The Suspicious Death of Valerie Carr (Maine)

Ian Vance was just a kid when he lost his mother, Valerie Carr. Her death was ruled an accident, but now as an adult, he questions everything. Details unearthed from decades of court records reveal the circumstances of Valerie’s life leading up to her death…Circumstances he feels should’ve been scrutinized more closely before closing his mother’s case.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 0:06Speaker 00

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• 0:23Speaker 02

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• 0:30Speaker 03

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• 0:58Speaker 03

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• 1:05Kylie Low?

  Ian Vance was just a kid when he lost his mother. Her death was ruled an accident. But now, as an adult, he questions everything. Details unearthed from decades of court records reveal the circumstances of Valerie's life leading up to her death. Circumstances he feels should have been scrutinized more closely before closing his mother's case. I'm Kylie Low, and this is the case of Valerie Carr on Dark Down East.

• 1:48Speaker 05

  It was pretty much any, any other school day.

• 1:53Kylie Low?

  It was November 6th, 2008, and Ian Vance was 12 years old. He lived in Bangor, Maine, in the Cape Heart apartment community with his brother and sister and his mother, 37-year-old Valerie Carr. Ian is a grown-up now, with a wife and children of his own, but his memories of that day will never fade.

• 2:15Speaker 05

  I get home, go upstairs, I put my backpack away. It was kinda odd, so when I walked in the door, all the lights were off. And so I thought, it was kinda weird, okay, you know, whatever. And I remember standing by the door, and I yelled to my mom, "Hey, I'm going over to..." My friend's nickname was Boo Boo, because he always got hurt. So I was like, "Hey, Mom, I'm going to Boo Boo's house. We're gonna play video games. I'll be back later." And I took a double take, and I was looking, and I was like, I was looking at her stomach to see if it was rising and falling. And my mind played a trick on me, basically.

• 2:56Speaker 05

  It was, "My mom's too young, she can't be dead. She is breathing. Just go play with your friends. She'll be making dinner by the time you get back." And so I said, "I love you. I'll see you later," and I left.

• 3:11Kylie Low?

  Ian's sister wasn't in after-school program, so she got home after him that day as she usually did.

• 3:18Speaker 05

  Couple hour, two, three hours, maybe. She went home, and then she found me at my friend's house. And my sister came up the stairs, and she's like, "Mommy's being really weird." And I was like, "What do you mean?" And she's like, "Well, she's just sitting on the couch, and her movie's over, and she's just sitting there." And I was like, "Okay." And I was trying to think rationally in my head. Okay, well, she's been having migraines lately, you know, past couple months, and she's probably just tired. You know, instead of going up to bed, she fell asleep on the couch. I asked my sister, "Is she sitting like this?" Her legs kinda spread out, her arms to her side, and her head back.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  And my sister said yes. And at that moment, I knew something was very wrong.

• 4:08Kylie Low?

  They ran back to their apartment as fast as their legs could carry them.

• 4:13Speaker 05

  And I opened the door, I turned the lights on, and she's in the exact same position as she was two or three hours before. So we both run up to her, we're shaking her, we're trying to wake her up.

• 4:27Kylie Low?

  Ian grabbed the phone to call his friend's dad.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  They flipped around and came to my apartment so fast and got my sister and I out of there. They ended up calling the police, you know, they did everything that they could.

• 4:43Kylie Low?

  First responders attempted to revive Valerie, but it was too late. Her time of death is listed as 5:01 PM, the time she was found. However, it's believed she was already dead when Ian first saw her body when he got home from school, around 3:30 that afternoon. Bangor Police responded to the apartment to investigate the unattended death. I requested records from the investigation from Bangor PD and received a scant six-page file with a few investigative narratives for case number 08-072869. Detective Tim Cotton was among the responding officers that day. If you're from Maine, you may know the name Tim Cotton.

• 5:29Kylie Low?

  He is known locally and across the country for his humorous Facebook posts on the Bangor Police Department page and a few books he's written. This case was pre-social media fame. Detective Cotton arrived at the scene around 6:00 PM. Another officer already there advised Detective Cotton that there was a partial bottle of sertraline, a generic version of Zoloft, in Valerie's bedroom. Sertraline is an SSRI and is often prescribed to treat depression, anxiety, and other disorders. According to Detective Cotton's narrative, the prescription had been filled four days earlier, November 2nd, with 15 100-milligram tablets. Dosing instructions said the tablets should be cut in half.

• 6:14Kylie Low?

  13 pills out of the 15 remained in the bottle, suggesting that Valerie was taking the medication according to the prescribed dosage, half of a tablet each day for the previous four days. Detective Cotton viewed Valerie's bedroom and didn't see anything unusual about it, but he photographed the room, along with the two other bedrooms on the second floor, and the bathroom anyway, as was routine. He also photographed the medicine cabinet and its contents. Again, nothing unusual to speak of there. The detective couldn't find any doctor's appointments listed amongst Valerie's paperwork at home, and when he spoke to people who knew Valerie, they couldn't think of any medical condition that might explain her sudden death.

• 6:59Kylie Low?

  Detective Cotton was later advised that a physician wanted Valerie's body to be taken to the medical examiner for a postmortem examination. The doctor may have been Valerie's primary care provider at the time, but there's no context in the case file and I haven't been able to track the doctor down. As funeral home personnel prepared to transport Valerie's body for autopsy, Detective Cotton inspected her for any sign of trauma or injury. He found none. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Marguerite Dewitt performed the autopsy on the morning of November 7th. Valerie's lungs showed pulmonary edema, fluid in the lungs.

• 7:41Kylie Low?

  She had lung inflammation due to aspirated material, inflammation of her liver without a clearly identifiable cause, and scar tissue and other signs of possible long-term stress on her heart. The only external injury listed in the autopsy report was a 1.3-centimeter dull, red, round contusion on the back of her left wrist. In summary, there were no signs of significant trauma to Valerie's body that could explain how this otherwise healthy woman died. But when the toxicology report returned a few weeks later, that's when the answers were finally made clear. Valerie's blood samples were tested for dozens of substances.

• 8:24Kylie Low?

  Screenings for opiates, cocaine, benzodiazepines, weed, barbiturates, alcohol, and a few others all came back negative with none detected. However, the tox screen detected elevated levels of two other substances: sertraline and pseudoephedrine. Sertrolene is the same medication that Detective Cotton found in Valerie's home. Pseudoephedrine, as you may know, is a common ingredient in over-the-counter nasal decongestants, and is intended to treat symptoms of colds and allergies. The Sertrolene test found 150 nanograms per milliliter in Valerie's blood sample.

• 9:07Kylie Low?

  Pseudoephedrine levels were found to be 910 nanograms per milliliter, AKA, "a lot of both substances outside the typical therapeutic dose." With that, the medical examiner ruled that Valerie died as the result of "accidentally taking excess prescription medication, causing combined Sertrolene and Pseudoephedrine toxicity." Case closed. That may have been the official ruling, but a closed case wasn't closure for those who knew and loved Valerie.

• 9:43Speaker 05

  There were not one, not two, but a plethora of people who suspected there might be foul play, that this was not an accident.

• 9:57Kylie Low?

  A little over a year before she died, Valerie divorced her husband, Dale Carr. The divorce came after years of alleged domestic violence against her and the children, as well as Dale's conduct as a registered nurse that resulted in several disciplinary actions from the Maine Board of Nursing. Records show that Dale's prohibited conduct as a nurse dated back as far as 1994, when he worked at Nicholson's Nursing Home in Winthrop, Maine. According to Maine Board of Nursing documents, he was accused of stealing scheduled drugs from his patients at the nursing home for his own private use. He reasoned that his patients,

• 10:38Kylie Low?

  quote, "would be too confused to know whether or not the medication had been administered." End quote.

• 10:46Kylie Low?

  But alas, Dale got caught. During the course of the investigation into the drug theft, then Monmouth Police Chief Ken LaTulip spoke with Dale, and Dale asked the chief about Valerie, who had left home. Dale wanted to know where she was. The chief asked Dale what he should do if police located Valerie. In the police chief's version, Dale said, "Put a bullet in her head and save me the trouble." Dale later said that he was misquoted. He claims his statement was actually, "Put a bullet in the person's head who took my wife." End quote. He followed it up, saying that he would, "beat his wife," when he found her.

• 11:32Kylie Low?

  In November of 1994, Dale was convicted of theft by unauthorized taking for stealing the medications from his patients. He was also convicted of terrorizing, stemming from the statements he made about Valerie. He was sentenced to 364 days in jail, all suspended, and one-year probation, plus a $10 fine. That December, the Maine State Board of Nursing formally reprimanded Dale with a one-year suspension of his license, all but 30 days suspended, and a 12-month probation period with conditions. The conditions included, "refraining from any conduct that would be grounds for disciplinary action." A few months later, in March of 1997,

• 12:16Kylie Low?

  the State Board of Nursing received a letter about Dale's conduct at a client's home. The letter accused Dale of making harmful and inappropriate remarks to the client's family and a certified nursing assistant working in the home, which upset an 11-year-old family member of the client. That conduct violated the terms of his license probationary period, and so Dale's license was suspended, as of March 18, 1997. Dale's license was still under suspension when, in April of 1997, he accompanied another nurse to a patient's home. That nurse was having trouble inserting a canula to start an IV, so Dale assisted. There was no evidence that the patient was harmed by this.

• 13:01Kylie Low?

  However, Dale was prohibited from practicing professional nursing while under suspension, so he faced another formal reprimand. According to a February 1999 consent agreement, Dale agreed to pay a $1,000 civil penalty and complete a professional boundaries course. His license was also placed on a minimum three-year probation period, and it would remain under probation until the board voted otherwise. On March 14th, 2005, the board ended Dale's probationary period. Dale's nursing license remained in good standing until after Valerie died. But when the main board of nursing took disciplinary action against him once more in 2010,

• 13:44Kylie Low?

  Dale would be prohibited from ever practicing professional nursing again.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect...

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Stop. This is Simply Safe. Police are on the way.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Using smart AI cameras, live US-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Don't just record a break-in, stop it from ever happening. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com/truecrime.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at $49.99 a month. Visit simplysafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 14:25Kylie Low?

  I've been trying to get a head start on holiday shopping this year, and I've realized that some of the best gifts are just really nice versions of things people already use every day, which is why I always turn to my BFF, Quince. I got my daughter the cutest lightweight puffer jacket, which is perfect for layering during these colder months. And don't worry, she doesn't know how to find the podcast app yet, so she won't hear this and spoil her gift. As a New Englander, high-quality outerwear is key, but I can't justify paying triple digits for a jacket that'll fit her for, like, two snowstorms. Quince is high-quality, everyday essentials, not high prices, because they work directly with factories and cut out the middleman. I know you can find what you're looking for from Quince.

• 15:09Kylie Low?

  Cashmere sweaters, organic cotton basics, bedding, luggage. A gift for everyone. And hey, pal, you deserve to treat yourself too. Gold hoop earrings, add to cart. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Dark Down East. It's the best way to support the show.

• 15:48Kylie Low?

  In July of 2010, the Maine State Board of Nursing met in a public session for an adjudicatory hearing to decide whether Dale Carr violated board statutes and rules while licensed as a registered professional nurse. The board heard testimony and reviewed evidence. And while this was not a criminal trial and the standard of proof was different, the board found the testimony and evidence of the alleged violations to be credible. A decision and order filing summarizes the board's findings of fact regarding the alleged violations. According to that decision and order, Dale Carr had been employed as a registered nurse at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine, until about November 24, 2008,

• 16:32Kylie Low?

  when he was fired due to his alleged involvement in domestic violence and viewing child sexual abuse content. What Ian is about to share may be upsetting. We are going to discuss physical and emotional abuse of children and women and child sexual abuse material. Please listen with care.

• 16:55Speaker 05

  So my dad is a... He's very prone to violent outbursts. In my younger years, he worked overnight. And the one rule was, when he's home, he's sleeping and to not be loud. It was basically, we had to be as quiet as church mice so that he wouldn't wake up and get angry. You could hear him, like the whole house would shake, him stomping down the stairs. And my brother and I got the worst, but he would spank us with a belt, or he had, think of a paint mixer, like one of those wooden sticks,

• 17:40Speaker 05

  but it was about half an inch thick. And carved in to that stick was the stick.

• 17:50Kylie Low?

  After Valerie's death, Ian and his siblings were evaluated by a licensed social worker specializing in assessing abuse and exposure to domestic violence for children. Ian, his brother, and his sister all spoke of the physical abuse inflicted on them by their father. Ian's younger sister also told the social worker about the stick and the severity of the marks left on their bodies. The social worker found clear evidence that Ian and his siblings were psychologically and physically abused by their father and had witnessed domestic violence against their mother. In 1994, possibly around the same time Dale was under investigation for the drug theft charges,

• 18:33Kylie Low?

  Valerie left home and stayed at a domestic violence shelter because of Dale's shouting and threats. That was the same year he was convicted of terrorizing Valerie. Valerie herself outlined other instances of domestic violence and abuse in a protection from abuse order request she filed. Valerie said that in October of 2004, Dale told her, quote, "She was the kind of woman that deserves to be beat," end quote, and grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to throw her down the stairs. In September of 2005, Dale allegedly tried to strangle Valerie and then shoved her around the kitchen. When asked other questions about their father,

• 19:15Kylie Low?

  Ian and his siblings said that Dale pretty much only did three things. He worked, he went to sleep, and he played on the computer. In December of 2006, Valerie reported Dale's computer activities to the FBI. She believed he was downloading and viewing child sexual abuse material.

• 19:37Kylie Low?

  According to testimony from the Board of Nursing Hearing, Valerie and a few of Dale's friends had previously confronted Dale about the illegal and exploitative images. They told him to get rid of his computers and stop the behavior. Valerie tried to implement a system where they'd both have to enter one half of a password to access the computer, but the effort failed.

• 20:00Kylie Low?

  In a letter from Valerie to Dale described in the main Board of Nursing disciplinary hearing documents, she wrote, "I know that your addiction to child pornography is not only disturbing but way out of control. The whole child pornography pedophilia has been my greatest stress cause."

• 20:20Kylie Low?

  Dale allegedly told his friends that if Valerie ever tried to report him for the images, he'd just say it was Valerie who put the photos on the computer, or he'd argue that the images were computer-generated or photoshopped, which he believed would be hard to prove otherwise.

• 20:37Kylie Low?

  The FBI did not take action on Valerie's report at the time, but soon, local police would. It started with an incident on January 15, 2007. That was the day Valerie got Dale out of the house and away from her children, once and for all.

• 20:56Speaker 05

  My siblings and I call it "the pizza incident", because this revolved entirely around my brother and I arguing over the last slice of pepperoni pizza. So in true fashion, my father comes storming down the steps, flies into the kitchen, takes the plate, throws it in the corner on the counter, proceeds to grab my brother, pin him on the floor, yell some obscenities at him, and then I thought my dad was gonna kill my brother because of how angry he was. And so I jumped on his back, and I put my dad in a chokehold.

• 21:42Kylie Low?

  Ian remembers his father pulling him off his back. Ian's brother then said something to their father, and Dale allegedly struck him in the face, causing an injury. Valerie heard the commotion and ran to check on her son before turning to Dale. Ian remembers Dale trying to explain what happened, but Valerie grabbed the phone and locked herself in another room to call police.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  And that was the very morning that the police almost, actually physically removed my dad. Almost picked him up and carried him out because he was so belligerent.

• 22:18Kylie Low?

  Another source I spoke to confirmed the details of the pizza incident, as it was relayed to them from Valerie herself. This incident is also described in main board of nursing documents. Dale was taken away from the house that day, but he reportedly returned sometime later to leave a note. It read in part, "You flatter yourself thinking you are worth spending my life in jail for. I want my [bleep] bullets back. Trust me, you aren't worth it." End quote.

• 22:52Kylie Low?

  On January 16th, the day after Dale was removed from the home, Valerie filed a request for a protection from abuse order. A temporary order was issued that day and it was officially granted on February 5th, 2007. The order did not make findings of abuse. However, it prohibited Dale from, quote, "threatening, assaulting, molesting, etc.," end quote, "his wife and children." He was not allowed to be at their home.

• 23:20Speaker 05

  It was years before I saw him again after that.

• 23:25Kylie Low?

  The same day that Valerie got Dale out of the house, she reported Dale's alleged use of child sexual abuse material to the Monmouth Police Department. She consented to police removing all the household computers for analysis by a detective who could recover any deleted files. Following a forensic analysis of the computers, the detective found over 2,300 images of suspected child abuse material on the desktop hard drive. The detective believed that they were real photos of male and female children between the ages of six and 12 years old. The images had been deleted from the computer at 8:16 PM on January 16. The detective believed

• 24:10Kylie Low?

  that whoever deleted the images was the same person who downloaded them in the first place. Although Dale argued that he was out of the house at the time due to the protection order, the main board of nursing found evidence, to be persuasive, that Dale did not give a credible account of his whereabouts at the time and date the images were deleted from the home computer, and records show he was not at work. The board felt it was reasonable to believe that Dale could have snuck into the house and cleared the computer that night. However, to be clear, this has not been proven. So, as of January 2007, Dale was under investigation. But perhaps more importantly

• 24:54Kylie Low?

  for Valerie, Ian, and his siblings, Dale was out of the house. The protection order remained in place, and Valerie filed for divorce, which was finalized in the summer of 2007. Things were getting better. Ian remembers the fun he had with his mom one night after his dad was out of the house.

• 25:15Speaker 05

  One of my mom's favorite singers was Mark Schultz and Phil Collins. And that night, there was actually a pay-per-view of Mark Schultz playing live. And my mom put that on for us, and she blasted the TV volume as loud as it could go while we were all just eating candy and chips and all this other stuff. You know, totally unhealthy, but it was probably the best night I remember ever having with my mom. That night, she was so just loose and carefree and, you know, didn't care about the rules. And, you know, of course, I was

• 25:59Speaker 05

  I was a little kid staying up past midnight.

• 26:03Kylie Low?

  On December 14th, 2007, the Kennebec County Sheriff's Office arrested Dale Carr on a charge of possessing sexually explicit material of a minor under the age of 12. According to reporting by Megan V. Malloy for the Kennebec Journal, his trial was set to begin in late April of 2008. Valerie was expected to be the key prosecution witness. But the trial was delayed when a judge ruled more testimony was needed to determine if the sexually explicit photos of children were real. Dale's defense attorney argued that pictures could be photoshopped, and who is to say that the photos in question weren't manipulated?

• 26:45Kylie Low?

  It was the defense's stance that the jury would not have enough information to decide if the photos were real or not. On the prosecution's side, the deputy DA argued that they didn't have to identify or provide the subjects in the photos themselves or proof of their age, as long as the ages could be reasonably inferred from the photos. The judge ultimately decided experts would, after testified to the authenticity of the photos and the ages of the subjects, before the case could move forward. But Valerie never did testify against Dale. She died before that happened, and without her as a primary witness, the case was dropped.

• 27:27Kylie Low?

  Dale did face consequences resulting from the investigation and charges, though not criminal ones. Dale's employer, Mercy Hospital, reviewed a transcript of testimony from a hearing before the charges were dropped. After reading about what the detective found on the computer, Dale got fired. In their decision to terminate his employment, Mercy Hospital officials wrote, quote, "Mercy is satisfied that you, in fact, did possess many highly offensive pornographic images of children on your personal computer. Although this conduct occurred outside of the workplace, Mercy cannot and will not employ persons who engage in behavior that so offends its mission and values, and that

• 28:09Kylie Low?

  involves the actual or potential exploitation of children. In addition, we have learned that you have been charged at least twice with violating a protective order." While possession of child pornography alone is sufficient cause for your termination, we consider these charges to raise further serious concerns about your fitness to serve as an employee of mercy. End quote. At the adjudicatory hearing in August of 2010, after hearing testimony and reviewing evidence of his alleged domestic violence and use of child sexual abuse material, the Board of Nursing voted five to zero to revoke Dale's registered professional nurse license,

• 28:51Kylie Low?

  finding that his nursing practices constituted a serious threat of harm to the public. He was required to pay a fine and cover fees associated with the hearing. The Nurses License Verification System shows that Dale's license remains revoked today. According to a January 2023 press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maine, in September of 2019, Dale Carr began chatting online with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. But it wasn't. He was chatting with an undercover FBI agent. Over the course of several weeks, Dale repeatedly asked for sexually explicit photos and videos

• 29:36Kylie Low?

  and expressed his interest in having sex with the person he believed was a child. In October 2019, Dale sent a photo of his penis to the person he believed was a child. The FBI continued their investigation to confirm the identity of the person in the chatrooms and prove the photo was real and sent by Dale, and then Dale was arrested in August of 2022. On January 24, 2023, Dale pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and up to three years of supervised release.

• 30:19Kylie Low?

  In August of 2023, he was sentenced to 21 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Court records show that after a three-day sentence reduction, he was released sometime around February 2024 and is in the community.

• 30:37Kylie Low?

  My attempts to reach Dale Carr for comment were unsuccessful. Everything you've heard in this episode is in the public record. For the avoidance of doubt, he is not a suspect, nor is he accused of any crime as it relates to Valerie Carr's death.

• 31:00Speaker 00

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• 31:31Kylie Low?

  I've been trying to get a head start on holiday shopping this year, and I've realized that some of the best gifts are just really nice versions of things people already use every day, which is why I always turn to my BFF, Quince. I got my daughter the cutest lightweight puffer jacket, which is perfect for layering during these colder months. And don't worry, she doesn't know how to find the podcast app yet, so she won't hear this and spoil her gift. As a New Englander, high-quality outerwear is key, but I can't justify paying triple digits for a jacket that'll fit her for, like, two snowstorms. Quince is high-quality, everyday essentials, not high prices, because they work directly with factories and cut out the middleman. I know you can find what you're looking for from Quince:

• 32:15Kylie Low?

  cashmere sweaters, organic cotton basics, bedding, luggage, a gift for everyone, and hey, pal, you deserve to treat yourself too. Gold hoop earrings? Add to cart. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Dark Down East. It's the best way to support the show.

• 32:53Kylie Low?

  The original investigation, at least according to the limited case file documents that still exist from that original investigation, did not uncover any evidence of foul play in Valerie's death. Period. The medical examiner ruled Valerie's death an accident, and it has never been investigated as anything else. There is no crime, according to the official findings of the investigation. However, Valerie's loved ones have long questioned if the ruling in her death was the whole truth. And it's not hard to see why some people have their suspicions. No doubt, there were crimes committed against Valerie unrelated to her death, but is it possible her death

• 33:35Kylie Low?

  was the result of foul play and not the accident investigators ruled it to be? On November 12, 2008, a few days after Valerie died, someone called Detective Carrie Warner of Bangor PD. The caller's name is redacted from the case file, but the detective uses "she" pronouns when referring to the caller. The caller told Detective Warner she found a note in Valerie's wallet. It was a list of three items: lead, mercury, and arsenic. Next to the list was the phrase, quote, "poisoning side effects," end quote. The caller

• 34:15Kylie Low?

  recognized the handwriting, but that name is also redacted from the case file. Detective Warner's narrative goes on to say that the caller was concerned that "name redacted" may have been poisoned by "name redacted." Based on information in the next few lines of the report, it seems that the caller was concerned that Valerie may have been poisoned. But by who can't be determined from the records.

• 34:43Kylie Low?

  According to Detective Warner's report, investigators planned to request a heavy metal screening as part of the autopsy. I don't see one in the final report, though. I reached out to the medical examiner's office about this to see if one was ever ordered, but I haven't heard back. Ian gave me the name of someone who he believed may have found that note. I spoke to her, but she wanted to remain anonymous. And it turns out that this person was unfamiliar with the note in question and doesn't remember finding it. But she believed it was possible Valerie was concerned that her children were showing signs of heavy metal exposure. And the note could have been something she jotted down at one of the kid's doctor's appointments, and whoever found it could have been unaware of this.

• 35:28Kylie Low?

  Bangor PD had a copy of this note at one time, but it has since been destroyed, so it's hard to take this much further. Besides, there were other substances in her system that the ME decided contributed to her death. But the caller's fears that Valerie may have been poisoned by someone show that suspicions surrounding the circumstances of her death were there from day one. It's not like the questions have materialized out of nowhere so many years later. Setting the topic of heavy metal poisoning aside, let's examine the toxicology findings a little more closely. I spoke to a doctor of pharmacy to learn more about the interactions of the medications found in Valerie's system,

• 36:13Kylie Low?

  the sertraline and pseudoephedrine. She told me that at normal therapeutic doses, there should be no interactions and certainly no fatal interactions between the two. However, in excessive amounts, the medications can cause what is known as serotonin syndrome. According to the Mayo Clinic, serotonin syndrome is a serious drug reaction that causes high levels of serotonin in the body. Signs and symptoms include insomnia and confusion, rapid heart rate and high blood pressure, headache, shivering, and goosebumps. In more severe instances, serotonin syndrome can cause high fever, tremor, seizures, irregular heartbeat, unconsciousness, and even death.

• 36:58Kylie Low?

  The doctor of pharmacy I spoke to said that it's not typical that those prescribed sertraline would be warned of serotonin syndrome because it is relatively rare and only in extreme cases. So it is possible that Valerie did not know about the risks of combining the two medications and accidentally took too much, just as the medical examiner ruled. But Valerie would have had to take a lot of Sudafedrine. The photos taken at the scene and of Valerie's medicine cabinet have since been purged from Bangor PD's system, so I don't know what specific type of Sudafedrine product was in her house, if anything was there at all.

• 37:41Kylie Low?

  So, for reference, let's consider Maximum Strength Sudafed, a Sudafedrine product. According to the manufacturer's website, Maximum Strength Sudafed sinus congestion contains 30mg of Sudafedrine. Dosage recommendations for adults and children 12 years and over is 2 tablets every 4 to 6 hours, so 60mg, with the maximum recommended dosage in 24 hours being 8 tablets. Now, according to comments and analysis on the toxicology screen results, typical peak levels after normal doses of Sudafedrine are in the range of 160 to 360 nanograms

• 38:23Kylie Low?

  per milliliter for a 60mg immediate-release dose, and 265 to 315 nanograms per milliliter for a 120mg controlled-release dose. Valerie's blood level of 910 nanograms per milliliter is roughly 3 times higher than the upper end of these ranges. To produce the levels found in her blood at the time of her death, Valerie would have had to take nearly 3 times the recommended daily dose of a Maximum Strength product like I just described. Then there's the other substance in Valerie's system at the time of her death, the sertraline or generic Zoloft. We know from the incident report that 2 full tablets of sertraline were missing from

• 39:08Kylie Low?

  her prescription bottle, which, if taken as prescribed, would have been 4 once-daily doses of 50mg, half of a 100mg tablet per dose, which lined up with the date of the prescription. According to comments on the talk screen, following a single oral dose of 50mg, peak plasma levels would be 9.5 nanograms per milliliter, and occurred at 6 to 10 hours post-dose. Or for someone on a daily regimen, as is believed to be the case for Valerie, the mean-peak steady-state level following a daily regimen of 50mg per day, it's 32 nanograms per milliliter. Again, Valerie's numbers were well outside

• 39:53Kylie Low?

  what you'd expect to see for someone who has prescribed 150mg per day. An incident report states that Detective Tim Cotton photographed the bedrooms and bathroom, including the medicine cabinet and its contents. Seeing those photos today would be interesting, to say the least. Was there a Sudafedrine product in the medicine cabinet or somewhere else in the house? How much was missing from the package or bottle? Can a straight line be drawn from any Sudafedrine medication in the apartment to the amount in Valerie's system at the time of her death? Those questions may remain unanswered because, again, the only case file documents that survive today are six pages of written narratives and no photos.

• 40:39Kylie Low?

  As for the sertraline, the incident report clearly states that the officer only counted two tablets of the medication missing from the bottle at the scene. Now it's possible Valerie had other bottles of it not found at the scene, or that she took both of the missing tablets at the same time despite the prescribed dosage. But based on the analysis and comments written in the toxicology report, I'm not even sure that would have produced the levels of the medication found in her blood. Ian told me his mother wasn't the careless or forgetful type. In his assessment, it would be unlike her to take more than the recommended dose or to forget how much of something she took and when she took it. The idea that she accidentally took

• 41:23Kylie Low?

  such a high dose of any medication will just never make sense to him. So, is it possible that someone forced Valerie to take Sudafedrine and/or sertraline, knowing these two medications had the potential to cause a fatal interaction? It is possible. Yet there is no evidence that's what happened. There were no signs of trauma on Valerie's body, no indication she struggled with an assailant, nothing to say she was surprised by someone entering the apartment and forcing her by some unknown method to take a fatal dose of medications. I reached out to now-retired Detective Tim Cotton for an interview. He respectfully declined a recorded interview,

• 42:08Kylie Low?

  but in our email exchange, he reiterated that if there was anything suspicious, signs of a struggle or something else indicating foul play in that apartment, he or any of the other officers would have seen it. In his opinion, which he clarified was not based on factual data, Valerie's death had the markings of something other than an accident, but not a homicide. It is possible that Valerie died by suicide. But Ian rejects this theory.

• 42:39Speaker 05

  There's no way that she would have put herself through all of that, the mental anguish, the court hearings, the protection from abuse. I mean, there's, there's no way that she would have. My brother and my sister and I were her whole world. There's no way that she would leave us kids to have any potential to be living with my father. There's no way.

• 43:08Kylie Low?

  There could be another explanation of how Valerie came to have those levels of medications in her system, if it wasn't really an accident or if she didn't intentionally take the medication herself and if someone didn't force her to take it. It's possible that someone surreptitiously poisoned her with it. But again, there's nothing to support that conclusion. The accidental death ruling remains until or unless new evidence points to a different conclusion.

• 43:41Kylie Low?

  I decided to cover Valerie's case because Ian reached out to me in hopes of learning more about the circumstances of his mother's death. Before we met, he'd never seen her autopsy report, or toxicology results, or the case file, or many of the other court documents I've referenced in this episode. That was my goal, to help him learn more. Now, more than anything, all of the questions and suspicion aside, Ian wants his mother to be known and remembered. He wants to honor her story and her life, so that her death was not in vain. Valerie was a devoted mother. She was creative and musically gifted. She loved to sing in church choir

• 44:25Kylie Low?

  and perform onstage in local community productions. Some of Ian's most precious memories of his mother happened when she was sitting at the piano.

• 44:35Speaker 05

  But I don't think she realized how much I loved listening to her play the piano. She was classically trained. I mean, she would play Beethoven and Mozart. And one particular night, I had a camera. And of course, at this point, I have since lost that camera and everything that was on it. But I remember laying on the couch and recording her play the piano, and having this sense of calm over my entire body, just watching her play the piano, and watching how her fingers just danced over the keys. And she made it look so easy.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  And anytime she played the piano, I always wanted to be right next to her, watching her create something that sounded so beautiful. I just wish I could have had a video of her playing the piano. I don't have anything. I just have the memories. Those were the best times. I would just sit back and just watch her. And it made it feel like there was nothing in the world that could hurt us.

• 45:57Kylie Low?

  If you are experiencing domestic violence, free confidential support is available. Visit thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-SAFE. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children operates the Cyber tip line. To report suspected child sexual exploitation, including online enticement of children for sexual acts, extra familial child sexual molestation, child pornography, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking, unsolicited obscene materials sent to children, misleading domain names, and misleading words or digital images on the internet, go to report.cytib.org.

• 46:51Kylie Low?

  Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Dark Down East. 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 Low and this is Dark Down East.

• 47:22Kylie Low?

  Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and AudioChuck. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

• 47:33Speaker 06

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