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Sarah Hunter was only 15 minutes late for work when her co-worker called police to report her missing. But despite his swift action, Sarah's case would go cold and stay that way for years. Decades later, an individual known to the case from the earliest days of the investigation became a prime suspect, and advanced DNA testing even led to an arrest.
Yet Sarah's murder still awaits a conclusion to this day, almost 40 years later. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Sarah Hunter on Dark Down East. It was 8 p.m. on Thursday night, September 18th, 1986, and 32-year-old Sarah Hunter was just leaving her boyfriend's house in Manchester, Vermont.
According to reporting by Joyce Bassett for the Times Union, Sarah had been studying for a new Ladies Professional Golf League certification and was on her way home that night to review some material for the upcoming test. As the head golf pro at Manchester Country Club, Sarah was passionate about golf and liked staying sharp on her skills and knowledge of the game that became her livelihood.
On top of the test, the next day was going to be busy for Sarah, with early morning lessons to teach, plus she was playing in a tournament that afternoon. But before heading back to the house where she rented a room in Manchester Village that night, Sarah stopped by Leo's Motors off Route 7A to grab a six-pack of Coors Light beer. She cashed out by 8.30 and left the store.
Around 8.15 the next morning, Sarah's fellow golf pro Todd McIntosh was growing uneasy. In the history of Sarah's employment at the club, she was a dependable, punctual employee. Now she was 15 minutes late to her first lesson, and she hadn't so much as called to give a heads up. Todd had a gut feeling that something was seriously wrong, and it only took that 15-minute window for Todd to pick up the phone and call Manchester police.
However, he was told they had to wait 24 to 48 hours before any kind of investigation would be done. Meanwhile, not far away, down Route 7A in Manchester, employees at the Sitco service station and car wash arrived for their shift to an unusual sight. There was a car wedged into the narrow back alley behind the building.
It had to have been pushed to the spot because there were only a few inches on either side of the doors, definitely not enough for someone to get in or out if they drove it in. The employees called police to report the strange vehicle. When officers arrived and ran the Florida license plate, the 1984 beige Nissan came back registered to Sarah Hunter.
Manchester police tried contacting Sarah, but they couldn't seem to track her down at home, and she still hadn't shown up for work at the country club either. An adult taking an unannounced trip or missing work without notice isn't itself always cause for alarm, but something was off about all of it.
Despite initially dismissing her co-worker's call of concern, saying they had to wait a day or two to start looking for Sarah, the discovery of her car seemed to change everything. Manchester police towed and impounded Sarah's vehicle that morning, and it was dusted for fingerprints the very same day. Mike Donahue reports for the Burlington Free Press that other than where and how it was found, police didn't find anything suspicious or concerning about Sarah's car.
There were five unopened cans of Coors Light in the cab, but that's all they've really said publicly about the contents of the car. They drilled out the lock on the trunk to get it open, but said they didn't find anything significant inside. I don't know if that means it was empty or if the items were inconsequential, but either way, the source material I have access to doesn't specify.
If fingerprints were successfully pulled from any surface in or outside of the car, it doesn't seem like they were able to match them to any unknown person. The same day, police also searched Sarah's room in Manchester Village. Nothing was out of place and there were no signs of forced entry. There was a partially unpacked suitcase sitting on a stand and other clothes hanging in a closet. A small amount of cash sitting on Sarah's dresser was untouched.
Next to the money was a single can of Coors Light. Marlene Roderick reports for the Bennington Banner that everyone police spoke to about Sarah that first day said they weren't aware of any plans she had to leave town. They also couldn't come up with anything that would have triggered an unplanned trip without checking in with co-workers or family.
Going radio silent just isn't something Sarah would do. But she hadn't been in touch with anyone that morning, and she didn't show up for the golf tournament that afternoon either. Among the questions was the suggestion that maybe Sarah left on her own accord without telling someone, possibly to harm herself. But Sarah's friends and family were quick to shoot that down. Though she was recently divorced and the process was difficult for her, she was faring well and moving forward with her life.
She'd recently put money down on a new condo in Manchester and had secured a raise for the following season at the country club, and she was planning to take a vacation later that year. She had every reason to stick around and so much to look forward to. If Sarah was missing, it wasn't because she wanted to be.
Manchester police spent the weekend interviewing Sarah's friends and co-workers to develop a timeline of her movements after she bought that six-pack around 8.30 p.m. on Thursday night. The five cans of beer in Sarah's car and the one at her apartment were all Coors Light, so she must have gone home after stopping to buy the beer. But what happened next?
The Sitco station where her car was found closed at 9:15, so investigators thought that the employees would have noticed Sarah's car in the back alley as they locked up Thursday night. But they didn't report it until the next morning. So when did her car actually end up there? Police and firefighters searched wooded areas around the Sitco station where her car was discovered on Friday morning, as well as spots near Leo's Motors looking for clues.
Meanwhile, friends and family began printing and distributing posters around town, offering a $15,000 reward for information. By the fourth day of the search, Vermont State Police were called in to assist the investigation, and the day after that, a local FBI agent began monitoring the case too, in the event an element of the case crossed state lines. But just two weeks into the search for Sarah, the trail was already growing cold.
Paul Teeter reports for the Rutland Herald that the previously announced reward did nothing to generate new viable tips, and investigators were frustrated by the lack of progress. A ton of in- and out-of-state resources were devoted to the search effort, including a helicopter and search dogs from New York State Police.
Investigators scanned wooded areas from the sky, while trained dogs sniffed for clues near the Grand Union supermarket in town Manchester and around several area ponds. Still, nothing turned up to direct the investigation any further. But then on Saturday, October 4th, two weeks and one day after Sarah was last seen, a clue turned up in a nearby town.
Marlene Roderick reports for the Bennington Banner that two boys riding bikes down a road that connects the two tiny rural towns of Pollitt and Danby, Vermont, discovered a purse on the side of the street. When the boys reported their finding to police, investigators were able to determine that it belonged to Sarah Hunter.
Unfortunately, it rained that day and the purse was soaking wet, so it would be difficult to determine how long it had been there exposed to the elements. The purse was turned over to the Vermont State Crime Lab for testing in hopes it would reveal something, anything, about what happened to the missing woman.
Finding Sarah's purse about 15 miles away from where she was last seen was a significant development and a foreboding piece of evidence suggesting a nefarious element to Sarah's disappearance. But nothing further developed in the coming weeks. By the end of November, investigators considered the very real possibility that Sarah had been abducted or possibly harmed.
Yet not a single tip or lead came in with sightings or more information for police to follow. Manchester Police Chief Manfred Wessner said to reporters for the Rutland Herald, quote, I can't recall a case with no leads at all like this, end quote. With so little to go on, investigators were willing to consider any possible theory.
So detectives working on Sarah's case began comparing their notes with investigators working on another active case in Vermont, wondering if the circumstances were simply coincidental or evidence of a meaningful connection. Yvonne Daly reports for the Rutland Herald that on September 10th, just eight days before Sarah Hunter disappeared, a 15-year-old girl named Paulette Crickmore seemingly vanished without a trace on her way to school in Richmond, Vermont.
She'd gotten off the bus in town to cash her babysitting check and to buy a snack, and then would have tried to catch another bus to Mount Mansfield Union High School where she was a freshman, but she never made it to class that morning.
When police searched for clues along what should have been Paulette's route down Jericho Road, they didn't find any of her belongings, not her bag, her books, or a flute case that a crossing guard later said she saw Paulette carrying as she hurried down the road towards school. Paulette was still missing when Sarah disappeared the following week, and leads in her case had fizzled out by early October too.
On the surface, it's hard to draw any meaningful connections between the two cases. Richmond is almost two and a half hours away from Manchester, and Sarah was more than twice Paulette's age. But two suspicious disappearances in the same state within an eight-day span was worth closer scrutiny. Investigators on both cases weren't ruling anything out, especially given the lack of evidence they had in either direction.
There was hope that hunting season would lead to new developments for both Sarah and Paulette's investigations. Hunters in search of turkey, deer, and other game would soon be covering areas of the woods that might not get much foot traffic any other time of year. Police believed having people out there covering more ground could produce new clues. And that's exactly what happened.
Stephen Casimiro reports for the Burlington Free Press that on November 20th, a hunter in the woods near Duxbury, Vermont, discovered the badly decomposed remains of Paulette Crickmore. The autopsy results revealed she'd been shot more than once. What started as a suspicious disappearance was now labeled a homicide investigation. Seven days later, another discovery changed the status of Sarah Hunter's case, too.
It was Thanksgiving Day, November 27th, 1986, and a man was out walking with his children on his father's farm off Danby Road in Pollitt when he spotted a strange form in the cornfield. As the man got closer, he realized that what he'd found was a decomposed human body. Dental records confirmed that it was the body of Sarah Hunter.
According to Marlene Roderick's reporting in the Brattleboro Reformer, the Deputy Vermont Medical Examiner's autopsy found that Sarah had been strangled to death. And we know now that there was also evidence of sexual assault. However, investigators did not disclose that detail or many others at the time. They wouldn't say if they knew how long Sarah had been in the field or if they thought she was killed in the same place she was found.
Though Manchester and state police collected additional evidence from the scene, they didn't specify what the evidence was and would only say that it was being compared to the items collected earlier in the investigation. The location of Sarah's body in that Pollack cornfield was roughly five miles from where her purse was discovered two months earlier in Danby.
This shifted the focus of the investigation from Manchester to the Paulette Danby area, as detectives on Paulette Crickmore's case continued their work 100 miles north in Duxbury. Despite the overt differences between the two cases, police continued to consider the possibility that the two murders were connected, not wanting to leave any stone unturned.
The possible connection between the two cases was studied even further when just a few weeks later, one of the cases had a major breakthrough. Gail Hansen reports for the Rutland Herald that Vermont authorities arrested 34-year-old Edwin A. Town Jr. in early December of 1986 and charged him with first-degree murder in the case of Paulette Crickmore.
Due to his lengthy and violent criminal history, police placed Edwin on the suspect list early on in their investigation. Witnesses also said they saw a truck similar to his on Jericho Road the day Paulette disappeared. Edwin later admitted to police that he drove down Jericho Road the morning of September 10th as he was on his way to work on the foundation of his new house in Eden, Vermont, about 40 miles away from Richmond.
Police later obtained a search warrant for Edwin's house, and when they searched the concrete block foundation, they discovered a .32 caliber revolver wrapped in a cloth and three empty casings stuffed inside one of the blocks. Testing by the Vermont State Police Lab determined that the firearm was the same one used to kill Paulette.
Of course, with this new development and a suspect in custody for Paulette's case, questions swirled about Edwin's potential involvement with Sarah Hunter's murder. The investigation was ongoing, but after more than a month of reviewing files and comparing the two cases, police didn't have any reason to believe that Edwin Town Jr. was responsible for Sarah Hunter's murder.
According to a Wire report in the Bennington Banner, investigators had been comparing Edwin's gas card receipts to locations around Vermont and Greater New England to determine if any unsolved crimes were committed in those areas when he was in town, but hadn't made any earth-shattering discoveries that proved he was in Manchester or the Pollitt-Danby area when Sarah disappeared.
Even still, credit card receipts wouldn't tell the whole story, so Edwin remained on a list of possible suspects while he awaited trial for Paulette's murder. The following month, in January of 1987, yet another suspicious disappearance in Vermont raised the question of a possible connection to Sarah Hunter's murder.
Timothy Cornell reports for the Rutland Herald that on January 10th, 38-year-old Barbara Agnew's abandoned car was discovered in the lot at the northbound rest area off I-91 in White River Junction, Vermont. Police found a small amount of blood inside her vehicle, and her blood-covered ski jacket was discovered in a nearby dumpster.
Her body was discovered almost three months later in melting snow beneath an apple tree in Heartland, Vermont. An autopsy determined that Barbara died from multiple stab wounds to her neck and stomach. Vermont State Police considered the similarities between Sarah and Barbara's murders. Manchester and White River Junction are about 75 miles apart, so closer than the location of Paulette's disappearance and death, but still a considerable distance.
Sarah and Barbara were closer in age, both in their 30s, versus Paulette being 15, but otherwise the cases appear pretty different, especially the cause of death with Sarah having died by strangulation and Barbara by stab wounds. As of May 1987, both of the investigations were still ongoing, and police couldn't say for sure that Sarah's case was linked to Barbara's or Paulette's or any other crimes in the area.
However, investigators seem to be more optimistic than ever that a breakthrough was on the horizon for Sarah Hunter, despite the lack of updates in recent months. Marlene Roderick spoke with State Police Sergeant Thomas Truex, who said, quote, We know lots about the case, and I feel confident it will be solved. It will take some time before it all comes together. We have to keep a lid on what we say, end quote.
The one-year anniversary of Sarah Hunter's disappearance and death came and went that September without any updates. In the months leading up to the somber milestone, Vermont authorities collaborated with New Hampshire police to suss out potential ties to homicides in the neighboring state, but that inquiry and other investigative efforts were still ongoing, without much to show for it.
Over the next year, investigators followed up on a dwindling number of tips that came in regarding Sarah Hunter's murder. As court proceedings carried on in the Paulette Crickmore case, an alternate suspect for that murder was also considered for Sarah's death. However, that lead seemed to fizzle out.
At one point, there was discussion of a potential serial killer with multiple victims between Vermont and New Hampshire, but Sarah didn't really fit the profile for those cases either. Even though the second anniversary of her death rolled around in September of 1988, still without an arrest, police insisted that the case remained active.
In fact, Vermont police were following up on a big lead all the way across the country. Paul Teeter reports for the Rutland Herald that on August 25th, 1988, a woman sitting in her car in Chula Vista, California, was approached by a man wielding a firearm. He got inside the car and drove off with the woman still inside, holding her at gunpoint.
He forced her to perform a sex act before she was able to escape by jumping out of the moving vehicle. The man continued driving her vehicle all the way to Oceanside, California, where he robbed an adult bookstore. Officers in Oceanside responded to the scene as the man was fleeing onto the freeway. They were ultimately able to apprehend the suspect when he drove down a dead-end street, exited the vehicle, and attempted to hide in some bushes.
The suspect was 28-year-old David Allen Morrison. While he was held at the San Diego County Jail on charges of kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, and armed robbery, Oceanside Police learned that David had once lived in Vermont. They sent a teletype to Vermont State Police to see if they had any information on the guy. And when Vermont detectives heard the suspect's name, they quickly booked flights to SoCal.
So, Vermont State Police had interviewed a number of people during the earliest days of the investigation into Sarah Hunter's murder, including David Allen Morrison. In September of 1986, David was working at a convenience store a few hundred feet from the service station where Sarah's car was found. So he was routinely questioned as part of the case.
An affidavit indicates that David denied knowing or ever meeting Sarah during both of the conversations he had with police in 1986 and 1987. Again, those were just routine interviews. It really wasn't until David was arrested in California that he actually became a prime suspect in Sarah's murder.
Oceanside police had learned some information about David and recovered items and his personal belongings that were of particular interest. Investigators were kind of vague about what the items might be, but Vermont State Police Captain Glenn Hall explained that the items had to be examined in person to determine if they're connected to Sarah's case in any way. So that's exactly what they were in California to do.
It was the first big update in a long time. And unsurprisingly, the story took over the news cycle for several days that fall. But at the same time, police tried to quell the hopes of locals who thought the case might be on the brink of closure.
State Police Lieutenant Gary Booten told Marlene Roderick of the Bennington Banner, quote, This is nothing more than another suspect, another possible suspect. I don't want to lead the people of Bennington County to believe we have a person for the murder of Sarah Hunter. We're out here investigating. We're far from anyone being arrested. We're trying to find out if we have probable cause. He continued, This is blown all out of proportion, end quote.
An affidavit obtained by Patrick McArdle of the Rutland Herald reveals that behind the scenes, Vermont State Police were examining a vehicle that David owned and drove when he lived in Vermont. He left it behind when he moved to California in January of 1988, and it was still kicking around when detectives went looking for it following his arrest later that year. It was processed for evidence relating to Sarah Hunter's case.
But within a week, the probe of David Allen Morrison closed without any charges. Although David Allen Morrison was ultimately convicted of robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault, and attempted murder for his crime spree in California, and he was sentenced to 20 years to life for those crimes, police did not have the probable cause needed to charge him with Sarah's murder.
There just wasn't enough evidence recovered either from David's vehicle or elsewhere to show he was responsible for her death. That's when Sarah Hunter's case truly went cold. It would be more than 20 years before the files and evidence and suspects were revisited with any sort of vigor. But when the case was eventually reopened, it was spurred on by a call from yet another detective in California.
On December 15th, 2009, a detective from the National City Police Department in California reached out to Vermont State Police. He let them know he was planning to interview David Allen Morrison about the unresolved California murder of Lisa Bell, and he believed it had some notable similarities to Sarah's case.
When the California detective asked David about Lisa Bell, he was adamant that he didn't know anything about her or that unsolved case. But David seemed less convincing when the detective asked him about Sarah Hunter's murder. David made a comment that talking about Sarah would, quote, "...put the last nail in his coffin, and he would address it when he felt the time was right and didn't think he would take it to his grave," end quote.
According to an affidavit, David also allegedly said that he'd made peace with it, though he recognized that Sarah's family did not. With that, the investigation into Sarah Hunter's murder was reinvigorated in Vermont. Detectives decided to see what updated forensic technology could do with everything they collected back when the case was first investigated and when David's car was processed in 1988.
Combing back through the file in 2010, investigators found vacuumings believed to be collected from David's car. Any testing on that evidence in the 80s was apparently unhelpful to the case. But modern-day technology might yield different, more illuminating results. So it was sent off to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia. The lab identified a hair among the vacuumings, and it was enough for mitochondrial DNA testing.
Mitochondrial DNA testing is a type of genetic analysis that focuses on the DNA found in the mitochondria. Unlike nuclear DNA, which is unique to each individual except for identical twins, mitochondrial DNA is passed down almost unchanged from a mother to her children.
In criminal investigations, mitochondrial DNA testing is often used when nuclear DNA is degraded, too small in quantity, or cannot be obtained from a crime scene sample. Since mitochondrial DNA is more abundant and less likely to degrade, it can sometimes provide valuable information in cases where nuclear DNA analysis isn't possible.
For example, when you don't have the root or follicle on a strand of hair for nuclear DNA analysis, mitochondrial DNA can be performed on the shaft of the hair. So the hair was sent off for mitochondrial DNA analysis, and meanwhile, investigators revisited the other circumstantial evidence against David Morrison. They knew he worked at a convenience store near where Sarah's car was discovered wedged into an alley.
Detectives also learned that in Arlington, Vermont in 1981, David allegedly forced a woman into her car and sexually assaulted her, though it's unclear if he faced prosecution or was ever convicted for that incident. Then there was the crime spree in California in 1988 that had initially made him a suspect in the case. Plus, those incriminating statements about Sarah's murder he made during an interview with a California detective.
David had the propensity for violence and a history of sexual assault, and he worked in the same few hundred foot radius as a key location in Sarah's case, and he didn't seem to flat out deny knowledge or involvement with Sarah's murder. All that circumstantial evidence was bolstered when the mitochondrial DNA results came back.
The profile of the hair found among the contents of a vacuum bag, believed to be pulled from David's car that he owned and drove when he lived in Vermont, was a mitochondrial match to Sarah's sister. Since mitochondrial DNA profiles are shared between maternal siblings, investigators concluded that it was Sarah's hair.
In July of 2012, the Bennington County State's Attorney and Vermont State Police announced impending charges against David Allen Morrison for the murder of Sarah Hunter. During a press conference, Vermont authorities explained that DNA evidence showed with more than 99% probability that a hair recovered from a car owned by David belonged to Sarah Hunter.
Patrick McArdle reports for the Rutland Herald that David was incarcerated in California when he was charged with first-degree aggravated murder in Sarah's case. He was expected to be extradited to Vermont to face the charges, but David actually first refused to sign the extradition waiver, which delayed the process of getting him to Vermont.
A judge finally granted extradition in April of 2014, and after a lengthy transport process with U.S. Marshals, the suspect finally arrived in Vermont in July of that year. At his arraignment that summer, David Allen Morrison entered a not guilty plea. It marked a milestone moment in a case that lingered over the Greater Manchester community for nearly three decades.
The state's attorney and law enforcement officers all spoke of the satisfying feeling that came with finally making an arrest in such a long-standing case, and they celebrated the collaborative effort between state police, the local departments, and investigators on the West Coast that led to the man they believed responsible for Sarah's death.
The DNA evidence that mitochondrial DNA profile pulled from the hair was also celebrated as the piece that pulled the whole puzzle together. However, that same evidence would soon be the factor that tore the case apart. In February of 2015, the Bennington County State's Attorney was forced to dismiss all charges against David Allen Morrison for the murder of Sarah Hunter.
According to reporting by Mike Donahue for the Burlington Free Press, state's attorney Erica Marthage discovered that a case officer had sent vacuumings from Sarah Hunter's car to the FBI for testing, not from David Allen Morrison's car. So the hair believed to tie David to Sarah's murder was actually found in her personal vehicle. Of course Sarah's hair was in her own car.
The same case officer also told the state's attorney's office that certain physical evidence, a hairbrush found in David's car, didn't exist, when in fact, state police had the evidence all along. The errors required dismissal of the charges, at least temporarily and without prejudice, until the evidence and case as a whole could be re-evaluated.
David Allen Morrison would be transported back to California to fulfill what remained of his sentence there. According to California Incarcerated Records and Information Search, he remains incarcerated at California State Prison in Solano. In February of 2023, he was denied parole for five years and will have a parole suitability hearing in February of 2028.
Following the dismissal, the Bennington County State's Attorney's Office ordered the properly labeled vacuumings from the suspect's car, the hairbrush also from his car, a ring and a watch removed from Sarah's body, all to be sent to the FBI for DNA analysis. That was almost 10 years ago, and there have been no updates regarding the results of that testing.
I reached out to Vermont State Police Captain Scott Dunlap regarding the status of the DNA evidence analysis and a general update on the case. I have not yet received a response. In April of 2024, I hosted a virtual event with Season of Justice, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing funding for investigative agencies and families to help solve cold cases.
The event was a DNA deep dive with molecular biologist Meredith Turnbaugh.
We discussed just how incredible a tool modern forensic DNA technology can be for solving previously stagnant cases, which is absolutely true and we've seen it happen again and again. But we also discussed how DNA evidence is only as good as its handling and collection protocols, and it relies on the reliability and integrity of humans to develop an accurate result.
At the heart of DNA analysis lies human intervention. From the initial collection at a crime scene to the meticulous processing in a laboratory, each step demands unwavering attention to detail and adherence to established protocols. Failure to do so can introduce contamination, degradation, or even loss of crucial genetic material, jeopardizing the accuracy of the final result.
A single misrepresentation, misinterpretation, or oversight can have profound consequences, potentially leading to false accusations or letting a killer walk free. Because the charges against the suspect in Sarah Hunter's case were dismissed without prejudice, it means the charges could be brought against him again if evidence does conclusively link him to the crime.
But until the right evidence shows who is connected to her murder, Sarah's name remains on the Vermont State Police unsolved homicide list, where it has been now for almost 38 years. Joyce Bassett spoke with a number of Sarah's friends and colleagues for a piece in the Times Union published in September of 2016, right around the 30-year anniversary of her death.
Everyone who spoke about Sarah Hunter remembered her for the passion she had for the game and the pride she had as a woman in the sport. Sarah's fellow golf pro, Todd McIntosh, said, quote, I think she was happy regardless of where she was or who she was with. People warmed up to her very quickly, even the ones that were old school and skeptical. They became believers. Everybody loved Sarah, end quote.
It's clear that her legacy lives on in Vermont. For years following her death, the Sarah L. Hunter Junior Golf Program continued at the Manchester Country Club, and a friend started a women's golf tournament in Sarah's honor. The Sarah Hunter Invitational continues even to this year, 2024.
If you have any information relating to the unsolved homicide of Sarah Hunter, please contact Captain Scott Dunlap of the Vermont State Police Major Crime Unit. His email is scott.dunlap at vermont.gov. You can also submit an anonymous tip at vsp.vermont.gov slash tipsubmit.
or text VTIPS to 274637.
I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
