Murder, She Told

2004 - Downeast, Maine. When 17-year-old Krystal Lee Higgins went missing after a night with friends in 2004, the entire Downeast, Maine community rallied together to search for her. But the search came to a devastating end when Krystal's car was found in the river. Two days later, Krystal's body was found close to the same spot. The police ultimately ruled it an unfortunate accident, but for the...

2000 - Seabrook, New Hampshire. In 2000, while working the Fourth of July graveyard shift as a security guard in Seabrook, New Hampshire, Curtis Pishon disappeared without a trace. Earlier that evening Curtis's car has been mysteriously set on fire, and though the insurance company later ruled it an arson, it is still unknown who set the fire, and why it was set. After that, Curtis disappeared. Th...

1990 - Pittsfield, Maine. Shirley McAvoy had been missing for over a month when her estranged husband showed up to winterize her mobile home in Pittsfield, Maine in October of 1990. When he opened the door, he had no idea of the horrifying crime scene awaiting him inside. Shirley was last seen with a mystery man who called himself "Jerry", and the day she went missing, this mystery man was seen dr...

1991 - Pittsfield, Maine. 14-year-old Christopher Rines wasn't a bad kid. He skipped school a lot and snuck out at night, but he wasn't a bad kid. In April of 1991, after a night out with friends gone wrong, Christopher disappeared. And the local police department in Pittsfield, Maine wrote him off as a teenage runaway. But the weeks passed with no sign of Christopher... until his jacket showed up...

1806 - Bowdoinham, Maine. On a hot July night in 1806, in a frontier town near Augusta, Maine (before the state had its name), Captain James Scales Purrington took an axe and a straight edge razor, and murdered his wife and 7 of their children before killing himself. This horrifying act shocked the town. What kind of man would slaughter his children? Did James Purrington have a psychotic break? Or...

1965 - Bangor, Maine. In March of 1965, 54-year-old Effie MacDonald went to her job as a chambermaid at the Bangor House Hotel, a prominent luxury hotel in downtown Bangor, Maine. At 1:15pm, she was seen speaking with a man in the hotel's corridor, and she wasn't seen again... until 2:45pm, when her body was found in a vacant 3rd floor room. She'd been strangled, beaten, and raped. Around this tim...

1980 - East Millinocket, Maine. In 1980, 16-year-old Joyce McLain went out for a jog one hot summer day and never came back. Two days later, her body was behind her East Millinocket high school bludgeoned to death. Who would do this to such a well loved young woman? Over the years her mother fought like hell to keep this case in the interest of the public, and even successfully petitioned Unsolved...

2014 - Fortuna, California. In 2014, Danielle Bertolini went missing in Humboldt County, California. She was a childhood friend of mine from Maine, and her case has never been solved. But there is a person of interest... and Danielle isn't the only woman who was last seen alive with him. Joining me this week is Detective Brian Taylor of the Fortuna Police Department to talk about his involvement o...

2014 - Fortuna, California. In 2014, a childhood friend of mine from Maine went missing in Fortuna, California. Her name is Danielle Bertolini, and she’s one of the Humboldt County Missing Five. One year later, her skull was found at the mouth of a river. Her killer hasn't yet been brought to justice. For years I felt her family’s pain through updates online, and when I asked Billie Jo if she woul...

1984 - Dallas, Texas. In 1984, Angela Samota was brutally murdered in her home in Dallas, Texas, and for over twenty years her case remained unsolved... until Sheila Wysocki took action and solved the case. This week Murder, She Told welcomes a very special guest, Sheila Wysocki, to the show to talk about the journey to justice on her best friend's cold case, what it's like as a female private inv...

1999 - Biddeford, Maine. In March of 1999, the talk of the town in the Saco, Maine area was who killed 15-year-old Ashley Ouellette. And one day, while watching a news segment on her murder, Angel Torres, who went by Tony, said to his parents that he knew who killed her in a way his father later said left no room for doubt. Two months later, while attending a party in Biddeford, Tony Torres disapp...

1999 - Scarborough, Maine. Ashley Erin Ouellette was murdered. Her body was still warm when a passerby discovered her—perfectly placed in the middle of the road on a cold February night in Scarborough, Maine. “We turned around and there was this girl lying face down in the road. She was blue, and she had blood around her mouth. My initial thought was somebody had been hit by a car. But she was jus...

1980- Manchester, New Hampshire. The hallway was unusually dark as Judith Rahn stepped inside her apartment building in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was around 1am, and she was returning home to her 14-year-old daughter, Laureen, after a night out. Immediately, she knew something was wrong. Laureen wasn’t home. In fact, the young teen had just... vanished. Little did Judith know, she was about to...

1966 - Biddeford, Maine. When Armand Brochu served his wife, Monique, a vodka cocktail one November night at their home in Biddeford, Maine in 1966, he had no idea that just a few days later she would be dead. The autopsy showed she’d died of methyl alcohol poisoning, a liquid chemical similar to the alcohol we drink, except deadly. What was methyl doing in Monique’s system? But somebody saw more...

1988 - Bangor, Maine. When Peter J. Bassett stepped outside of Judy’s Bar and Grill to get some air, he had no idea that this would be his last moment. Within minutes, an unknown person pulled the trigger on a gun, shooting and killing Peter in cold blood in the middle of downtown Bangor, Maine on a Saturday night. Who would shoot this man? And how could somebody get away with something like this?...

2011 - Amity, Maine. Thayne Ormsby sat the police station in Dover, New Hampshire to answer more questions to help them catch a killer. Two weeks prior to this moment, somebody brutally stabbed a father, his best friend, and his young son in Amity, Maine. But Thayne secretly knew this killer was never going to get caught. He knew this... because he was killer. Is Thayne Ormsby a cold-blooded kille...

2010 - Amity, Maine. In 2010, the small town of Amity, Maine was rocked after a triple homicide took the lives of Jeff Ryan, his best friend, Jason Dehahn, and his young son, Jesse. The search for the killer brought police to 20-year-old Thayne Ormsby, a smooth talking drifter who had just moved into town. But why would he murder three innocent people with no apparent motive? Is Thayne Ormsby a co...

2006 - Skowhegan, Maine. Amy Drake was only 18-years-old when her body was found by hunters in 2006 in the woods of Norridgewock, Maine, just a few miles from the Skowhegan town line. She’d been missing for a little over a month. Since then, there have been few answers as to what happened to Amy, and her case, although still open 14-years later, sits on a list of 100+ other cold cases in the state...

1989 - I-95 South, Biddeford, Maine. 32-year-old Pamela J. Webb’s blue Chevy pickup truck was found abandoned with flat tires along the interstate in Biddeford, Maine, in July of 1989, her dog inside and signs of a struggle nearby. Almost three weeks later, her body was found over 100 miles away in the woods of Franconia, New Hampshire, and the medical examiner declared her cause of death “unspeci...

1982 - Etna, Maine. In 1982 in Newport, Maine, Jerilyn Towers goes to the local bar for a drink... and never comes back. When Newport Police Chief Jim Ricker, goes to question the man last seen with her, he quickly realizes that Jerilyn may not be the only person who was last seen with this man, and that they both might not actually be missing... This is the story of James Hicks, the serial killer...

1996 - Brewer, Maine. In 1996, Lynn Willette, a maintenance worker in Brewer, Maine went missing... her boyfriend? Convicted murderer James Hicks. Police can't pin him down for the crime, so he flees the state in search of a normal life. But the underlying rage of a dangerous man can’t stay quiet for long, and a nightmare was about to be unleashed on a sleepy Texas town. This is the story of James...

Maine and New England true crime. This is Murder, She Told: True crime cases from the state of Maine and New England, and unsolved murders from small town, USA. Murder, She Told uses detailed storytelling with an investigative twist, connecting with the friends, family, and investigators close to the case These are the true crime stories your hometown doesn’t want to talk about. These are the cold...