← Dark Downeast
Dark Downeast
The Disappearance of Marilyn Lehan (Maine)
00:40:25
It wasn’t unusual for months or even years to pass without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family, but when her brother decided to make a spontaneous visit to Marilyn’s home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don’t make sense to her family, and at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive.
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- [00:01]
Kylie Lowe
On Christmas Eve 1991, Dana Ireland set out for a bike ride on Hawaii's Big Island. Hours later, her bike was found abandoned and miles away, Dana was discovered having been brutally attacked. Her murder sent shockwaves through the Vacationland community, and under intense pressure, police accused not one but three men. All three were convicted of Dana's abduction and murder, but none of them committed the crime. In this season of three, Amanda Knox walks us through the truth behind Dana's case, explores how three families were forever changed by more than one injustice, and offers her firsthand insights into the devastating human costs that occur when the justice system gets it catastrophically wrong. Listen to Three now, wherever you get your podcasts. Charlie Heller is the CIA's most brilliant computer analyst whose life is turned upside down when his wife is murdered in a terrorist attack. Wrought with grief, Charlie decides her killers must pay. Without any field experience, Charlie must trek the globe and use his biggest weapon, his intelligence, to enact his revenge. Because the most unexpected threat is an amateur. Starring Academy Award winner Rami Malek and Academy Award nominee Laurence Fishburne, The Amateur rated PG13. Only in theaters on IMAX April 11th. Don't miss good American Family. We have a little girl here for adoption. She has dwarfism. Starring Ellen Pompeo and Mark Duke Duplass. Something is off. She's just a little girl. You think she's faking? She has adult teeth. There are signs of puberty. Inspired by the shocking stories that Torah Family apart I don't know what's going on. How old are you? You should get a lawyer. You have no idea how those people hurt this girl. The Hulu Original Series Good American Family New episodes Wednesdays streaming on Hulu. The last thing you want to hear when you need your auto insurance most is a robot with countless irrelevant menu options. Which is why with USAA auto insurance, you'll get great service that is easy, reliable, all at the touch of a button. Get a quote today. Restrictions apply. It wasn't unusual for months or even years to pass without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family. But when her brother decided to make a spontaneous trip to visit Marilyn's home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don't make sense to her family, and at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Marilyn Lehan on Dark Down East. It was August 2012, and Pat Lehan had already put thousands of miles on his motorcycle as he crossed the border into Maine. He was on a long haul international trip with a group of friends, starting in Colorado and reaching as far east as Newfoundland, Canada, before looping back west again. But as Pat turned on to Route 1 in Calais, Maine and ventured south, he was solo. He'd split off from the larger group to pay his sister and her husband a surprise visit. The last Pat heard from his younger sister, Marilyn Lehan, she was living in the town of Eastport, about as down east as you can get. Pat followed his map towards Clark street and his sister's sprawling oceanfront property on Harris Cove. The house was set back from the road down a long graveled driveway. The tires on Pat's motorcycle kicked up some dust as he coasted towards the shingled cottage. He was looking forward to catching up with Marilyn. It had been years since they last talked. Pat rapped on the front door and waited. A few moments passed and he knocked again, but no one answered. Glancing back towards Clark Street, Pat decided to check in with the next door neighbors, reasoning that they might have an idea when Marilyn would return. The conversation that came next was more than Pat had bargained for.
- [04:10]
Pat Lehan
You know, I wasn't expecting this, but I sat down and had a long, probably a two hour conversation with them in their kitchen and I was just astounded.
- [04:23]
Kylie Lowe
According to the next door neighbors who will call by the fake surname the Marsdens, Marilyn wasn't going to answer the door at the house on Clark Street. She hadn't lived there for years. Her husband was gone too. The house had new owners and where Marilyn went next, they really couldn't be sure.
- [04:44]
Pat Lehan
That was at a kind of a really tough experience because I thought I was going to be able to meet up with them and everything would be hunky dory and things were okay. But they gave a lot of information that they thought was suspicious. It raised a red flag in our minds or in my mind, you know, that something must be wrong.
- [05:10]
Kylie Lowe
Marilyn Lehan was the youngest of four children. She and her three brothers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska in the 50s and 60s. She went to Catholic schools up through her senior year, except for a brief period when she tried out public school. Pat remembered Marilyn getting overwhelmed with how big the school was. So she eventually returned to her former high school where she graduated among the top of her class. She earned an academic scholarship to Seattle University in Washington. According to the 1977 commencement program for Seattle University, Marilyn graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. At some point during her years on campus, Marilyn started dating a Fellow Seattle U. Student. I'm going to call him by the fake name David. As of 1975, Marilyn and David were both sophomores at the university, but I don't see his name among the students Marilyn graduated with in 1977 or in the commencement program for the following year. In any event, Marilyn and David got married in August of 1977. At least one of the witnesses listed on their marriage certificate was also a student in Marilyn's class at Seattle U. Pat isn't sure if they had a big wedding or if it was just a small affair with a few friends, but they were Fairly young, just 21 and 22, and by his assessment, probably didn't have much money for a ceremony and reception. Marilyn and David's lifestyle could be described as somewhat nomadic. They left Seattle and moved to New York and then Pennsylvania. They lived in Flagstaff, Arizona and Bodega Bay, California, spent some time in Marilyn's hometown of Omaha before returning to Seattle. They also lived in Montana for a time. In each new locale, David set up shop as a carpenter and ran his own construction business while Marilyn did the bookkeeping for him. As Pat explained, Marilyn and David really didn't keep in great contact with family. At one point, Pat and his wife relocated to Washington State and lived just across Puget Sound from where his sister and brother in law lived. It would have only been a short ferry ride away. And yet they rarely saw each other, if ever. They were six years apart and their lives were on different paths. And going long stretches of time without hearing from Marilyn was just the norm. They'd send Christmas cards to each other around the holidays and have the occasional visit. But they really lived separate lives. There was a time, though, that Marilyn turned to Pat and his wife when things with David were Rocky. Sometime around 1988 or 1989, Marilyn and David separated. Or at least they were spending some intentional time apart. At the time, Pat was traveling a lot for work and his wife was home with their three young children. So Marilyn moved into their home. Why Marilyn and David separated, Pat isn't sure, but they eventually reconciled and moved off to another state together. Pat's next memorable visit with his sister was in 2001, after their mother passed away. Pat had plans to finish the basement at his house into a family room somewhere the kids could turn up the stereo and not bother the grown ups. So David offered his construction expertise for the job and Marilyn came along too. Pat's wife and his kids were on a trip to Italy, so it was just Pat and his sister and Brother in law plugging away on the basement project.
- [08:45]
Pat Lehan
We just had a great time. They were here for almost a month and then right before they left, the kids came back. And Marilyn, of course, during this time, the cat, her cat and her African gray parrot Emmett were here. And so the kids were really entertained with that.
- [09:07]
Kylie Lowe
One thing Pat can say about his sister with total confidence is that she loved her pets. She had dogs and cats throughout her life. But perhaps the most unique of her menagerie was her beloved African gray parrot named Emmett. You can see a photo of Emmett perched on marilyn's shoulder@darkdowneast.com it was taken in 1996. Emmett had been part of the family for years. The same year that Marilyn and David helped renovate Pat's basement, Marilyn bought the house on Clark street in Eastport, Maine. She used part of the six figure inheritance from her mother's estate to put $30,000 down. The Eastport property was and is a beautiful place, right on the water. At the time Marilyn owned it, the parcel was around 14 acres with access rights to the beach along the bay. She seemed to embrace the saltwater lifestyle. In the summer of 2002, Pat's teenage son flew out to Maine to visit his Aunt Marilyn and Uncle David. A blurry photo shows Marilyn and her nephew on a large sailboat. She's wearing a yellow rain jacket, not unlike the wet weather gear donned by lobster fishermen. The nephew had said that everything was normal and there was nothing remarkable about Marilyn and David during that trip. That visit by Pat's son was the last time anyone in Marilyn's family saw her in person. They had other contact with Marilyn after that, at least one documented instance in 2003. According to Marilyn's family, David was experiencing some health struggles around that time. Maybe melanoma, maybe a burst appendix. Their recollections vary, but it's believed that neither Marilyn nor David had health insurance. And so they started to get into some debt from medical bills and the financial strain grew from there. Marilyn borrowed some money from another one of her brothers, a little over $3,000. In February of 2003, the check was made out to both Marilyn and her husband and it was deposited on March 5, 2003. Both Marilyn and her husband endorsed the check. That's really the last time they can trace that Marilyn was alive and well and living in Eastport, Maine. Pat fell into the rhythm of his own life and years went by without hearing from his sister again. It was just normal to go long stretches of time without talking to or seeing Marilyn. That was their dynamic. When the holidays rolled around in 2008 and 2009, the Lehans went about their annual tradition of sending family Christmas cards. Both years, they dropped one in the mail, stamped and addressed to Marilyn Lehan at her Clark street address in Eastport, Maine.
- [12:00]
Pat Lehan
My wife sent them a Christmas card and never heard back from them. We did not receive one back, and I think that's what started it. And then the next year we sent the card and it came back undeliverable. Yes. Yeah. That's what kind of set off the alarm.
- [12:27]
Kylie Lowe
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- [17:01]
Pat Lehan
That's when I sat down. I borrowed a spiral notebook from the hotel manager and just sat down for the whole night and wrote down what I could remember of the conversation.
- [17:15]
Kylie Lowe
All of the information I've shared, and there's more to come is drawn directly from Pat's original notes of his conversation with the Marsden's that day in August of 2012. I've tried calling the last known numbers for Maryland's former neighbors but couldn't reach anyone to verify these details or ask any clarifying questions. The Marsden's would be in their late 80s or early 90s today, and as you'll hear, they haven't had anything new to add since their original conversation with Pat. Over the course of his conversation with the Marsden's, Pat learned that Marilyn had defaulted on the mortgage she took out to purchase the Clark street house. Washington County Registry of Deeds records show that she was also behind on property tax payments. The tax bill issued on July 16, 2003 was unpaid and a tax lien was placed on the property as of May 2004. The bank started foreclosure proceedings in September of 2004. It eventually went to public auction in February of 2005. A couple we'll call the Bouchards bought it, so Pap called them to ask about his sister. The Bechards told Pat that they had since sold Marilyn's house, but when they took possession of it in 2005, many of David and Marilyn's personal belongings were still inside. According to the Bechards, David had left and then returned sometime later and sold some of the items to them for a few thousand dollars. One of the things the Bechards felt was worth mentioning was that there weren't any towels in the house when they took possession of it, and one wall looked like it had been repainted. They said that the deck was in disrepair, which seemed odd to them, knowing that David was a carpenter. Not only that, I guess the Bechards lived nearby prior to buying Marilyn's house, and David had actually built them a brand new deck at their other home, free of labor costs. I can't decide if this deck thing has any meaning. If Marilyn and David were struggling financially, you'd think David would charge for his labor. Sure, but it also makes sense that David wouldn't put any money into fixing up his own deck if money was tight. Again, it was just something the Bouchards thought was worth mentioning. But what really caught Pat's attention was what the Bouchards told him next. They said that when they asked David about Marilyn, he told them something about dropping her off to catch the bus where Route 1 met 190 north of Eastport for a retreat. That wasn't the only exchange David and the Bechards had about Marilyn. Mrs. Bouchard corresponded with David via email just hours after they'd closed on the house. She forwarded it to Pat. In Mrs. Bechard's email to David in March of 2005, she wrote that she and her husband were officially the new owners of Maryland's Clark street house. She then went on to say she assumes that he and Marilyn have reunited in California, where David had since moved. She wanted David to ask Marilyn if there was anything else left at the house she wanted because they still had many of her personal belongings and they were willing to mail them to her. Mrs. Bouchard closed the email wishing David well and said she was hoping to hear that he and Marilyn were together once again. David responded to her email on March 11, 2005 and told her that he heard from Marilyn and she was happy that the Bouchards got the house but that she wouldn't be coming home. According to David, Marilyn had been secretly planning to leave him for weeks before she actually did, and her reasons were based on her belief that she was wrecking his life. Even though he assured Marilyn that this was not the case, David asked for prayers for Marilyn and for him. He signed it with both of their names. A bus stop, a retreat, a secret plan to leave and she wasn't coming home. What in the world was going on with Marilyn Lehan and where was she now? Pat's conversations with the Bechards and the Marsdens bounced around his head as he made his way back to Colorado. He got his two brothers up to speed upon his return, sharing notes and emails and all the details he was able to gather, however nebulous. Marilyn's brothers spent the next few months trying to track their sister down and tried to get more information from their brother in law, but they kept coming up empty handed. By the summer of 2013, they turned to police for help and reported Marilyn missing. Pat and his brothers had compiled a summary of Marilyn and her husband's relationship, along with notes on everything they'd learned from neighbors and other family members and friends of Marilyn and David's, and sent it to Washington County Dispatch and Eastport Police Officer Thomas Fredette as early as May 20, 2013. Now, the Eastport Police Department is a small operation, like single digit small, and Officer Fredette was reportedly a reserve officer, so he didn't have a set schedule, but he called Marilyn's brother back the same day. The officer said that he started trying to contact the people listed in the summary provided by the family, but hadn't gotten through to anyone, so he planned to pick it up the following day. At the same time, Marilyn's family had hired a private investigator to conduct their own search for Marilyn. On June 3, 2013, the PI followed up with Eastport PD on behalf of the Lehan family and learned that Officer Fredette recently left for a two and a half week military deployment. According to the other officer the PI spoke to, Officer Fredette did not share any details about Marilyn's case with anyone before leaving, and the officer wasn't sure where the case stood. With the Eastport PD investigation at a standstill, Marilyn's brothers kept up their own efforts to learn more about the circumstances of their sister's disappearance. After a few days of phone tag, one of Marilyn's brothers successfully got Marilyn's husband on the phone. On June 10, 2013, Marilyn's brother spoke to David on the phone. After initial Hellos and How Are yous, David asked if he'd heard from Marilyn. Marilyn's brother said no and that's why he was calling. When Marilyn's brother asked David about the last time he saw Marilyn, David said he thought it was around August of 2005. David explained that when he and Marilyn first parted, she was headed to Montana to check out a Pius X group there. He thought that she would eventually join him in California to help take care of his ailing parents, but that didn't happen. David said that he last saw her when she came down to California to see his parents and she told him then that she'd be staying in Montana with the Pius X movement. She was with a woman whose name he didn't know. Marilyn's brother said he thought the last time David saw her was in Maine when she left for a retreat. David reiterated that the last time he saw her was when Marilyn visited his parents in California around August of 2005. Before hanging up the call, David said that Marilyn's brother could call him anytime now. They didn't get into it during the call, but the topic of the Pius X group or movement David referenced became a topic of discussion among Marilyn's brothers. They didn't know for sure, but it's believed that David was referencing the Society of St. Pius X or SSPX depending on the source. SSPX is either a controversial offshoot of the Catholic Church named after an ultra conservative pope from the early 1900s, or a misunderstood offshoot of the Catholic Church. According to the SSPX website, the Society was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970. He was disappointed by changes at the Vatican and formed the Society of St. Pius X to maintain tradition in the same vein as the Society's namesake, Archbishop Lefebvre, strongly opposed several contemporary developments within the Catholic Church, including ecumenism, AKA the view that all religions are beneficial and valid. He also rejected modernism, which is a movement that encouraged the interpretation of Catholic teachings through the lens of modern culture. Depending on where you look on the Internet, SSPX has been referred to as a cult. In a FAQ section on the official.org website, SSPX addresses the question, Is the SSPX a cult? The answer is, in part, we are simply Roman Catholics who are continuing to follow the unchanging faith of 2000 years as expressed in tradition. End quote. So to summarize, the Pius X group that David said Marilyn went to join in Montana is a conservative religious group not fully recognized by the Catholic Church but founded on some of its traditional beliefs. This didn't align with what Marilyn's brothers knew about their sister. Sure, she went to Catholic schools all the way up through university. Newspaper reports indicate that Marilyn was active at a church in Maine, too, but it didn't make sense to Pat and his brothers that Marilyn would have joined a group with such conservative views. Then again, who knows? It had been so long since they had a close relationship with Marilyn. Maybe she did leave for Montana for religious exploration and never turned back. It was on the list of questions they wanted answered. A few weeks after the phone call with David, the PI hired by Maryland brothers again followed up with Eastport PD and encouraged the department to run a search on Maryland's Social Security number, and the department indicated they'd do so. The PI then checked with a local bank in an attempt to learn the dates of the most recent activity on Maryland's account, but the security director of the bank wasn't able to provide that information. The PI also contacted three bus companies that had serviced the Eastport area in 2004, and he learned that they didn't keep any passenger records, so he wasn't going to be able to verify if Maryland had taken a bus somewhere, as David said. The private investigator talked to the Marsdens and the Bouchards, too, but didn't learn anything new from what they'd already told Pat the summer before. The following month, August of 2013, Eastport Police Chief Mark Emry was assisting on Marilyn's case. A Social Security trace had been completed, but unfortunately it wasn't helpful. The last known activity on her Social Security number dated back decades, when she was a librarian in Montana. The Eastport PD had taken their investigation into Maryland's disappearance as far as they could, with the resources available to the small local department. The Eastport police chief reached out to Maine State Police and By November of 2013, Maine State Police major Crimes Unit north stepped in. By spring the following year, state police troopers were putting boots on the ground in search of Marilyn Hi crime junkies. Are you looking for more ways to get your true crime fix? I have an option for you that will cost you nothing but give you everything. You can watch all your favorite true crime shows for free on Pluto tv. Follow along as mysteries are unlocked and secrets are revealed on 48 hours, Dateline 24. 7 and forensic files. Still feel like there are things left unsolved? Check out their crime dramas like Tracker and csi. Pluto TV is available on all your favorite devices so you can stay on top of every case from anywhere. Pluto TV stream now pay never on March 28, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse and the director of the Shallows invite you to their new horror movie, the Woman in the Yard. In the morning she appears. By noon she gets closer. When night falls, she takes you. Who is this woman? Where did she come from? What does she want? And most importantly, when will she leave? Don't let her in and don't miss the Woman in the Yard only in theaters March 28, according to reporting by Laura Whelan for the Quoddy Tides newspaper, on May 21, 2014, officers from Eastport Police and Maine State Police arrived at Maryland's former property in Eastport with K9 units and members of the Evidence Response Team. The team searched the 14 acre property that afternoon and again the following morning. After eight cumulative hours of searching with the K9 units, the dogs were pulled from the scene and police packed up. They didn't find anything relating to Marilyn's disappearance, but didn't necessarily expect to given it was her last known residence. Maine State Police said it was just a logical place to start. Lt. Christopher Coleman said, quote, we need to rule it out as a possible location. It's one of several steps to take. It's still a very open, active missing person investigation, he continued. We really need the public's help. We don't have a lot of information about how she spent her days, end quote. The next development wasn't until 2021. That's when one of Marilyn's brothers submitted a DNA sample to be put on file with the National Missing and Unidentified person system. A 2022 follow up with the detective assigned to Marilyn's case at the time, Detective Jason Fowler, indicated that there were no hits in namus. However, Detective Fowler said there was a tentative plan to conduct an extensive search inside Maryland's former Eastport home and garage during the summer of 2022. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet. Detective Fowler later cited numerous other active and cold cases which had directed time and effort elsewhere. The interior of Marilyn's home remains a question mark for the Lehan family They've never seen inside the home themselves. The Bechards who bought Marilyn's house had told Pat that one wall inside the house looked like it had been repainted. But that's about all the information the Lehan family has about the interior at this point. A victim advocate with the main Attorney General's office contacted one of Marilyn's brothers in the spring of 2024 and said that she'd follow up with him when she had more information about the status of the case. The Lehans have not heard from the AG's office since. I reached out to Detective Fowler and Major Crimes Unit north in hopes of discussing Marilyn's case, but have not heard back. As of this episode's original recording date, Marilyn's case is riddled with unknowns. The investigation began years after she was last seen, and so far, there isn't anything concrete to indicate the most likely scenario behind her disappearance. What about Montana? Records indicate that Marilyn and David lived there at some point before moving to Maine. So did she go back to Montana and link up with the Society of St. Pius X? That's what David said happened. But is there any evidence of it? I asked a private investigator contact of mine if Marilyn's name shows up in any database searches he has access to. The results were interesting. A person with the name Marilyn J. Lehan and the same birth date as the Marilyn we're talking about appears to have a last known address in Whitefish, Montana, as of July 2016. The database also served up a few names of likely associates, primarily in Montana. Now, these database results are notoriously imperfect, so I recalled a few of the numbers listed for likely associates. Most people didn't answer. Those who did hung up after I asked who I was speaking with. The SSPX website lists an associated chapel in Kalispell, Montana, which also happens to be a town listed among Maryland's previous addresses. So I gave the church a call. The church coordinator picked up, and I introduced myself and explained I was looking for a person named Marilyn Lehan who may have been a member of the church at one time, possibly in the early 2000s. Cousins. He didn't recognize the name, but said that it was before his time, so he'd ask around as of this episode's original recording date. I haven't heard back from the church coordinator. Okay, so say Marilyn didn't really set off to Montana to join a religious organization. What if she never left Maine? During Pat's conversation with the Marsdens that day In August of 2012, Martin Mr. Marsden made a comment that stuck out to pat. When Mr. Marsden was a kid, his father died of accidental drowning off Chocolate Cove in Deer Island, New Brunswick, just across the bay from Eastport and Harris Cove, where Marilyn's house was. The water between Maine's coast and Canada's has tides of 12 to 20ft. That means between high tide and low tide, the water level drops and rises. Between 12 and 20ft, water moves fast and things people can easily get swept out to sea. As Mr. Marsden said to Pat, nothing can be saved or found. Nothing indicates that Marilyn ended up in the water or anywhere else in Maine. It remains a possibility, one that cannot yet be ruled out. There's something else I can't stop thinking about and it's a little wild, but just stay with me for a minute. Maryland's beloved bird Emmett was an African Grey Parrot. According to the African Grey Parrot Handbook, these extremely intelligent birds are known for their legendary talking ability. The average lifespan for the breed when kept in captivity is anywhere from 30 to 80 years with proper care and diet. As the handbook describes it, it's like having a three year old living in your house forever. An African Grey Parrot made true crime headlines in 2016 when officers responded to the scene of what first appeared to be a double murder. According to a Detroit News article by Frances X. Donnelly, In May of 2015, EMTs found 46 year old Marty Durham and his wife, 48 year old Glenna Durham, unresponsive in their west Michigan home. The victims of apparent gunshot wounds. When Michigan State Police arrived an hour later, they thought Glenna might still be alive. When an officer crouched down to check her pulse, her eyes opened. Glenna recovered for almost a year. Her husband's murder went unsolved. Throughout the investigation, friends and family of the Durhams insisted that police talk to Bud, Marty's African gray parrot. Family members said that Buddha Bud was incredibly smart and may be able to tell police what happened. The parrot had since been rehomed with Marty's ex wife who owned the parrot with Marty before they divorced. About a month after the murder, Bud started talking. It sounded like he was reenacting an argument between two people. Bud's new owner recorded a video of the bird's chatter. Shut up. The bird Said get your a over here. Don't f ing shoot. Bud changed his tone of voice between lines, apparently reflecting two different people. It was unsettling, but Bud's owner wasn't sure what to make of it. A year later, in May of 2016, she decided to share the video of Bud talking with a news reporter. The video aired on WOOOD TV and the story caught fire. Fire. People around the world were talking about the Byrde who supposedly witnessed a murder. Glenna was arrested three weeks later. Police deny that the Byrd's words had clinched the case, but the prosecution actually considered calling Bud as a witness. Ultimately, that did not happen. Glenna was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Among the evidence against her were letters discovered in their home that suggested she shot her husband and then turned the gun on herself. In 2010, another parrot in South Carolina apparently mimicked an interaction between a 98 year old woman and her daughter. According to FindLaw, the bird kept repeating the words help me, help me and then laughed. Police believed they were the mimicked pleas of a woman suffering abuse. The woman's daughter was later charged with abuse and neglected, resulting in the death of a vulnerable adult. I asked Pat if Emmett could talk.
- [39:12]
Pat Lehan
He could say, you know, short sentences like where are you? Stuff like that.
- [39:19]
Kylie Lowe
Marilyn and David had Emmett as early as 1996 and he was reportedly still alive sometime between 2002 and 2005 when the Marsden's last saw David load up a car car and drive off with the parrot. It's possible that Emmett is still alive today, though it's not clear where he ended up say he is still alive. Studies and anecdotal evidence show that African Greys have impressive long term memory. If Emmett saw something, would he still remember it? Would he be able to remember his owner Marilyn and any interactions that preceded her disappearance? Could he be an unlikely witness to whatever happened before Marilyn went missing? I know it's wild, but with a case like this being merely cold from the get go, don't we need to ask every question, no matter how wild it may sound? I think a more obvious question to ask is whether Marilyn's husband might have more information than what he has previously disclosed to her family and former neighbors. It's interesting to note that David filed for divorce from Marilyn in 2016. According to court records, the summons on the dissolution of marriage petition was served by publication. What that means is Marilyn needed to respond to David's divorce filing, but she could not be located to respond to the summons in person. So David was allowed to publish the notice in a newspaper that Marilyn was most likely to see, which would typically be a newspaper that circulates in the area of her last known address. Now, I'm still waiting on documents from the courthouse, but I am so eager to see where exactly the notice was published. Was it Maine? Montana? California? Wherever the notice was published as of April 2017, Marilyn hadn't responded. So David filed a default or uncontested judgment. The first proposed judgment was rejected, and a new proposed judgment was filed in June of that year. The divorce was granted that same month. So as of 2017, Marilyn and David are officially divorced. And while we're speaking of court filings and service by publication, when Marilyn's Eastport house was in foreclosure, the bank also used service by publication as they were unable to locate Marilyn to serve her in person. Three separate notices of the foreclosure proceedings were published in the Bangor Daily News. In July of 2004. A district court filing states that Maryland did not plead, appear, or otherwise defend the foreclosure action. And so the case moved forward. Interestingly, those same district court records give a PO Box address for Marilyn in California. So if Maryland had a post office box there, did she actually live in California in 2004? If that's the case, why didn't David say so? Naturally, I don't know every or any detail David has disclosed to police since the investigation began. In the very limited previous reporting about Marilyn's case, it's noted that her husband was cooperative. At this point, David is not being called a suspect or person of interest. My several attempts to reach Marilyn's now ex husband were unsuccessful. Maine State Police post Marilyn's photo on their Facebook page each year as a reminder of her unsolved disappearance. And the comment thread can be a little harsh for some. It's hard to fathom how a family could go so many years without realizing their sister was missing. I'm protective of the families I work with, and I just hope that everything you've heard about Marilyn and her family paints a more complete picture of the circumstances beyond what a few sentences on a social media post can do. When I asked Pat if he had any frustrations with Marilyn's case right now, I was prepared to hear something about law enforcement's response. But Pat was candid that the frustrations may instead be with himself.
- [43:28]
Pat Lehan
We should have pursued this a lot sooner, but you know, with kids and now grandkids, you kind of lose track and time passes quickly. I think we might have been a little reticent in not pursuing, you know, keeping better contact. They never kept contact either, and they had moved so much that sometimes it was hard to keep in touch or whatever. But a lot of things could have been done differently, I guess.
- [43:59]
Kylie Lowe
Marilyn lehan would be 70 years old today. If you have information relating to her disappearance, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit north at 207-973-3750 or toll free at 1-800-432-7381. You can also leave a tip using the form linked in the description of this episode. Foreign thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case@darkdowneast.com Be sure to follow the show on Instagram arcdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe and this is Dark Down East. Dark down east is a production of Kylie Media and Audio Check so what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one motorcycle insurer. Did you know? Riders who switch and save with Progressive save nearly $180 per year. That's a whole new pair of riding gloves and more. Quote today Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $178 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between October 2022 and September 2023. Potential savings will vary. 132 rooms, 157 suspects, one dead body, one wildly eccentric detective, one disastrous and at the center of it all, a case unlike any other. The new Netflix series the Residents is a screwball whodunnit. Set in the White House from Shondaland, the series features an all star cast led by Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Kopp, the most sought after detective in the world. Watch the residents March 20 only on Netflix.