Random Scariest Unsolved Crimes And Mysteries From Maine (10 items)

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  (#3) Four-Year-Old Kurt Newton Disappeared From A Campground

  Kurt Newton went missing from Natanis Point Campground on September 1, 1975, while visiting with his family. One the day of his disappearance, his mother, Jill Newton, took the family's dirty shoes to wash them while Kurt's father, Ron Newton, took his truck to chop firewood in the forest. Kurt's sister, Kimberly Newton, was riding her bike around the campgrounds, and Kurt stayed at the family's campsite just 50 yards from his mother.

  Friends camping in the area heard Kurt call out to his father before hopping onto his tricycle to follow the Bronco. Lou Ellen Hanson was the last person to see the young boy alive. She called out to Kurt but didn't receive an answer. 

  Lou Ellen's father encountered Kurt's trike off the side of the road. He mistook it for discarded trash and threw it in the nearby dump. Jill returned to the family campsite to find Kurt gone but believed he was chopping wood with his father. Hours later, Ron came back to their campsite and revealed Kurt wasn't with him. Other campers, as well as state and local officials, joined the Newton family in searching the expanse of wilderness for the little boy.

  They discovered no trace of Kurt in the forest, and the massive search effort ended after 11 days.
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  (#5) Baby Jane Doe Froze To Death In A Gravel Pit

  On the morning of December 7, 1985, Armand and Lorraine Pelletier let their Siberian Husky, Paca, outside. Some time later, Paca returned to the house carrying in her mouth a deceased newborn who had frozen. Tracking dogs led law enforcement from the Pelletier home to a gravel pit near Pelletier Avenue in Frenchville, where police determined a woman gave birth that very moring to a full-term baby in temperatures 30 below zero. She then left the child, leaving no substantial clues to her identity.

  The mother never came forward and no leads pointed to a suspect or new information.
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  (#8) People Heard 'The White Bird' Airplane Go Down, But No One Ever Found It

  Charles Nungesser and François Coli left Paris in 1927. Their goal was to fly L'Oiseau Blanc, which translates to "The White Bird," to New York in an attempt to make what then would have been a historic transatlantic flight. The duo planned a trip over the United Kingdom, across the Atlantic Ocean, and then to Canada before finally arriving in New York City.

  But The White Bird disappeared, prompting a large-scale search for Coli and Nungesser. People claimed they heard but did not see the aircraft as it flew past on its path over Newfoundland and Ireland. More witnesses described hearing a crash in Maine during May of that year, which is around where The White Bird would have been on its way to New York.

  In 1947, a lobster fisherman found pieces of airplane wreckage authorities believe may have been The White Bird, but they could never confirm. In 2008, a man named Arthur P. Dolan wrote that he found pieces of a plane and some bones while hunting with a friend. Dolan was unable to return to the location and never verified the bones or plane pieces belonged to the missing men. In 1987, a group dedicated to finding The White Bird located a wooden stick they believed was part of one of the aircraft's wings.

  The group's leader, Richard Gillespie, claimed a hunter told him he found a metal component of the plane in 1979, but he discarded the piece. The fate of Nungesser and Coli remains a mystery, as does the final location of The White Bird.

   
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  (#4) Ludger Belanger Went Missing While Deer Hunting

  Ludger Belanger went deer hunting on November 25, 1975, after he spent the morning tracking small game with his wife, Linda, and brother, John. Belanger promised to be back by noon to drive Linda to her job. When he didn't show up, Linda called police to report him missing. Law enforcement learned from a game warden that Belanger took down a large buck with his .30-30 and dragged it from the woods to Creamer Lot Road, where someone offered him a ride.

  Investigators found a receipt for repair work near the drag marks from Belanger's buck and were able to track down two suspects and their vehicle. The pair admitted to hunting in the same area but denied seeing Belanger or picking him up in their car. However, police found a single hair of deer fur on the hood ornament of one suspect's 1965 Buick Special. The car's owner also recently cleaned the car and entirely removed the backseat.

  A witness named Charles Christiensen Jr. approached law enforcement in 1978 claiming one of the suspects confessed to killing Belanger after arguing with him over the buck he shot. Christiensen said the suspect was high at the time of the murder. Christiensen passed before investigators could report to a grand jury, however. 

  Authorities performed additional DNA testing on the 1965 Buick in 1985. Investigators didn't discover any blood in the vehicle. One suspect perished in an explosion at his home in 1976, but the second suspect still lived in the state as of 2015. Police have never made any arrests in the case.
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  (#2) James Cassidy Burned Alive In His Car

  After they received a tip from an anonymous caller, police found Massachusetts native James Cassidy burned to death inside his 1971 Chrysler station wagon on April 5, 1976. The 43-year-old banking executive had recently been indicted for embezzling close to $20,000 from Brookline Trust Company bank, but the visit to Maine that resulted in his passing remains a mystery.

  An empty gas container found at the scene led investigators to conclude the vehicle was purposely set ablaze with Cassidy inside. Still, many continue to question whether Cassidy took his own life or if it was a homicide.
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  (#10) There Wasn't Enough Evidence To Solve A Strangling At The Bangor House

  Chambermaid Effie MacDonald passed on March 18, 1965, while working at the Bangor House hotel after an unknown assailant strangled her with her own nylon stockings. When co-workers and a manager hadn't seen MacDonald for over two hours, they began a search for her. A fellow worker located her body in a room on the third floor, which had been unoccupied by any paying guests for two days.

  The first instinct of police and the public was to add MacDonald to the list of Boston Strangler victims, but the modus operandi didn't fit. The Strangler tightly tied the stockings around the throats of his victims, but this person wrapped them around MacDonald's neck multiple times.

  Although no arrests were ever made and no suspect named, the case's lead detective, Captain Clifton E. Sloane, told the media in 1971 he did know the perpetrator. He further explained they didn't have sufficient evidence to convict the responsible party, a male guest of the hotel witnessed leaving the establishment via a back door after the event.

  Both Sloane and the alleged culprit are now deceased, and the case remains officially unsolved.

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