The Disappearance of Starlette Vining (Maine)

Starlette Vining disappeared in 1998 and has never been found, yet 15 years after she was last seen in the small town of Presque Isle, Maine, a suspect was convicted of her murder. This is a wide-open look at how a cold missing persons case was successfully investigated and solved despite the fact that the victim’s remains were never recovered prior to trial, or ever. It’s a story about what it takes—and that it is fully possible—to bring a suspicious disappearance investigation to a close and get a violent, diabolical killer out of our communities, even when the only proof a murder occurred is the testimony of questionable witnesses, second-hand stories, and inconclusive physical evidence.

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

• 0:01Kylie Low?

  Every case starts somewhere. A small town, a missing persons report, a family asking the same questions over and over. But sometimes, a story reaches beyond its own community. Its impact extends further, calling for more attention, more conversation, and a wider audience. That's what Crime Junkie does every Monday. Ashley Flowers and Brett Prewat cover the cases you can't stop thinking about, from unsolved murders to missing people to investigations that still need answers. Because every new person who hears the story is another chance to uncover the truth. Listen to Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:44Kylie Low?

  Starlet Vining disappeared in 1998 and has never been found. Yet 15 years after she was last seen in the small town of Prescott Isle, Maine, a suspect was convicted of her murder. This is a wide-open look at how a cold, missing persons case was successfully investigated and solved, despite the fact that the victim's remains were never recovered prior to trial, or ever. It's a story about what it takes, and that it is fully possible to bring a suspicious disappearance investigation to a close and get a violent, diabolical killer out of our communities, even when the only proof a murder occurred is the testimony of questionable witnesses, secondhand stories,

• 1:27Kylie Low?

  and inconclusive physical evidence. I'm Kylie Low, and this is the case of Starlet Vining, on Dark Down East.

• 1:47Kylie Low?

  It was July of 2012, the thick of summer in northern Maine, and rumors had started to circulate in the Aristoc County town of Prescott Isle. Things were happening at 473 Main Street on the corner block that intersects with State Street. Yellow police tape was going up around the whole building, and Maine State Police Evidence Response Technicians funneled in and out of the doors. Paper bags marked "evidence" clenched in their gloved hands. Presque Isle is that kind of small community where everyone knows each other, where secrets and chatter circulated like clothes in the wash, around and around and around until thoroughly drenched with whispered opinions and speculations.

• 2:29Kylie Low?

  But soon, after state police carried out their searches inside that commercial building in town, at least some of the rumors proved to be true. At one time, the building housed several apartments and a few businesses, including a wine cellar and a pawn shop, the Star City Trading Post. It was all owned by a local resident, 75-year-old George Jamie Sr. From July 9th through July 11th, 2012, investigators turned over the basement and two apartments, searching for evidence in connection with a longstanding missing persons case. No one had seen or heard from Starlet Vining since 1998, but her family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers,

• 3:14Kylie Low?

  even just other townspeople without a personal connection to the woman, they all knew that Star was in a relationship with George Jamie, right up until she disappeared. Rumor had it that George had something to do with why Star hadn't shown up for work or sent letters to her children in nearly 14 years. On July 12th, after samples had been taken and evidence was sent to the crime lab, Maine State Police, in cooperation with the Presque Isle Police Department, arrested George Jamie on charges of intentional or knowing murder in connection with the disappearance of Starlet Vining. What had led to the arrest of this accused killer

• 3:55Kylie Low?

  and the story that would eventually feature prominently in the case against the suspect was anything but a straightforward homicide case, because there was no body, there was no evidence beyond witness testimony to conclusively say that the victim was in fact dead and not living somewhere else by choice. Star's case would become one of just three homicide cases in the state of Maine as of 2012, in which investigators did not have the remains of the victim at the time of arrest, prosecution, or conviction of a suspect. To understand what made prosecutors so confident in bringing this case to trial, despite the fact that one of the biggest pieces of evidence was missing, we need to turn back the clock to 1998.

• 4:41Kylie Low?

  Starlet Vining, known as Star for short, was described as a free spirit. She rarely planted roots for very long. That was just her way. But as of early summer 1998, Maine and her aging mother in Presque Isle had called Star home. Star's children, including her daughter, who was just about to graduate high school that year, they were all glad to know that their mother would be in one place where they could easily find her. Make no assumptions about Starlet's love for her children based on her nomadic lifestyle. She loved them dearly and stayed in touch by letter or around the holidays with gifts mailed home. Star showed her love for her children in the best way she could.

• 5:22Kylie Low?

  While taking care of her mother at her home in Presque Isle, Star also got a job at the local supermarket. She was a dedicated employee, always on time, never missed a shift. That's why it was so odd when one day in the fall of 1998, possibly sometime in October, one of the first people to notice that something might be wrong was Star's supervisor at the grocery store. Star didn't show up for her shift and never even picked up a paycheck that was due to her. So the supervisor called the man Star was known to be in a relationship with at the time, George Jamie. The supervisor asked George about Star, but George said he didn't know where she was and hadn't seen her in a while.

• 6:04Kylie Low?

  However, he told the supervisor that she could come pick up Star's work uniforms. The last time Star's daughter saw her mother was at her high school graduation. Star attended with George, who gave her a ride down to the southern part of the state. After that, it had been months since Star's daughter spoke with her mom, and she didn't know exactly where to find her, but she looked up George's number and got in contact with him. When they spoke, George explained that Star was no longer staying with him in Presque Isle. According to George, Star left with a group of broccoli pickers, apparently stepping back into her wandering ways.

• 6:45Kylie Low?

  Sometime later, George was at the Presquale Police Department on an unrelated matter. There was some talk in town by then that Starr wasn't around, and an officer remembered that there had been at least one documented violent incident between George and Starr in the past. So he asked George how she was doing. George was dismissive and said he didn't know and that he was done with her. She'd gone to California, he told the officer. For the next eight years, Starr's family waited to hear from her. At the beginning, it was not altogether unusual for her to drop out of contact. But the more months that stacked up in between, the greater their concern became. Starr always sent letters.

• 7:27Kylie Low?

  The cadence was unpredictable, but the updates always came nonetheless. When Starr's mother passed away in 2004, Starr would have been the next of kin and heir to her mother's estate, which primarily consisted of her home in Presquale. The trouble was that the probate process couldn't proceed because Starr couldn't be located. Starr's son tried to step in and applied for an informal appointment as his maternal grandmother's personal representative, but the following year that application was declined because Starr had priority.

• 8:02Kylie Low?

  Starr's children tried to find her, but there was no trace of her beyond Presquale that they could find. Frustrated, worried, at a total loss, one of Starr's sons reported her missing to Presquale Police in October of 2006. Around the same time the missing persons report was filed, Presquale PD received a tip about what may have happened to Starlette, that she was believed to be deceased, and that someone caused her death. That kind of information necessitated a call to Maine State Police.

• 8:36Kylie Low?

  Maine State Police investigate all homicides in Maine, except for those in the cities of Portland and Bangor. Local police have jurisdiction over the homicide cases there, so, according to court records in 2006, the Presque Isle Police Department contacted what was then known as the Maine State Police Criminal Investigations Division, now Major Crimes, regarding the tip about Starlet Vining's disappearance and rumored death. Presque Isle Police had already conducted preliminary searches in an attempt to locate Star themselves, but Maine State Police Detective Adam Studamire further checked databases and conducted online searches with Star's information. He reviewed postal records to see if there were any addresses on file with USPS,

• 9:21Kylie Low?

  and he contacted the Department of State to see if she had a passport or had left the country. He also checked with the Social Security Administration for any out-of-state employment. There was no trace of Star online or with the postal service, no passport or evidence she'd left the country. However, the social security search pointed the detective to the grocery store in Presque Isle where Star worked back in 1998. The grocery store's records confirmed that Star last showed up for work in October of that year, and she never picked up her last paycheck.

• 9:56Kylie Low?

  The tip that brought the case to Maine State Police had suggested that Star's remains were disposed in a wooded area known as a burnt land in the town of Chapman. In the fall of 2007, Detective Studamire coordinated a search of the area with the help of Maine Warden Service, the Medical Examiner's Office, and cadaver dogs. They used aerial photos from 1998 to identify possible sites of Star's remains. Another search was conducted in 2008 to cover other locations in the woods that weren't searched the previous year, but these search efforts didn't produce any human remains. The case languished for the next four years without more information to guide the search efforts. But then in 2012,

• 10:40Kylie Low?

  the fire beneath the investigation was reignited when Maine State Police received a tip that someone may have information relative to Starlet's disappearance. That "someone" was the former daughter-in-law of George Jamie, and she told an alarming and incredibly detailed story about one night in the fall of 1998.

• 11:03Kylie Low?

  We're going to call the witness by a fake name, Margot. When she came forward with information in 2012, Margot was the former girlfriend and wife of George Jamie's son, Theodore Jamie, Ted. As of 1998, they lived together in Presque Isle, and she remembered one night back in October of that year, when her father-in-law was brought to their home in a bizarre and concerning state. Ted left with his father, and when he came home, had described to her what he'd seen at George's apartment. Margot told police that George killed Starr, and listed off the names of other people who knew exactly what happened to her too.

• 11:44Kylie Low?

  One of the names Margot gave to Maine State Police was James, a friend of Ted Jamie's. I'll be using only his first name. According to court testimony, on June 13, 2012, Maine State Police located James to ask him a few questions about Starlet Vining's disappearance. At first, James said he didn't know anything about it, and he didn't even recognize her name or who she was. But a few days later, James allowed that he'd heard rumors and may have information. In a subsequent interview, James told police that he remembered helping Ted clean up his father's apartment one day, and he had seen a lot of blood. He eventually told police that George Jamie admitted to him that he killed Starr, and

• 12:29Kylie Low?

  that George then burned her remains.

• 12:34Kylie Low?

  Both Margot and James dropped Ted's name, and with the alarming allegations by James that he helped Ted clean up something in George's apartment, possibly a lot of blood, no doubt Ted was at the top of the list of people to talk to as the investigation picked up momentum. Sometime after those interviews with Margot and James, Ted Jamie was tipped off that a couple of Aristoc County sheriffs had showed up at his workplace in Bethel as he was driving in for the day. With that, Ted turned his car around and drove straight to Presque Isle, a just-under-five-hour trip. When Ted arrived and told his father that the sheriffs were looking for him, George called a family meeting. He gathered his former wife and his sons, and then told Ted he had to leave town for

• 13:19Kylie Low?

  a while so police wouldn't be able to find him. After some heated argument, Ted agreed. He got out of Presque Isle and stayed with friends between southern Maine and New Hampshire.

• 13:31Kylie Low?

  On June 22nd, Maine State Police caught up with George Jamie for an interview. When the detectives asked George about Starr, he said that as far as he could recall, the last time he saw her was when she'd gone to court to pay a fine for an OUI conviction in 1998. He believed Starr left with a broccoli picker that she was hanging out with. Detectives were also specifically interested in where George was living as of 1998. He claimed that he'd lived in the same place for 20 or 30 years, in an apartment directly behind the pawn shop on the main street side of his building. So there was that broccoli picker story again. Investigators had already checked into it and had looked for Starr out of state,

• 14:16Kylie Low?

  but there was no evidence she left with anyone to do anything, let alone pick broccoli.

• 14:22Kylie Low?

  A few things happened next, all at once, over a few-day span in July of 2012. Maine State Police moved to obtain a search warrant for George's pawn shop building and the apartment they thought he occupied back in October of 1998. Around the same time, a key witness decided he was ready to talk.

• 14:48Kylie 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.

• 15:32Kylie 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.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Or you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.

• 16:39Kylie Low?

  After about a week on the lam, Ted Jamie grew frustrated. He didn't want to run anymore. So Ted returned to Aristoc County to stay at his mother and brother's homes for a few days as he weighed what to do and how to do it. But Maine State Police ended up making the first move. On July 5, 2012, state police showed up at Ted's brother's house looking for him. Their visit was partially related to a different crime entirely. At the time, Ted was in violation of the conditions of his release stemming from domestic abuse complaints filed by a former girlfriend. Having finally tracked him down, though, police asked if Ted would talk to them about starlet vining.

• 17:21Kylie Low?

  Ted didn't want to talk to anyone about anything without an attorney present. He was arrested on the unrelated charges and held at a Holton jail. Over the next week, police tried and tried again to get Ted to talk. Finally, about a week later, and in the presence of his attorney, Ted spilled everything to Maine State Police about what he witnessed and how he helped cover up what his father did to starlet vining.

• 17:49Kylie Low?

  Ted wasn't sure of the exact date. It may have been a Saturday night in October of 1998. He was awoken from sleep by a knock on the door. A family friend motioned to her car and explained that she'd found Ted's father standing out in front of his pawn shop looking... disheveled, intoxicated. He had blood on his clothes and scratches on his face. Ted said he brought his father inside and sat him down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. The caffeine didn't help to get George talking, though. When Ted tried to pry an explanation out of his dad, all he would say was that something bad happened, and he did something bad. Without getting much else from his father, Ted decided to go see for himself what they

• 18:31Kylie Low?

  were dealing with and brought George back to his apartment on Main Street. When Ted stepped inside, there was no missing the bloody scene. Starlet's lifeless body was on the floor. It looked like she had been stabbed. Grabbing a blanket to cover her body, Ted asked his father again what the hell happened, but George couldn't muster a reply. Ted estimated that he was at his father's apartment for about a half hour, and no matter how many times he asked, George would not tell Ted a thing. Ted didn't want to see his father go to jail for what certainly looked like a serious crime, but he also didn't know what to do at that moment. He told police that he decided to stop by his friend's house to talk about what he'd witnessed.

• 19:15Kylie Low?

  And then Ted went home and told his girlfriend Margot that he believed his father had killed Starlet. Perhaps it was the natural instinct to protect his own family that overrode Ted's sense of right and wrong. He ultimately decided not to call police. Ted explained to investigators in 2012 that when he returned to his father's building the next day with his friend James, George had sobered up and opened the pawn shop as usual. George acted like nothing had happened. Starlet's body was no longer in the apartment. His father told him that he'd moved her body to the basement. And with a glance down the stairwell, Ted saw a rolled-up blue tarp.

• 19:58Kylie Low?

  And then Ted and his friend James got to work. They cleaned George's apartment, wiping the blood from the walls and in the bathroom. They tore out the bloodstained rug and the tile floor beneath it, bleaching every surface as they went.

• 20:13Kylie Low?

  Sometime after that night and the bleach-laden cleaning spree, maybe about a month later, Ted said that he went for a drive with his father. They stopped at a bridge in Westfield, and George got out of the vehicle carrying a large container that Ted described as a typical "commercial ashtray." It contained what looked like ashes from a fire. Ted watched as George dumped them into the swift-moving water of the stream below. When George got back into the car, he told his son that the ashes were, in fact, Starlet's remains. He told his son that when he died, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread in the same spot. Ted claimed that over the next several months,

• 20:55Kylie Low?

  his father took further efforts to cover up what he believed to be Starlet's murder. He had the apartment almost entirely remodeled: new wallpaper, paint, flooring, the works. George told Ted they needed to get the commercial boiler and firebox cleaned in the basement of his building. While George never told him directly, Ted assumed the cleaning was necessary because his father may have used the boiler to cremate Star's remains. In the years that followed, conversations between the father and son circled back to that night in October of 1998 more than once. Each time, George would utter new admissions about what happened and what he did.

• 21:36Kylie Low?

  His father later told him that he murdered Starlet with a Marine-style K-bar knife during an argument. After inflicting numerous stab wounds, his father described hitting Star with the hilt of the knife, ultimately ending her life. He then pawned the knife at his shop.

• 21:54Kylie Low?

  Ted debated going to police with his story throughout the 15 years or so since it happened, but George always cautioned his son: "If I go down, you're going down too."

• 22:08Kylie Low?

  Ted's statement to police after all these years supported many of the other rumors, tips, and information police had already fielded in the case. Ted may not have witnessed the killing, but it was weighty testimony nonetheless. As Ted detailed the crime and the cover-up to detectives, other state investigators were already inside George's building on Main Street. But something Ted told them redirected the search effort. It turns out that George was being deceitful when he told police that he'd lived in the same apartment for two or three decades, including the fall of 1998. The apartment Ted described was not the one that George claimed he was living in at the time of Starr's disappearance. So, police brought Ted to the pawn shop building,

• 22:51Kylie Low?

  and he pointed out a different apartment. That was where he saw Starr on the floor. That was the place he and a friend helped clean up. With all this new information, investigators applied for an amended search warrant, and the effort continued. But what they found in the apartment and basement was not exactly unimpeachable evidence.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Where you hear a courtroom term and think, "Wait, what does that actually mean?"

• 23:29Speaker 01

  I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.

• 23:57Kylie Low?

  Prior to the amended search warrant for George Jamie's actual apartment as of 1998, Maine State Police Evidence Response Technicians assisted with the execution of the original search warrant on July 9, 2012. The ERTs were searching for latent blood evidence, meaning blood that was not readily visible. Investigators collected samples of red-brown stains in the basement and basement stairwell. An initial field test with a hemosticks test indicated the stains were possibly blood. The stains were small, from 1 to 2 centimeters in diameter to just a few inches. Investigators didn't find anything of note in the apartment, but that's not at all surprising, knowing that they were misdirected by George

• 24:40Kylie Low?

  until Ted cleared up which unit his father truly occupied at the time of Star's disappearance. Entering the correct unit a few days later, ERTs sprayed luminol in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and living room. Luminol is a chemical compound that reacts with certain other substances, such as blood. It'll glow, or luminesce, but it's relevant to note that a luminol reaction does not confirm the presence of blood. Investigators noted a luminol reaction on the walls, including the wall surface underneath some wallpaper. A luminol reaction on the wallpaper itself showed a footwear impression with a drip pattern about 2 feet off the floor.

• 25:24Kylie Low?

  Beneath the carpet, investigators found a circular-shaped, dark-colored stain on the concrete floor, among other dark stains. Those stains also reacted with luminol. Other areas reacted as well, and field tests indicated the possible presence of blood. The evidence-response technicians collected samples from stained ceiling tiles, fragments of cement chiseled from the basement floor, and stains from a staircase. It was all sent to the main state crime lab for further examination. Among the red-brown stains collected from the apartment and areas in the basement that were large enough to test, several of those samples tested positive for blood at the crime lab. However, some of those positive results were weak.

• 26:10Kylie Low?

  The samples that tested positive were sent to the forensic biology section of the crime lab to test for DNA, along with other samples that were too small to test. The forensic biology section would perform the testing instead, so the small sample was not used up in the initial process. A forensic DNA analyst performed autosomal DNA testing and YSTR analysis on the samples. But here's where things were a bit tenuous. All samples came back negative for the presence of human blood, and did not have a sufficient amount of DNA to proceed with further testing. So, negative tests for blood among the samples collected at George Jamie's apartment and

• 26:52Kylie Low?

  building, and Starlet Vining's remains had not been recovered. Two tricky details to overcome in a murder case. But Ted's story was compelling, and Star's family hadn't heard from her even once throughout the previous 15 years. That was enough to obtain a warrant for the arrest of George Jamie in July of 2012, and on September 6th of the same year, he was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of the intentional or knowing murder of Starlet Vining, sometime between October 1st and October 20th, 1998.

• 27:27Kylie Low?

  As of November 2013, when George Jamie's trial began, it was only the third homicide case in Maine that had been brought to trial without the victim's body having been recovered. Ted Jamie was the prosecutor's star witness against his father. He repeated for the jury the entire story he told police in July of 2012, about the night his father turned up scratched and bloodied, and the body he saw on his father's apartment floor, recognizing the victim as Starlet Vining. James, the friend of Ted's, testified that he helped clean up George's apartment. He showed up there the day after the murder and noticed a large stain on the carpet that looked like blood. Ted's former wife, his girlfriend in 1998, who we're calling Margot,

• 28:11Kylie Low?

  also testified that Ted told her about George murdering Starlet and burning her remains. She knew that Ted helped clean up the scene. The jury also heard testimony from a witness named Shawn. Shawn was at the Holton Correctional Facility at the same time George Jamie was held there in September of 2012. He testified that they were housed in a three-person maximum-security pod, so they were always seeing each other in the common areas at mealtimes and such. During a series of conversations, George told Shawn about the charges he was facing and what had landed him in custody. At first, George claimed that the woman he was accused of killing had just run off somewhere and she would probably turn up.

• 28:56Kylie Low?

  In later conversations, he said that he and the woman argued a lot. Eventually, George told Shawn that he had killed his girlfriend and needed to get rid of her body. Shawn testified that he knew one of the people who helped cover up the crime was George's son, and in return, George said he bought his son a house and a truck, paid off his debts, and gave him money to get him out of problems when he needed it. No doubt, the testimony was valuable. This was a third-party, unconnected to the Jamie family, telling police that George admitted to the murder. However, as is the case with many jailhouse informants, Shawn was given a deal in exchange for his testimony.

• 29:38Kylie Low?

  His probation was terminated as a result of his cooperation with the case. Now, you may already know that it is not the state's burden to demonstrate a motive for murder, but certainly pointing to a motive can help the prosecution's case. Discussion of a possible motive here came from testimony by a former tenant of George's, who later moved across the street from the pawn shop. The man was friends with Starr, and he said that they smoked pot together on occasion. That's what they were doing on September 5, 1998, when George stormed into his apartment and physically dragged Starr out. After a few weeks, the witness ran into George.

• 30:19Kylie Low?

  He hadn't seen Starr in a while, so he asked if George knew where she was. The witness testified that George responded, "You'll never see her around here again." Further discussion of motive came from a witness who said that sometime in September of 1998, she chatted with Starr at the supermarket where she worked. Starr talked about leaving George and putting an end to their tumultuous, toxic relationship.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit? Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean? I'm Eliza Orland, career public defender. And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst. And on our brand new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about. No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.

• 31:27Kylie Low?

  The jury also heard testimony from forensic experts and main crime lab scientists about the physical evidence collected at the scene. Those stains scraped from the walls and floors that initially reacted with luminol, but later tested negative for the presence of blood. The forensic DNA analyst who performed this testing explained to the jury that it is possible for human blood to exist in such small quantities that it is impossible to confirm the presence of human blood, even if it's actually there. The age of a sample can also impact testing, as well as cleaning of an area where the stain was found. The stains were likely left there over 15 years earlier at that point, and as Ted testified,

• 32:10Kylie Low?

  they were scrubbed with bleach in an attempt to eliminate the evidence altogether. Both those points might explain why the tests were inconclusive. Unsurprisingly, George Jamie's attorney jumped on this perceived hole in the state's case. But the biggest argument they raised in George's defense was the fact that this was a no-body homicide. Without her remains to prove she is deceased, they argued, how could George be charged with murder? Starlet was known to relocate without announcement or contact with her family, so who's to say she wasn't doing the same thing now? The defense pointed to the incentivized witnesses, the jailhouse informant, not to mention Ted and James, who at that time hadn't been charged with any crimes connected to their own admitted

• 32:55Kylie Low?

  involvement in the cleanup of the scene. The state challenged any suggestion that testimony was skewed because of incentives offered to witnesses. They demonstrated that Ted had told numerous people, including his mother, for her wife, his friend James, and one of his brothers, a consistent story about what he saw and what his father did, long before he ever had a reason to do so.

• 33:17Kylie Low?

  George, through his attorney, also tried to present an alternative suspect defense in the case, none other than Ted Jamie himself. Through witnesses, the jury heard that Ted had previously served time for assault on a woman, and that Ted and George had “friction” in their relationship. The defense argued there was a multitude of incriminating evidence against Ted, including that he was seen wearing bloodied clothing on the night of the murder and he admitted to cleaning up the scene. And then the defense attempted to raise testimony from a witness about a possible sexual relationship between Ted Jamie and Starlet Vining. Ted’s sister testified that Ted told her he was previously engaged in sexual relations

• 34:02Kylie Low?

  with Starlet. However, the judge would only allow that testimony to impeach the credibility of Ted’s testimony, not as support for an alternative suspect theory. The case was anything but straightforward. Yet, on November 15, 2013, after two hours of deliberation and a break for dinner, the jury found George Jamie guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison. In the years following George’s conviction, he filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied. He appealed in 2014, arguing that he should have been allowed to present evidence to support implicating his son Ted Jamie as an alternative suspect in Starlet’s disappearance and presumed

• 34:47Kylie Low?

  murder. The appeal also argued that the court abused its discretion in allowing evidence of the luminol test results to be admitted at trial. Also, part of the appeal was his argument that the prior consistent statements by Ted about the murder and cover-up, which other witnesses testified to at trial, were hearsay and should not have been allowed. The court was not persuaded by George’s arguments and affirmed the judgment. George Jamie remains at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine today. His earliest release date is January of 2047. He is 87 years old. As far as I can tell, Ted has never been charged with any crimes for his admitted involvement

• 35:31Kylie Low?

  in Starlet’s case. James does not appear to have faced any charges in connection with the case, either.

• 35:40Kylie Low?

  Starlet Vining's remains have never been found. She is a missing person, presumed dead, and her killer is serving out a prison sentence after being convicted of intentional and knowing murder. Her case is one of only a few so-called "no-body homicides" that have been successfully prosecuted to conviction in the state of Maine. Jen Linds explored the three "no-body convictions" in Maine for a Bangor Daily News article published in January of 2014. The first case of this nature was that of 23-year-old Jenny Lynn Hicks. Her former husband, James Hicks, was convicted of fourth-degree murder, now called manslaughter, despite no body, no weapon, and no blood evidence. The convicted killer brought police

• 36:25Kylie Low?

  to her remains several years later, after he was arrested for another crime. There is also the case of 22-year-old Christiana Fesmer. Buddy Robinson was found guilty of her murder despite no body to prove the victim was dead at the time of the trial. Her remains were recovered after the killer was convicted. So unlike Starlet Vining's case, the remains of Christiana Fesmer and Jenny Lynn Hicks were eventually recovered. Star is still missing. Covering Star's case got me thinking about other missing persons cases in Maine where there's a presumption that the missing person is deceased and that their death is possibly due to homicide. What did Starlet's disappearance have that, say, the case of Kimberly Moreau

• 37:09Kylie Low?

  or Ayla Reynolds does not? I've covered both on Dark Down East, and I'll link them in the description of this episode, but let's talk about them. Some of the most convincing evidence in Starlet's case was the suggestion of blood evidence, but no conclusive findings of human blood or Star's DNA at the scene, as well as a strong witness, Ted, who described in detail discovering the murder and helping to cover it up. Publicly available information about Kim's case does not indicate that the investigation has ever uncovered blood or the suggestion of blood evidence. And though many rumors have circulated about what happened to Kim that night in May of 1986, as far as I've learned in my many years of covering her case, there's no slam dunk witness

• 37:54Kylie Low?

  who has come forward with a story or confession about what happened to her. But in Ayla Reynolds' case, the toddler who disappeared from her father's home in 2011, there is blood evidence in many locations, not even latent blood evidence, but blood that was visible to the naked eye without luminol enhancement. Yet it's not enough to bring anyone to justice for what is presumed to be the death of a child. Perhaps what the case is also waiting for is a witness to come forward with a verifiable story about what happened and where Ayla is now. I raise all of these topics in the context of Starlet Vining's case because her story proves that it is possible to get justice in a suspicious disappearance.

• 38:39Kylie Low?

  If witnesses are willing to do the courageous thing and tell police what they heard, what they know, and what they saw. And hey, the witness in Star's case didn't face any charges related to her murder despite confessing to cleaning up the scene and keeping that information from police for a decade and a half. So maybe coming forward, even if it means admitting your own culpability, won't end up being that scary. But I'm no prosecutor. I sure can't promise you any deals. All I want is for these families to bring their loved ones home and to see justice done where it has been denied for far too long.

• 39:17Kylie Low?

  Starlet's former husband, Charles Buck Vining, spoke to Kathy McCarty of the Prescott Isle Star Herald in 2012. He was sad that so many of the headlines and stories about the case focused on the person facing charges for her death and that the person he knew and loved was lost to the noise. Buck said that he first met Star when she was hitchhiking through New York. Quote, "It was love at first sight for me," end quote. They got married and moved to Prescott Isle for a while. They were together for about six years total when they split up. They'd simply drifted apart, but Buck said he still loved her. Buck explained that Star was a free spirit in every sense of the word.

• 39:59Kylie Low?

  She liked to see new places, meet new people, camp, and fish, and explore. She was carefree and beautiful. Star was a mother, a friend, and as Buck put it, quote, "More than just a name. I never stopped loving her," end quote. What Buck wanted most was to see that Star received a proper burial and is what she deserves.

• 40:25Kylie Low?

  Starlet Vining's information is listed with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Her remains have never been recovered. Please report any discoveries that may be connected to this case to Maine State Police Troop F in Holton, Maine at 207-532-5400. 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 @darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers.

• 41:10Kylie Low?

  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. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and AudioChuck. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? In New England, investigations can shift with the tide. And my friend Delia Diambra, host of Park Predators, knows just how the landscape can shape a case. From beaches to national parks around the world, Delia investigates true crime cases as compelling as the places where they occurred.

• 41:52Kylie Low?

  Through her signature boots-on-the-ground reporting, she goes beyond the headlines and speaks directly with those closest to the case. If you're ready to follow the evidence beyond the trail, listen to Park Predators every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.