violent psychopath. In this exact conclusion has led people to believe that Pamela Webb, along with the other two New Hampshire women that we discussed, were all victims of a maniac nicknamed the Connecticut River Valley killer. A man who killed up to nine women along Route I-91 in New Hampshire and Vermont,

throughout his blood-soaked terror spree. The first killing connected to the Connecticut River Valley Killer happened in 1978, close to 10 years before Pamela's abduction. And although this murder occurred along a different route than the one Pamela was traveling, there are too many similarities between this first murder and Pamela's disappearance to completely rule out the possibility that they were connected. A lot of the women who were murdered by the sky were found along stop areas, off an I-91, or they had been recently hitchhiking along the same highway.

A lot of these women had been stabbed and their jugulars cut, just like Jane Borowski. And because Pamela's body had been so badly decomposed, this could have possibly been her fate, too. Unfortunately, her body had rotted too quickly and too thoroughly for investigators to conclusively determine what happened to her on the night of her murder. And if the Connecticut River Valley Killer is the same one that abducted Pamela, that means that he'd already accrued years of experience. They're practicing this sick hobby. And unfortunately, to this day, he has never been caught.

There's another case that people connect to Pamela's, and we couldn't finish this podcast without mentioning it because it's a really big one. The case of Mara Murray. In 2004, Mara crashed her car on a road close to I-91 and simply vanished into thin air. This case in and of itself is unbelievably strange, so much so that we feel we could dedicate an entire episode of our podcast to it. But at the end of the day, Mara's disappearance is almost identical to that of Pamela Webb's. Both women had been having car troubles and then mysteriously vanished. Luckily, with Pamela, they later found her body, but they were never able to find

Mara's. And even though Pamela was abducted in Maine, her body was found in New Hampshire, where Mara and a lot of other women went missing. Like I said, to this day, nobody knows what happened to Mara Murray. She seems to have literally vanished without a trace. It's a scary thought to think that all of these cases could be connected. This would mean that a serial killer has been abducting women along these roads for over 30 years, praying on women in need, murdering them when they're vulnerable, alone and on the side of the road, in the dark. And whoever is abducting and killing these women is really good at what they do. Pamela's murder was over 30 years of. ago. And when this amount of time passes after a murder, it typically means that the case will never

be solved. And this means that Pamela, along with all of those other victims, will probably never find justice. The killer is likely too old to offend again. And since there wasn't DNA left at a single one of the crime scenes, he will most likely die, taking his secrets to the grave. Are there more victims of this killer that have yet to be connected to the thread? Are there more bodies lying in the woods in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut crying out into the night to be found? What the hell happened to Mara Murray? Where is her body? And who is this guy? Where does he live now? Is he still alive? Is he dead? Has he struck in other states? These are all questions that will most likely never be solved. And this leads me to the end of the story, or rather the lack of an

ending that this story holds. One can only imagine how much fear must have pumped through the veins of these women before they were murdered to go from thinking that somebody was having you pull over so that they could help to suddenly realizing that they had you pull over so that they could kill you that's a chilling thought if only those roads could talk if only those roads could see i'm actually driving myself on a large expanse of road as i'm finishing the editing process of the podcast it's dark outside and i'm speeding down the highway in the passenger seat, rolling through the deep, dark expanse of rural East Texas. And it makes me wonder, what secrets did these roads hold? What stories of murder and terror could they share? It's an eerie concept. What about the roads in the state that you live in?

Maybe you already know the tales of highway murder in your home state. Maybe you're even driving yourself right now while you're listening to this episode of the podcast. Take a good look at the road ahead of you. Maybe you can see the road now, or maybe this will make you look even harder next time you have to leave and drive on a road. How much blood do you think has been shed along the road that you now travel? Has a body ever been found along the roadside ditched next to you? Maybe 30 years ago an empty car was found along the side of the road which you now travel. Then weeks later, a body. This is what I imagine those on the main turnpike must think while they drive to work or to school, because this was the case of Pamela Webb. Nobody expected

to see that empty car, and nobody thought anything of it. But eventually, this spot on the side of the turnpike would become a place that nobody could ever forget. Well, that's it for today's episode of murder in America. What a crazy story filled with mystery and intrigue. I hope they find out one day what happened to all of those women or who the guy was that, you know, ultimately killed them. This week we have another insane story coming to you, something gruesome and brutal, straight out of a horror film. If you want to support us, we want to make this full time. Please consider becoming a patron. You can sign up for one of the cheapest benefits and get access to new episodes that aren't posted on here. Follow us on Instagram at Murder in America. And I'm going to leave you with this.

those women whose bodies were never recovered, the women who were murdered along the side of the road, if they could speak, what would they say? Would they ask for help or would they cry for vengeance? It makes you wonder, the dead don't talk, or do they? We'll see you on the next one, everybody.