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Get away with friends to the laid-back Maryland coast, where you can catch up while casting off and hang ten while hanging out, where a day on board is never boring.
And full throttle is half the fun, where you can sink a putt, raise a glass, and there's always room for one more round. Ocean City, Maryland, somewhere to smile about. Book your trip at ococean.com. He approached the man leaning against a building on the 4200 block of University Way Northwest in Seattle, Washington.
To anyone casually glancing over at the interaction, it would have appeared random, inconsequential, nothing to note. It was an area known for criminal activity, but this was benign, just a simple cigarette and chewing gum survey. Any takers would earn $5 for their participation. Except the survey had ulterior motives.
And the man armed with the three packs of cigarettes and three packs of gum didn't work for any distributor of the two products. He was a plainclothes detective, executing a creative plan to collect the evidence authorities needed to close out an unsolved Maine homicide from 35 years in the past. He only hoped that the sole participant in the survey was game to make five bucks.
The murder of 70-year-old Augusta resident Blanche Kimball in 1976 remained a cold case for decades until a new tip, new DNA technology, and a clever idea brought all the loose ends together. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Blanche Kimball on Dark Down East. 70-year-old Blanche Kimball lived in Augusta, Maine in 1976.
She was three years retired from her job at Togus Veterans Administration Center, where she worked as a dental technician and practical nurse. Much of Blanche's life is a mystery. She was born in Albany, Maine to her parents, Elliot and Fanny Bell. Blanche never married and had no children.
I get the sense that Blanche had a small family: a sibling who passed away in 1916, a half-sister born when Blanche was 10 years old, and two aunts with a handful of cousins who lived out of state as of the 1970s. Blanche lived on State Street in Augusta, a stretch that is now lined with gas stations and car dealerships and a few apartment buildings on either side of the four-lane road.
The Kennebec Journal described Blanche Kimball's home as a large, two-floor wooden frame house, though it was leveled years ago and the land paved over into a parking lot. But in 1976, Blanche lived alone in that big house, though she was known to rent rooms to temporary boarders on occasion. The neighbors kept an eye on Blanche's comings and goings, as neighbors do.
In mid-June of 1976, those neighbors started to realize they hadn't seen the retired woman who lived next door for days, maybe even weeks. In fact, the last time anyone saw Blanche Kimball was Memorial Day weekend. It had been nearly two weeks since Blanche had come or gone from her State Street home. Concerned, the neighbors called police to check in on Blanche.
It was June 12th, 1976, when Augusta Detective Sergeant Carroll Clement knocked on the front door of 352 State Street in Augusta, announcing himself to whoever might be inside. Knock. Pause. Listen. He repeated the pattern several times, but with each knock came the same response. Silence. Silence.
He jiggled the knob to see if it had been left unlocked. An unlocked front door in Central Maine in the mid-70s would not have been unusual. But with just a quick half-turn of the handle, Detective Clement found the door locked from the inside. He knocked one more time before deciding that force was the only way into Miss Kimball's home. The home was in what he described as general disarray.
Messy, unkempt maybe, but it was impossible for him to tell if that was out of the ordinary for Blanche Kimball. But as he wound through the first floor rooms and into the kitchen and living space, Detective Clement knew he wasn't dealing with just a messy house. 70-year-old Blanche Kimball had been dead for several days when Detective Clement found her there on the floor, shards of glass scattered around her, and blood spatter on the kitchen cabinets.
She'd apparently been stabbed, but investigators would have to wait for the autopsy to confirm exactly what happened to Ms. Kimball. One thing was clear, though. They had a homicide investigation on their hands. Both state police and Augusta detectives worked together to assess the scene. Given the state of the home when Detective Clement arrived, it was challenging to determine an early motive.
A home in disarray might be the sign of a burglary, but it wasn't as obvious there. And with the door locked from the inside and no signs of forced entry other than what the detective himself caused, a burglary turned deadly didn't seem like the likely scenario. Still, relatives from Massachusetts were on their way to Maine to help detectives with the early investigation and determine if anything of value was missing from her home.
An autopsy confirmed that Blanche Kimball died of multiple stab wounds to her chest and head. State Police Detective Lyndon Abbott told the Kennebec Journal that they had not recovered a murder weapon at the scene, but also said that it was extremely difficult to identify a weapon used in a stabbing.
They did, however, collect several other items from the home to be tested for evidence. Among these items were some of Ms. Kimball's personal belongings, but the specifics were not released at the time. They'd be analyzed and processed both in the state crime lab as well as the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C.
As they waited for test results to reveal anything about the brutal crime inside the home of a quiet, single, retired woman, detectives interviewed several friends and neighbors of Blanche's in hopes of piecing together her movements before and leading up to her murder.
As far as they could uncover, the last time anyone saw Blanche alive was Memorial Day, May 31st, 1976. A two-week gap is a long time. Certainly long enough for a killer to get away. Police were tight-lipped about the theories and motives and if any potential suspects had emerged from the interviews. Ten days after her body was found, investigators would only say that the case was progressing.
On June 29th, the Kennebec Journal reported that at least six individuals were interviewed by police in connection to Blanche Kimball's murder, but all six were eliminated as potential suspects. Police also reported that they'd revisited robbery as a possible motive as Blanche's checkbook was missing from her house. However, that checkbook was later located, all but ruling out robbery as the leading theory.
The estimated date of Blanche's death was sometime between June 5th through June 9th. They found a receipt from Cottle's Market in the house from a week before, but conflicting reports of when she was last seen alive made it difficult to narrow it down further, making the investigation even more challenging. The murder weapon still evaded investigators too.
Several knives were found in the house, a few with blood on them. But given the amount of blood at the scene, it wasn't simple to determine if any of those knives were in fact the one used to end Ms. Kimball's life. Blood samples and other items pulled from the scene were still being processed in the state and FBI crime labs. Those results wouldn't be made public, at least not until the case went to trial, if that ever happened at all.
In August of that year, State Police Captain Gerald Boutelier told the Kennebec Journal that the lack of motive was really holding up further progress. Though he was convinced, whoever killed Blanche Kimball did not show up and enter her house with that motive. Quote, it looks like another argument was involved, end quote. But he did not elaborate on how that theory developed.
He also said that though police continued to receive tips and calls, they were dealing with the legal hazards of questioning individuals in the case. Detectives already interviewed several people, some even took a polygraph test, but continuing to follow up on leads based on singular phoned-in tips was apparently risky. Boutelier said in the paper, quote, just talking to someone about the killing could hurt their reputation, end quote.
It was procedure, according to Boutelier, to investigate any individuals implicated by incoming tips from a distance at first, so as to protect the department from civil action. Boutelier explained to KJ reporter Jack Bell, "...a person might come in here with an attorney demanding to know why we suspect him, and on the basis of a telephone call, I can't answer him."
Captain Boutelier assured the public, though, "You may not see a press release coming out every day, but we're still working on them." But whatever work was going on behind the scenes, it didn't lead to progress. Not publicly, anyway. Just months after Blanche was murdered, with no motive or potential suspects, the case went cold.
More than three decades would pass before anything new came to light. Detective Abby Shabbat was assigned as primary investigator on the Blanche Kimball homicide in 2003, 27 years after Blanche was killed. Eight years after that, in 2011, a new tip came into the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit.
Someone was thinking about Blanche after all those years and decided to pick up the phone and share what they knew, or at least what they thought they knew. Lieutenant Christopher Coleman, then commander of the unit, told Kennebec Journal reporters Craig Crosby and Betty Adams that they ran down the tip and, unfortunately, it wasn't useful. Not at face value, anyway.
What the tip did for the investigation though, was lead to additional DNA analysis. Blood samples collected from the scene all those years ago were tested with new modern techniques. That's when detectives confirmed that whoever killed Blanche Kimball may also have sustained injuries in the attack, leaving their blood behind on various items at the scene.
Police had an individual in mind for years. They just didn't have the evidence to bring charges against that person at any point during the first three-plus decades of the investigation. He'd been living in Blanche Kimball's house around the time of her murder. Investigators first spoke with him just days after, but according to the Kennebec Journal, he denied any involvement in the case during his two interviews with police.
But when a new charge against this possible suspect came up, one that involved a stabbing, the gaze narrowed. When a partial DNA profile from the potential killer matched blood at the scene, it was an even more convincing lead. Police would need another DNA sample from this potential suspect to develop a full profile. But first, detectives needed to find him and get creative with the collection.
The man believed to be Blanche Kimball's killer was living in Washington state and had a different name, Gary Sanford Robb, a.k.a. Gary Robert Wilson, the name he went by in 1976. According to an interview with Gary Robb's sister by Press Herald writer Betty Adams, Gary's childhood was tumultuous. He was one of eight children born on the Makah Reservation in Washington in the 40s.
They were removed from their mother's care when they were all very young. The siblings were separated into different foster homes, and they were prevented from seeing or contacting each other. Gary was eventually adopted and moved to New England, taking his adoptive parents' last name, Wilson. As an adult, Gary was no stranger to the law.
Records show he had convictions for high and aggravated assault in 1971, OUI in 1972. Throughout his history of convictions is a parallel history of alcohol and substance abuse disorder. Gary was placed in treatment more than once. There were charges for disorderly conduct and public intoxication, assault and battery in 1973, attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl in 1975,
threatening oral communication in April of 1976, two months before Blanche's murder. According to the Press-Herald, in that case, Gary waved a knife at a man, saying, quote, John, I'm going to kill you. I'll kill your wife and baby, too. End quote.
Then in December of 1976, about six months after Blanche Kimball was murdered in her State Street home in Augusta, Gary was arrested for burglarizing a home on East Crescent Street, about a mile away from Ms. Kimball's house. He'd armed himself with a knife during that burglary. Gary was sentenced to five years in mainstay prison for that conviction.
Upon Gary's release, the Portland Press-Herald reports that Gary returned to Washington State and resumed using his birth name, Gary Robb. Gary experienced homelessness in Washington and lived mostly in the University District of Seattle. His offenses continued with third-degree rape. He went to prison for that charge in 1984.
Woven into Gary's backstory are also some confusing and unconfirmed details. He was interviewed by writer Zachary Watterson for a popular blog called The Stranger in 2010. Gary shared about his time serving in Vietnam and that he was a prisoner of war at a camp in Cambodia for three years.
He told a tale of his escape from a bamboo cage, making his way back to base using the stars and constellations as a map. His fellow servicemen couldn't believe he was still alive. But a detective in Seattle would later run a background check on Gary. He was never a prisoner of war, and he never served in Vietnam.
Before Maine State Police caught up with him, Gary had two separate charges of destruction of property in 2000 and 2008. Then, in 2011, the incident that really earned the attention of Maine authorities. Gary was accused of stabbing and injuring another man in Seattle. Though the charges never saw the courtroom, the knife used in the attack was processed for DNA.
Partial profiles of the blood on that knife came back as belonging to Gary Robb. The partial profiles were compared to the blood found in Blanche Kimball's home. Those likely belonged to Gary too. But it was only a partial profile. Still not quite enough. That's where creativity and teamwork between Maine and Seattle detectives came in.
Seattle Police Detective Mike Sosinski spoke about his work on the Blanche Kimball case with reporter Casey McNerthney of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2012. Sosinski had a history of closing some of Seattle's long-standing unsolved cases, and he was the perfect guy for the tough job of collecting a DNA sample from a suspected killer.
Maybe you've seen crime dramas depicting a detective sitting in an unmarked car, staying under the radar as they trail a suspect for days on end, hoping they drop an empty soda cup into a public trash can. Well, that's rarely the reality of gaining a DNA sample, according to Detective Sosinski. It takes a more forward approach to ensure the timely collection of a sample and prevent any concerns about chain of custody and contamination.
Instead, Detective Sosinski devised a plan. It involved cigarettes, chewing gum, a phony sign-up sheet, and five bucks. According to reporting by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sosinski bought three packs of cigarettes, all different brands, Carlton, Maverick, and Viceroy. He also bought three different flavors of Wrigley's Extra Gum, Peppermint, Apple Pie, and Sweet Watermelon.
He typed the brands and the flavors onto a simple Word document and added lines for participant name and date. His plan? A phony cigarette and chewing gum survey. He'd offer people—actually, just one person in particular—$5 for his participation.
On July 18th, 2011, Detective Sosinski went looking for Gary Robb at his usual haunt on the Ave, as it was known, a section of University Way Northwest in Seattle. When he finally found Gary, the plan was in motion. Detective Sosinski asked if Gary was interested in participating in a cigarette survey. He'd earned $5 for testing the three different brands.
Gary told him, "I don't smoke." But of course, the detective had a backup plan. He instead offered Gary the chewing gum survey option. But Gary hesitated again. He didn't have teeth. Detective Sosinski assured Gary that he'd still be eligible for the $5 payout even if he just put the gum in his mouth and tasted the flavor. Gary agreed, reaching for the peppermint gum first.
Gary wasn't a fan and quickly made to spit it out. Detective Sosinski offered him a manila envelope, and Gary deposited the chewed gum inside. The second flavor, apple pie, was a hit. "Man, I like this one. You can really taste apple pie." The detective snapped a photo of Gary chewing the gum, for the survey, of course. As promised, Detective Sosinski paid Gary Robb the $5.
As soon as he was back at police headquarters, the chewed gum with Gary Robb's saliva was en route to Maine for testing. The testing produced a more complete profile of Gary Robb's DNA. It all matched up to the blood samples found in the home of Blanche Kimball. With that, police arrested 63-year-old Gary Sanford Robb for the 1976 stabbing death of Blanche Kimball in 2011.
At the time, it was the oldest cold case homicide in Maine to finally see charges. Gary Robb was extradited to Maine to face the charge against him, criminal homicide in the second degree. His older sister spoke to the Portland Press-Herald following Gary's arrest, saying that she felt her brother was innocent of the crime.
End quote.
In pretrial hearings, Rob's attorneys fought to keep certain investigative details from a potential jury, including the 2011 accusation that Gary stabbed and injured another man in Seattle.
They were also critical of the evidence that ultimately led to their client's arrest, saying, quote, based on discovery, it is evident that the state's case is based wholly on the results of DNA and blood testing of the items allegedly collected at the scene. Apart from such test results, nothing connects the defendant to the alleged crime, end quote. In 2014, as pretrial hearings continued and the state prepared to take their case against Gary Robb to a jury,
Another issue was raised by the defense, chain of custody for the items collected at the scene of Ms. Kimball's murder. They accused investigators of sloppy work and argued that they weren't convinced the DNA samples found on the items from the scene weren't contaminated in the crime lab. They also questioned the handling of a few items of evidence in particular.
a piece of paper, a shard of glass, a bucket, a slip-on shoe, and a drawer from Blanche Kimball's kitchen. Quote, I don't know that we have any admissible information for decades about how this drawer has been handled. End quote. The state claimed each of those items had evidence of Gary's DNA.
According to the Portland Press-Herald's coverage of the pretrial proceedings, the defense team also alleged that clothing and other items found in Blanche Kimball's house, quote, apparently disappeared or were intentionally destroyed, end quote. It seemed the defense was building an alternate suspect theory, one that would have been supported if other DNA profiles had been found on these items at the scene.
And in truth, the state even turned over pieces of discovery regarding a possible alternative suspect, including the name of the individual. Assistant Attorney General Lara Nomani said, quote, a probationer claimed to have overheard a conversation about a man who had a knife that might have been involved in the Blanche Kimball homicide, end quote.
Nomani also said, though, that the knife in question was believed to have a longer blade than the one used in Blanche Kimball's murder. On June 10, 2014, Gary Robb's attorneys brought the alternate suspect theory up at pretrial hearings again, presenting the story of a man I'll refer to only by his first name, Paul.
In 1982, Paul was working at the monument in Memorial Circle in Augusta, the center of one of Augusta's well-known rotaries, or roundabouts, depending on your preferred terminology. Memorial Circle was less than a mile from where Blanche Kimball's house stood at the time. As Paul dug into the soil, planting gardens at the base of the monument, he uncovered a knife.
Paul apparently kept that knife for at least 20 years, ditching it in 2012. There's little context around this mystery knife and the source material I was able to find. Is the alternate suspect Paul? Did the alternate suspect bury the knife and Paul found it? How do we know the knife had a connection, if any, to the stabbing death of Miss Kimball six years before it was found, buried underneath a monument a mile away?
There's a lot of questions, but those unanswered questions don't matter at this point, I guess, because Justice Roland Cole ruled that those issues would be taken up at trial. Cole set the jury selection for August 22, 2014, with the trial to begin the following week. But Gary Robb did not go to trial. Instead of going to trial, Gary Robb entered an Alford plea.
With an Alford plea, as defined by U.S. Legal, the criminal defendant does not admit the act, but admits that the prosecution could likely prove the charge to a jury. With this type of plea, Gary accepted all the ramifications of a guilty verdict without attesting to having committed the crime.
Gary Robb was sentenced to 20 years for the killing of Blanche Kimball. Before he was transported to Maine State Prison, he granted an interview to Betty Adams of the Portland Press-Herald. He told her, quote, I'm guilty, but it doesn't mean I admitted the crime. I pled guilty mostly out of the fact that if I go to the maker, the God in the sky, I want a clear conscience, end quote.
Gary also told Adams that he had no recollection of living in Augusta, of Blanche Kimball, or of committing the gruesome crime. "I pled guilty because it must have happened." With that, Maine State Police closed off one of the oldest unsolved homicides in the state at the time.
Gary Robb served just two years of his 20-year sentence before he passed away in 2016. Blanche M. Kimball is buried alongside her mother, Fannie Belle Eames Brooks, and brother, Merton Kimball, at Hunts Corner Cemetery in Albany, Maine. As I was looking for more information about Blanche and her life, I found the death certificate for her brother Merton, who preceded Blanche's death in 1916.
He was just 18 years old when he died. Merton's cause of death is listed as an accidental shooting. A 1916 report in the Bangor Daily News details the incident, pointing a shotgun at his cousin Merton Kimball, aged 18. Lawrence Kimball, aged 16, shot and instantly killed the youth tonight.
The two were returning from a hunting trip and the boy says he pointed the gun in a spirit of fun, not realizing that it was loaded. But in a subsequent report about the shooting, the younger boy's story changed. Upon interrogation by the sheriff, the Lewiston Daily Sun reported, Lawrence Kimball admitted he took aim and deliberately fired at his cousin.
The sheriff remarked that the boy did not show outward signs of remorse. Even still, Lawrence was not arrested for the killing of his cousin Merton. Two deaths at the hands of other people in the Kimball family. But perhaps Merton Kimball's story is one for another time.
Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources cited in this episode, along with additional materials referenced, are linked at darkdowneast.com so you can do some digging of your own. If you know of an active missing persons case in Maine or Greater New England, please send me an email with the subject line missing to hello at darkdowneast.com. I will share the information on an upcoming episode of Dark Down East and at darkdowneast.com slash missing.
Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. 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.
