Dark Downeast

When Johnathan Walton hosted a wine and cheese night in his Los Angeles apartment in 2013, he couldn’t have known that the event would invite a shark into his inner circle. Flyers he hung up around the building gave off the scent of a helper, a do-gooder, a warrior against injustice. It was like blood in the water. Johnathan Walton’s story unfolds thousands of miles away from New England, but the...

He committed his first murder at 15-years old, ending the life of an innocent shopkeeper as he and his buddies made their way around Lawrence, Massachusetts holding up convenience stories “for the thrill of it”. His lawyer would later plead for mercy on the accused teenage killer, but that mercy would have unintended consequences not so far in the future. George Nassar is a two-time convicted kill...

Jessica Zernicke Holmes left work on the night of September 24, 2015 to find her phone flooded with missed calls and messages. When she was finally able to call her family member back, they delivered shocking news about her father. 58-year old Kenneth Zernicke was found dead inside his burning home in Caribou, Maine. Two days later, his death was ruled a homicide. Jess reached out to me because af...

Strung up in the corner of a roadside amusement park fun house was the figure of a man coated so many times with phosphorus paint that it glowed in the dimly lit space. It was alarmingly lifelike, and yet in the several years the figure was on display, no one dared question if it was anything more than a mannequin. Elmer Mccurdy: The Life And Afterlife Of An American Outlaw by Mark Svenvold     Vi...

ACTIVE CASE, PART 3: In October of 2016, about a month after he was plucked from a life raft after a week at sea, Nathan Carman walked into the private memorial service he’d organized to honor his mother, Linda Carman. Notably missing from the private service were Linda Carman’s three sisters. It was publicly obvious that something wasn’t right. The relationship between Nathan Carman and his aunts...

ACTIVE CASE, PART 2: Nathan Carman was 23-years old when his boat the Chicken Pox sank during a fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island, presumably claiming the life of his mother, Linda Carman, who was also aboard the vessel before it went down. Nathan was rescued a week later – a miraculous recovery by a freight ship that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The story onl...

ACTIVE CASE, PART 1: When the daughter of wealthy real estate developer John Chakalos walked into her father’s Connecticut home one morning in December 2013, it set into motion a long-term investigation of not one, but two suspicious deaths in the same family within a three year span. Investigators had a prime suspect for the murder of John Chakalos from the beginning, but it wasn’t until another...

AUGUSTA, ME 1976: The murder of 70-year old Augusta resident Blanche Kimball remained a cold case for decades until a new tip, advancements in DNA technology, and a clever idea brought all the loose ends together.   View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/blanchekimball Follow @darkdowneast on  Instagram ,  Facebook , and  TikTok To suggest a case visit darkdowneast.co...

Missing Kim , a Dark Downeast mini-documentary is out now at missingkim.com . If you have information that could help in the investigation, please contact Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit South at (207) 624-7076 or leave an anonymous tip .   View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/missingkim Follow @darkdowneast on  Instagram ,  Facebook , and  TikTok To suggest a...

The fire horn rang out in Ossipee, New Hampshire around 10 p.m. on September 28, 1916. The blaze at Frederick and Florence Small's cottage on the lake burned fast, even, and hot. The fire department could do nothing to save the structure or anyone who might remain inside. Frederick was out of town, seen leaving on a train towards Boston that afternoon, but Florence was unaccounted for. It was a su...

When Albert Flick was released from his first prison sentence for killing his wife, he restarted his pattern of threatening and victimizing women. But he’d age out of it, wouldn’t he? Statistics said so. His drooping, wrinkled face and frail body did not look like that of a brazen killer. He’d be in his mid-70s by the time he was free again, surely the threat he posed to society would fade. Sadly,...

NEWPORT, MAINE 1975: Ellen Choate was ready to start her new job. So ready, that she hopped a train from Philadelphia to Boston just hours after she graduated to get a jump start on her journey to Maine. It was midnight when Ellen took her seat on that train heading north, hoping that once in Massachusetts, she’d find a ride to Bangor, where her house, car, and new role as a Montessori teacher was...

It was just before 4 a.m. on June 20, 1975 in Newport, Maine. The sky was just warming with hints of dawn and the air was quiet save for the buzz of the ice cooler and Coca Cola vending machine sitting in the dim glow of the gas station lights. The fishermen waiting in their car for gasoline noticed a light on inside McNally’s Texaco, but no one came to greet them outside at the pump. Anxious to g...

It was described as one of Vermont’s most frustrating cold cases. A dedicated mother and beloved school teacher disappeared in November of 1979, with nothing but a smashed up vehicle and a strange hand-written note left behind. When her ex-boyfriend disappeared a month later, too, authorities had two people to track down – one they presumed to be dead, and the other they suspected of causing her d...

VERMONT, 1979: When the vehicle of Judith Leo-Coneys turned up at a junkyard in Roxbury, Vermont, it was the first big clue in the disappearance of the beloved school teacher and young mother. The case would spiral into an investigation spanning a decade and stretching across the United States, but before investigators would uncover any answers for Judy, they’d have to find a second missing person...

Semper Memento. Always Remember. Those words guide the work of the Maine State Police Unsolved Homicide Unit. In this special release episode, I peel back the curtain on the Unsolved Homicide Unit and reveal what goes into re-examining and investigating long standing homicide cases in the state of Maine and how a team of experts collaborates in pursuit of one common goal – to find answers. Each of...

STOCKTON SPRINGS, 1984: Nearly four decades is a long time to wait for justice. In the case of Dorthea "Dot" Burke, time proved to be exactly what detectives needed to secure that justice, bringing key witnesses forward to tell their story. You might assume DNA is the key to closing out cold cases, but more often than not, it’s all about getting people talking. It was a 36-year long investigation...

NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1978: When State Police investigators started digging in March of 1988, it had been 10 years since anyone had seen Russell Bean. An investigation followed his disappearance, but foul play wasn’t suspected. Not until a deathbed confession and shocking accusation sent investigators to the site of an old pig pen on the property of Marlow, New Hampshire’s Police Chief, Robert Chambers S...

In April 1979, the lives of two teenagers from two very different parts of the country were inextricably linked by murder. In Brewer, Maine, 17-year old Amy Banks awoke one night to learn that her father, Dr. Ronald Banks, had been murdered in New Orleans, Louisiana. One month later, authorities in New Orleans arrested 16-year old Isaac Knapper and charged him with the killing of Amy’s father. But...

FAIRBANKS, ALASKA 1993: After more than two decades of searching for answers in the unsolved homicide of 20-year old Sophie Sergie, DNA evidence led detectives from Alaska to the doorstep of Steven Downs in Auburn, Maine. On Thursday, February 10, 2022, the jury found Steven Downs guilty on the charges of murder and sexual assault. I covered Sophie Sergie’s case in two parts on Dark Downeast. Soph...

MASARDIS, MAINE 1977: The impact that murder has on a family and a community is profound and far-reaching. When a murder goes unsolved, grief is partnered with lasting fear. In a small town like Masardis, Maine, the shock that came after the killing of Lila Drew still reverberates these 45 years later. Who chose to end the life of a 78-year old woman for seemingly no reason? How could this person...

LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS 1996: 6-year old Jesus De La Cruz was out playing with a friend on September 28, 1996 when a man approached the two young boys. His friend later told police that Jesus was lured away by that man who promised him a new bike. It was the last time anyone saw Jesus. Despite suspicions surrounding a man in the neighborhood, rumors of drug debt retaliation, accusations cast on the bo...

DEDHAM, MAINE 1983: For nearly three decades, the family of Kitty Collins Wardwell hoped that the whereabouts of their daughter, sister, and mother would be revealed and the secret of what happened to the smart, beautiful Kitty would come out into the light. But they wouldn’t learn the truth about Kitty until someone else passed away 28 years later. You won’t find her name on the Maine State Polic...

RHODE ISLAND, 2006: Was it a seizure or did somebody murder Shawn O'Brien? His daughter, Natalia St. Louis, just wants to know the truth, but the details of that July afternoon in 2006 don’t make any sense. It was labeled a medical call, an apparent seizure, but the autopsy report and blood evidence at the scene point to something much more violent than that. Over 15 years later, Shawn O’Brien’s c...

26 years is a long time to wait for answers in an unsolved homicide, but in 2019 the family of 20-year old Sophie Sergie finally had a glimmer of hope that closure was possible. Familial DNA evidence led cold case investigators from Alaska all the way to Auburn, Maine and to the doorstep of the man now charged with the murder of Sophie Sergie. The trial of Steven H. Downs began in January 2022 and...