Pod Insights Dark Downeast The Disappearance of Marilyn Lehan (Maine) About this episode It wasn’t unusual for months or even years to pass without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family, but when her brother decided to make a spontaneous visit to Marilyn’s home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don’t make sense to her family, and at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Kylie 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.
0:45 Kylie Low? It wasn't unusual for months, or even years to pass, without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family. But when her brother decided to make a spontaneous trip to visit Marilyn's home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don't make sense to her family. And at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive. I'm Kylie Low, and this is the case of Marilyn Lehan, on Dark Down East.
1:22 Kylie Low? It was August 2012, and Pat Lehan had already put thousands of miles on his motorcycle as he crossed the border into Maine. He was on a long-haul international trip with a group of friends, starting in Colorado and reaching as far east as Newfoundland, Canada, before looping back west again. But as Pat turned on to Route 1 in Callas, Maine, and ventured south, he was solo. He'd split off from the larger group to pay his sister and her husband a surprise visit. The last Pat heard from his younger sister, Marilyn Lehan, she was living in the town of Eastport, about as down east as you can get. Pat followed his map towards Clark Street and his sister's sprawling oceanfront property on Harris Cove.
2:06 Kylie Low? The house was set back from the road down a long, gravelled driveway. The tyres on Pat's motorcycle kicked up some dust as he coasted towards the shingled cottage. He was looking forward to catching up with Marilyn. It had been years since they last talked. Pat rapped on the front door and waited. A few moments passed and he knocked again, but no one answered. Glancing back towards Clark Street, Pat decided to check in with the next door neighbors, reasoning that they might have an idea when Marilyn would return. The conversation that came next was more than Pat had bargained for.
2:43 Speaker 01 You know, I wasn't expecting this, but I sat down and had a long, probably a two-hour conversation with them in their kitchen, and I was just astounded.
2:55 Kylie Low? According to the next door neighbors, who we'll call by the fake surname, the Marsdens, Marilyn wasn't going to answer the door at the house on Clark Street. She hadn't lived there for years. Her husband was gone too. The house had new owners, and where Marilyn went next, they really couldn't be sure.
3:17 Speaker 01 That was a kind of a really tough experience, because I thought I was going to be able to meet up with them and everything would be hunky-dory and things were okay, but they gave a lot of information that they thought was suspicious. It raised a red flag in our minds, or in my mind, you know, that something must be wrong.
3:41 Kylie Low? Marilyn Lehan was the youngest of four children. She and her three brothers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, in the 50s and 60s. She went to Catholic schools up through her senior year, except for a brief period when she tried out public school. Pat remembered Marilyn getting overwhelmed with how big the school was, so she eventually returned to her former high school, where she graduated among the top of her class. She earned an academic scholarship to Seattle University in Washington. According to the 1977 commencement program for Seattle University, Marilyn graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities.
4:23 Kylie Low? At some point during her years on campus, Marilyn started dating a fellow Seattle U student. I'm going to call him by the fake name, David. As of 1975, Marilyn and David were both sophomores at the university. But I don't see his name among the students Marilyn graduated with in 1977, or in the commencement program for the following year. In any event, Marilyn and David got married in August of 1977. At least one of the witnesses listed on their marriage certificate was also a student in Marilyn's class at Seattle U. Pat isn't sure if they had a big wedding, or if it was just a small affair with a few friends. But they were fairly young, just 21 and 22, and by his assessment,
5:09 Kylie Low? probably didn't have much money for a ceremony and reception. Marilyn and David's lifestyle could be described as somewhat nomadic. They left Seattle and moved to New York and then Pennsylvania. They lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Bodega Bay, California, spent some time in Marilyn's hometown of Omaha, before returning to Seattle. They also lived in Montana for a time. In each new locale, David set up shop as a carpenter and ran his own construction business, while Marilyn did the bookkeeping for him. As Pat explained, Marilyn and David really didn't keep in great contact with family. At one point, Pat and his wife relocated to Washington State
5:51 Kylie Low? and lived just across Puget Sound from where his sister and brother-in-law lived. It would have only been a short ferry ride away, and yet they rarely saw each other if ever. They were six years apart, and their lives were on different paths, and going long stretches of time without hearing from Marilyn was just the norm. They'd send Christmas cards to each other around the holidays and have the occasional visit, but they really lived separate lives. There was a time, though, that Marilyn turned to Pat and his wife when things with David were rocky. Sometime around 1988 or 1989, Marilyn and David separated, or at least they were spending some intentional time apart.
6:33 Kylie Low? At the time, Pat was traveling a lot for work and his wife was home with their three young children, so Marilyn moved into their home. Why Marilyn and David separated, Pat isn't sure, but they eventually reconciled and moved off to another state together.
6:50 Kylie Low? Pat's next memorable visit with his sister was in 2001, after their mother passed away. Pat had plans to finish the basement at his house into a family room, somewhere the kids could turn up the stereo and not bother the grownups. So David offered his construction expertise for the job, and Marilyn came along too. Pat's wife and his kids were on a trip to Italy, so it was just Pat and his sister and brother-in-law plugging away on the basement project.
7:18 Speaker 01 We just had a great time. They were here for almost a month. And then, uh, right before they left, the kids came back. And Marilyn, of course, during this time, the cat, her cat and her African gray parrot, Emmett, were here. And so the kids were really entertained with that.
7:40 Kylie Low? One thing Pat can say about his sister with total confidence is that she loved her pets. She had dogs and cats throughout her life, but perhaps the most unique of her menagerie was her beloved African gray parrot named Emmett. You can see a photo of Emmett perched on Marilyn's shoulder at darkdowneast.com. It was taken in 1996. Emmett had been part of the family for years. The same year that Marilyn and David helped renovate Pat's basement, Marilyn bought the house on Clark Street in Eastport, Maine. She used part of the six-figure inheritance from her mother's estate to put $30,000 down.
8:23 Kylie Low? The Eastport property was and is a beautiful place, right on the water. At the time Marilyn owned it, the parcel was around 14 acres with access rights to the beach along the bay. She seemed to embrace the saltwater lifestyle. In the summer of 2002, Pat's teenage son flew out to Maine to visit his Aunt Marilyn and Uncle David. A blurry photo shows Marilyn and her nephew on a large sailboat. She's wearing a yellow rain jacket, not unlike the wet weather gear donned by lobster fishermen. The nephew had said that everything was normal, and there was nothing remarkable about Marilyn and David during that trip.
9:04 Kylie Low? That visit by Pat's son was the last time anyone in Marilyn's family saw her in person. They had other contact with Marilyn after that, at least one documented instance in 2003. According to Marilyn's family, David was experiencing some health struggles around that time, maybe melanoma, maybe a burst appendix, their recollections vary. But it's believed that neither Marilyn nor David had health insurance, and so they started to get into some debt for medical bills and the financial strain grew from there. Marilyn borrowed some money from another one of her brothers, a little over $3,000 in February of 2003.
9:45 Kylie Low? The check was made out to both Marilyn and her husband, and it was deposited on March 5, 2003. Both Marilyn and her husband endorsed the check. That's really the last time they can trace that Marilyn was alive and well and living in Eastport, Maine. Pat fell into the rhythm of his own life and years went by without hearing from his sister. Again, it was just normal to go long stretches of time without talking to or seeing Marilyn. That was their dynamic. When the holidays rolled around in 2008 and 2009, the Lehans went about their annual tradition of sending family Christmas cards. Both years, they dropped one in the mail stamped and addressed to Marilyn Lehan at
10:30 Kylie Low? her Clark Street address in Eastport, Maine.
10:33 Speaker 01 My wife sent them a Christmas card and never heard back from them. We did not receive one back, and I think that's what started it. And then the next year, we sent the card and it came back undeliverable. Yes, yeah, that's what kind of set off the alarm.
11:01 Kylie 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:
11:45 Kylie 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.
12:15 Speaker 02 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
12:20 Speaker 03 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
12:23 Speaker 02 I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.
12:26 Speaker 03 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
12:29 Speaker 02 And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
12:35 Speaker 03 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
12:52 Kylie Low? Between the 2008 and 2009 Christmas cards, Marilyn's other brother tried to track her down. He called David's parents to see if they'd heard or seen Marilyn recently. David's mother said that, as far as she knew, Marilyn left David several years ago. It was supposed to be a temporary split, or so she thought, but Marilyn never came back, and she had no idea where she was now. David's mother didn't want to give out David's contact information, but Pat tried a few numbers and was able to track David down in California, where he was caring for his ailing father. As Pat remembers it, David was very brief on the phone and not friendly. He mentioned he had a new girlfriend and hadn't heard from Marilyn since she left.
13:38 Kylie Low? Pat and his brothers were stuck, and yet time kept flying by. Then it was suddenly 2012, and Pat was in Maine, standing at what he thought was his sister's house, waiting for someone to answer the door, only to learn from the neighbors that his sister didn't live there anymore. The Marsdins told Pat that they sold Marilyn the house on Clark Street, and they still lived next door. They remembered both Marilyn and David being friendly neighbors, though there were a few instances where they sensed some conflict. The Marsdins explained how they'd asked David if he wouldn't mind cutting down a few trees on his and Marilyn's property so that they might have a better view of the water. David apparently agreed, and Marilyn wasn't happy about it.
14:23 Kylie Low? She liked to exercise outside, and those particular trees provided privacy. She didn't want her neighbors to be able to see into her yard. As the conversation continued, the Marsdins recounted one night when they'd returned from a vacation and decided to go say hi to David and Marilyn. When they encountered David, they claimed that he was burning a lot of papers in the fireplace, and he seemed stressed out and agitated. He wasn't his usual friendly self. The whole interaction stuck out in their minds, even years later. And then one day, Marilyn was just gone. It never seemed right to the Marsdins. Although they didn't visit their neighbors too often, they knew Marilyn was devoted to her pets, especially Emmett the parrot,
15:08 Kylie Low? and yet she apparently left him behind. They didn't see her again. One of the next times the Marsdins saw David, he was packing up their personal belongings. He gave Mrs. Marsdin a quilt, one Pat believes was made by his mother, and told her that Marilyn wanted her to have it. Then he loaded up the car with the cat and the parrot and left. Pat's head was spinning with the information. He left the Marsdins' home and made one more stop but another house across the street. And while the neighbors remembered Marilyn and her husband, they didn't have any helpful information as to where his sister may have gone. That afternoon, Pat linked back up with his motorcycle group at a hotel.
15:52 Speaker 01 That's when I sat down, I borrowed a spiral notebook from the hotel manager and just sat down for the whole night and wrote down what I could remember of the conversation.
16:06 Kylie Low? All of the information I've shared, and there's more to come, is drawn directly from Pat's original notes of his conversation with the Marsdins that day in August of 2012. I've tried calling the last known numbers for Marilyn's former neighbors, but couldn't reach anyone to verify these details or ask any clarifying questions. The Marsdins would be in their late 80s or early 90s today, and as you'll hear, they haven't had anything new to add since their original conversation with Pat. Over the course of his conversation with the Marsdins, Pat learned that Marilyn had defaulted on the mortgage she took out to purchase the Clark Street House. Washington County Registry of Deeds records show that she was also behind on property tax payments.
16:51 Kylie Low? The tax bill issued on July 16, 2003, was unpaid, and a tax lien was placed on the property as of May 2004. The bank started foreclosure proceedings in September of 2004. It eventually went to public auction in February of 2005. A couple we'll call the Bouchards bought it, so Pat called them to ask about his sister. The Bouchards told Pat that they had since sold Marilyn's house, but when they took possession of it in 2005, many of David and Marilyn's personal belongings were still inside. According to the Bouchards, David had left and then returned sometime later and sold some of the items to them for a few thousand dollars.
17:37 Kylie Low? One of the things the Bechards felt was worth mentioning was that there weren't any towels in the house when they took possession of it, and one wall looked like it had been repainted. They said that the deck was in disrepair, which seemed odd to them, knowing that David was a carpenter. Not only that, I guess the Bechards lived nearby prior to buying Marilyn's house, and David had actually built them a brand-new deck at their other home, free of labor costs. I can't decide if this deck thing has any meaning. If Marilyn and David were struggling financially, you'd think David would charge for his labor, sure, but it also makes sense that David wouldn't put any money into fixing up his own deck
18:18 Kylie Low? if money was tight. Again, it was just something the Bechards thought was worth mentioning. But what really caught Pat's attention was what the Bechards told him next. They said that when they asked David about Marilyn, he told them something about dropping her off to catch the bus where Route 1 met 190 north of Eastport, for a retreat. That wasn't the only exchange David and the Bechards had about Marilyn. Mrs. Bechard corresponded with David via email just hours after they'd closed on the house. She forwarded it to Pat. In Mrs. Bechard's email to David in March of 2005, she wrote
19:00 Kylie Low? that she and her husband were officially the new owners of Marilyn's Clark Street House. She then went on to say she assumes that he and Marilyn have reunited in California, where David had since moved. She wanted David to ask Marilyn if there was anything else left at the house she wanted, because they still had many of her personal belongings, and they were willing to mail them to her. Mrs. Bechard closed the email wishing David well, and said she was hoping to hear that he and Marilyn were together once again. David responded to her email on March 11, 2005, and told her that he heard from Marilyn, and she was happy that the Bechards got the house, but that she wouldn't be coming
19:43 Kylie Low? home. According to David, Marilyn had been secretly planning to leave him for weeks before she actually did, and her reasons were based on her belief that she was wrecking his life, even though he assured Marilyn that this was not the case. David asked for prayers, for Marilyn and for him. He signed it with both of their names. A bus stop, a retreat, a secret plan to leave and she wasn't coming home? What in the world was going on with Marilyn Lehan? And where was she now? Pat's conversations with the Burchards and the Marsdins bounced around his head as he made his way back to Colorado. He got his two brothers up to speed upon his return, sharing notes and emails and
20:28 Kylie Low? all the details he was able to gather, however nebulous. Marilyn's brothers spent the next few months trying to track their sister down and tried to get more information from their brother-in-law, but they kept coming up empty-handed. By the summer of 2013, they turned to police for help and reported Marilyn missing. Pat and his brothers had compiled a summary of Marilyn and her husband's relationship, along with notes on everything they'd learned from neighbors and other family members and friends of Marilyn and David's, and sent it to Washington County Dispatch and Eastport Police Officer Thomas Fredette as early as May 20, 2013.
21:10 Kylie Low? Now, the Eastport Police Department is a small operation, like, single-digit small, and Officer Fredette was reportedly a reserve officer, so he didn't have a set schedule, but he called Marilyn's brother back the same day. The officer said that he started trying to contact the people listed in the summary provided by the family, but hadn't gotten through to anyone, so he planned to pick it up the following day. At the same time, Marilyn's family had hired a private investigator to conduct their own search for Marilyn. On June 3, 2013, the PI followed up with Eastport PD on behalf of the Lehan family and learned that Officer Fredette recently left for a two-and-a-half-week military deployment.
21:53 Kylie Low? According to the other officer the PI spoke to, Officer Fredette did not share any details about Marilyn's case with anyone before leaving, and the officer wasn't sure where the case stood. With the Eastport PD investigation at a standstill, Marilyn's brothers kept up their own efforts to learn more about the circumstances of their sister's disappearance. After a few days of phone tag, one of Marilyn's brothers successfully got Marilyn's husband on the phone. On June 10th, 2013, Marilyn's brother spoke to David on the phone. After initial hellos and how arus, David asked if he'd heard from Marilyn. Marilyn's brother said no, and that's why he was calling.
22:38 Kylie Low? When Marilyn's brother asked David about the last time he saw Marilyn, David said he thought it was around August of 2005. David explained that when he and Marilyn first parted, she was headed to Montana to check out a Pius X Group there. He thought that she would eventually join him in California to help take care of his ailing parents, but that didn't happen. David said that he last saw her when she came down to California to see his parents, and she told him then that she'd be staying in Montana with the Pius X Movement. She was with a woman, whose name he didn't know. Marilyn's brother said he thought the last time David saw her was in Maine, when she
23:21 Kylie Low? left for a retreat. David reiterated that the last time he saw her was when Marilyn visited his parents in California around August of 2005. Before hanging up the call, David said that Marilyn's brother could call him anytime. Now, they didn't get into it during the call, but the topic of the Pius X Group or movement David referenced became a topic of discussion among Marilyn's brothers. They didn't know for sure, but it's believed that David was referencing the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX. Depending on the source, SSPX is either a controversial offshoot of the Catholic Church
24:05 Kylie Low? named after an ultra-conservative pope from the early 1900s, or a misunderstood offshoot of the Catholic Church. According to the SSPX website, the society was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970. He was disappointed by changes at the Vatican and formed the Society of Saint Pius X to maintain tradition. In the same vein as the society's namesake, Archbishop Lefebvre strongly opposed several contemporary developments within the Catholic Church, including ecumenism, aka the view that all religions are beneficial and valid.
24:45 Kylie Low? He also rejected modernism, which is a movement that encouraged the interpretation of Catholic teachings through the lens of modern culture. Depending on where you look on the internet, SSPX has been referred to as a "cult." In a FAQ section on the official.org website, SSPX addresses the question, "Is the SSPX a cult?" The answer is, in part, "We are simply Roman Catholics who are continuing to follow the unchanging faith of 2,000 years, as expressed in tradition." So to summarize, the Pius X group that David said Marilyn went to join in Montana is
25:29 Kylie Low? a conservative religious group not fully recognized by the Catholic Church, but founded on some of its "traditional beliefs." This didn't align with what Marilyn's brothers knew about their sister. Sure, she went to Catholic schools all the way up through university. Newspaper reports indicate that Marilyn was active at a church in Maine, too. But it didn't make sense to Pat and his brothers that Marilyn would have joined a group with such conservative views. Then again, who knows? It had been so long since they had a close relationship with Marilyn. Maybe she did leave for Montana for religious exploration and never turned back. It was on the list of questions they wanted answered.
26:15 Kylie Low? A few weeks after the phone call with David, the P.I. hired by Maryland's brothers again followed up with Eastport P.D. and encouraged the department to run a search on Maryland's social security number. And the department indicated they'd do so. The P.I. then checked with a local bank in an attempt to learn the dates of the most recent activity on Maryland's accounts. But the security director of the bank wasn't able to provide that information. The P.I. also contacted three bus companies that had serviced the Eastport area in 2004, and he learned that they didn't keep any passenger records. So he wasn't going to be able to verify if Maryland had taken a bus somewhere, as David said. The private investigator talked to the Marsdins and the Bechards, too,
27:00 Kylie Low? but didn't learn anything new from what they'd already told Pat the summer before. The following month, August of 2013, Eastport Police Chief Mark Emery was assisting on Maryland's case. A social security trace had been completed, but unfortunately, it wasn't helpful. The last known activity on her social security number dated back decades to when she was a librarian in Montana. The Eastport P.D. had taken their investigation into Maryland's disappearance as far as they could with the resources available to the small, local department. The Eastport Police Chief reached out to Maine State Police. And by November of 2013, Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit North stepped in. By spring the following year,
27:44 Kylie Low? state police troopers were putting boots on the ground in search of Maryland.
27:55 Speaker 02 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
28:00 Speaker 03 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
28:04 Speaker 02 I'm Eliza Orland, career public defender.
28:06 Speaker 03 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
28:10 Speaker 02 And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
28:16 Speaker 03 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
28:32 Kylie Low? According to reporting by Laura Wayland for the Quadi Tides newspaper, on May 21st, 2014, officers from Eastport Police and Maine State Police arrived at Marilyn's former property in Eastport with K-9 units and members of the Evidence Response Team. The team searched the 14-acre property that afternoon and again the following morning. After eight cumulative hours of searching with the K-9 units, the dogs were pulled from the scene and police packed up. They didn't find anything relating to Marilyn's disappearance, but didn't necessarily expect to. Given it was her last known residence, Maine State Police said it was just a logical place to start. Lieutenant Christopher Coleman said,
29:15 Kylie Low? "We need to rule it out as a possible location. It's one of several steps to take. It's still a very open, active missing person investigation." He continued, "We really need the public's help. We don't have a lot of information about how she spent her days." End quote. The next development wasn't until 2021. That's when one of Marilyn's brothers submitted a DNA sample to be put on file with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. A 2022 follow-up with the detective assigned to Marilyn's case at the time, Detective Jason Fowler, indicated that there were no hits in Nemis. However, Detective Fowler said there was a tentative plan to conduct an extensive search
29:59 Kylie Low? inside Marilyn's former Eastport home and garage during the summer of 2022. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet. Detective Fowler later cited numerous other active and cold cases, which had directed time and effort elsewhere. The interior of Marilyn's home remains a question mark for the Lee Han family. They've never seen inside the home themselves. The Bichards, who bought Marilyn's house, had told Pat that one wall inside the house looked like it had been repainted, but that's about all the information the Lee Han family has about the interior at this point. A victim advocate with the Maine Attorney General's Office contacted one of Marilyn's
30:41 Kylie Low? brothers in the spring of 2024 and said that she'd follow up with him when she had more information about the status of the case. The Lehans have not heard from the AG's office since. I reached out to Detective Fowler and Major Crimes Unit North in hopes of discussing Marilyn's case, but have not heard back as of this episode's original recording date. Marilyn's case is riddled with unknowns. The investigation began years after she was last seen, and so far, there isn't anything concrete to indicate the most likely scenario behind her disappearance. What about Montana? Records indicate that Marilyn and David
31:22 Kylie Low? lived there at some point before moving to Maine, so did she go back to Montana and link up with the Society of St. Pius X? That's what David said happened, but is there any evidence of it? I asked a private investigator contact of mine if Marilyn's name shows up in any database searches he has access to. The results were interesting. A person with the name Marilyn J. Lehan and the same birth date as the Marilyn we're talking about appears to have a last-known address in Whitefish, Montana as of July 2016. The database also served up a few names of likely associates, primarily in Montana.
32:04 Kylie Low? Now, these database results are notoriously imperfect, so I called a few of the numbers listed for likely associates. Most people didn't answer. Those who did hung up after I asked who I was speaking with. The SSPX website lists an associated chapel in Kalispel, Montana, which also happens to be a town listed among Marilyn's previous addresses. So I gave the church a call. The church coordinator picked up, and I introduced myself and explained I was looking for a person named Marilyn Lehan who may have been a member of the church at one time, possibly in the early 2000s. He didn't recognize the name, but said that it was before his time
32:44 Kylie Low? so he'd ask around. As of this episode's original recording date, I haven't heard back from the church coordinator.
32:53 Kylie Low? Okay, so say Marilyn didn't really set off to Montana to join a religious organization. What if she never left Maine? During Pat's conversation with the Marsdens that day in August of 2012, Mr. Marsden made a comment that stuck out to Pat. "When Mr. Marsden was a kid, his father died of accidental drowning off Chocolate Cove in Deer Island, New Brunswick, just across the bay from Eastport and Harris Cove where Marilyn's house was. The water between Maine's coast and Canada's has tides of 12 to 20 feet. That means between high tide and low tide, the water level drops and rises between 12 and 20 feet.
33:34 Kylie Low? Water moves fast and things, people, can easily get swept out to sea. As Mr. Marsden said to Pat, nothing can be saved or found." Nothing indicates that Marilyn ended up in the water or anywhere else in Maine. It remains a possibility, one that cannot yet be ruled out. There's something else I can't stop thinking about, and it's a little wild, but just stay with me for a minute. Marilyn's beloved bird, Emmett, was an African gray parrot. According to the African Gray Parrot Handbook, these extremely intelligent birds are known for their legendary talking ability.
34:16 Kylie Low? The average lifespan for the breed when kept in captivity is anywhere from 30 to 80 years with proper care and diet. As the handbook describes it, "It's like having a three-year-old living in your house forever." An African gray parrot made true crime headlines in 2016 when officers responded to the scene of what first appeared to be a double murder. According to a Detroit News article by Frances X. Donnelly, "In May of 2015, EMTs found 46-year-old Marty Durham and his wife, 48-year-old Glenna Durham, unresponsive in their west Michigan home, the victims of apparent gunshot wounds." When Michigan State Police arrived an hour later, they thought Glenna might still be alive.
35:01 Kylie Low? When an officer crouched down to check her pulse, her eyes opened. Glenna recovered. For almost a year, her husband's murder went unsolved. Throughout the investigation, friends and family of the Durhams insisted that police talk to Bud, Marty's African gray parrot. Family members said that Bud was incredibly smart and may be able to tell police what happened. The parrot had since been rehomed with Marty's ex-wife, who owned the parrot with Marty before they divorced. About a month after the murder, Bud started talking. It sounded like he was reenacting an argument between two people. Bud's new owner recorded a video of the bird's chatter.
35:45 Kylie Low? "Shut up," the bird said. Quote, "Get your ass over here, don't [bleep] shoot." End quote. Bud changed his tone of voice between lines, apparently reflecting two different people. It was unsettling, but Bud's owner wasn't sure what to make of it. A year later, in May of 2016, she decided to share the video of Bud talking with a news reporter. The video aired on WOD TV and the story caught fire. People around the world were talking about the bird, who supposedly witnessed a murder. Glenna was arrested three weeks later. Police deny that the bird's words had clinched the case, but the prosecution actually considered
36:30 Kylie Low? calling Bud as a witness. Ultimately, that did not happen. Glenna was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Among the evidence against her were letters discovered in their home that suggested she shot her husband and then turned the gun on herself. In 2010, another parrot in South Carolina apparently mimicked an interaction between a 98-year-old woman and her daughter. According to Findlaw, the bird kept repeating the words "Help me, help me," and then laughed. Police believed they were the mimic pleas of a woman suffering abuse. The woman's daughter was later charged with abuse and neglect, resulting in the death
37:14 Kylie Low? of a vulnerable adult. I asked Pat if Emmett could talk.
37:19 Speaker 01 He could say, you know, short sentences, like, "Where are you?" Stuff like that.
37:27 Kylie Low? Marilyn and David had Emmett as early as 1996, and he was reportedly still alive sometime between 2002 and 2005, when the Marsdins last saw David load up a car and drive off with the parrot. It's possible that Emmett is still alive today, though it's not clear where he ended up. Say he is still alive. Studies and anecdotal evidence show that African grays have impressive long-term memory. If Emmett saw something, would he still remember it? Would he be able to remember his owner Marilyn, and any interactions that preceded her disappearance? Could he be an unlikely witness to whatever happened before Marilyn went missing?
38:12 Kylie Low? I know, it's wild, but with a case like this being merely cold from the get-go, don't we need to ask every question, no matter how wild it may sound? I think a more obvious question to ask is whether Marilyn's husband might have more information than what he has previously disclosed to her family and former neighbors. It's interesting to note that David filed for divorce from Marilyn in 2016. According to court records, the summons on the dissolution of marriage petition was served by publication. What that means is Marilyn needed to respond to David's divorce filing, but she could not be located to respond to the summons in person, so David was allowed to publish the notice
38:56 Kylie Low? in a newspaper that Marilyn was most likely to see, which would typically be a newspaper that circulates in the area of her last known address. Now I'm still waiting on documents from the courthouse, but I am so eager to see where exactly the notice was published. Was it Maine, Montana, California? Wherever the notice was published, as of April 2017, Marilyn hadn't responded, so David filed a default or uncontested judgment. The first proposed judgment was rejected, and a new proposed judgment was filed in June of that year. The divorce was granted that same month, so as of 2017, Marilyn and David are officially divorced.
39:40 Kylie Low? And while we're speaking of court filings and service by publication, when Marilyn's Eastport house was in foreclosure, the bank also used service by publication as they were unable to locate Marilyn to serve her in person. Three separate notices of the foreclosure proceedings were published in the Bangor Daily News in July of 2004. A district court filing states that Marilyn did not plead, appear, or otherwise defend the foreclosure action, and so the case moved forward. Interestingly, those same district court records give a P.O. box address for Marilyn in California. So if Marilyn had a post office box there, did she actually live in California in 2004?
40:24 Kylie Low? If that's the case, why didn't David say so? Naturally, I don't know every or any detail David has disclosed to police since the investigation began. In the very limited previous reporting about Marilyn's case, it's noted that her husband was cooperative. At this point, David is not being called a suspect or a person of interest. My several attempts to reach Marilyn's now ex-husband were unsuccessful.
40:53 Kylie Low? Maine State Police posts Marilyn's photo on their Facebook page each year as a reminder of her unsolved disappearance, and the comment thread can be a little harsh. For some, it's hard to fathom how a family could go so many years without realizing their sister was missing. I'm protective of the families I work with, and I just hope that everything you've heard about Marilyn and her family paints a more complete picture of the circumstances beyond what a few sentences on a social media post can do. When I asked Pat if he had any frustrations with Marilyn's case right now, I was prepared to hear something about law enforcement's response. But Pat was candid that the frustrations may instead be with himself.
41:36 Speaker 01 We should have pursued this a lot sooner, but you know, with kids and now grandkids, you kind of lose track, and time passes quickly. I think we might have been a little reticent in not pursuing, you know, keeping better contact. They never kept contact either, and they had moved so much that sometimes it was hard to keep in touch or whatever. But a lot of things could have been done differently, I guess.
42:07 Kylie Low? Marilyn Lee Han would be 70 years old today. If you have information relating to her disappearance, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit North at 207-973-3750, or toll-free at 1-800-432-7381. You can also leave a tip using the form linked in the description of this episode.
42:39 Kylie 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, @DarkDownEast. 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.
43:10 Kylie Low? Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and AudioChuck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
43:22 Kylie Low? 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. 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.
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