Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Dark Down East is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. The unexpected can happen at any moment, and Amica knows how important it is to be prepared. Whether it's auto, home, or life insurance, Amica has you covered. Their dedicated and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to make sure you have the right coverage in place to protect what matters most. You can feel confident that Amica is there for you. Visit amica.com to get started.
The impact that murder has on a family, and even the larger community, is profound and far-reaching. When a murder goes unsolved, the grief is partnered with lasting fear. In a small town like Masardis, Maine, the shock and disbelief that came after the killing of Leela Drew still reverberates these 45 years later.
Who chose to end the life of a 78-year-old woman for seemingly no reason? How could this person pass through a town as small as Misardis unnoticed and carry out a brutal attack without detection? Or maybe they weren't passing through. Maybe Leela Drew's killer was one of their own. Leela Drew's unsolved homicide will reach a somber 45-year anniversary this March of 2022.
The details are limited, but it's all the more reason to say her name and share her story right now. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Leila Drew on Dark Down East. We're on our way back to Arista County, the very first region of Maine we visited together on Dark Down East. You know, I wish everyone could see and experience this unique place in my home state at least once in their lives.
In the winter, it can be a vast expanse of white crusty snow and banks piled high on the sides of roads leading into cozy little villages where everyone knows their neighbors.
In the warmer months, that same vast expanse emerges from the white snow to rich green fields and rolling hills, long swaths of potato farmland and deep blue lakes and ponds flanked by pine trees dotting the acreage like a paint splatter.
I can't cross county lines into "the county" as it's more often called without a big, deep sigh of relief that comes on almost involuntarily. I certainly can't claim the pride of being an aoristic local. I'm from about four hours south of there. But I feel lucky to know that it's part of the fabric of my home state. It's like being in on a big secret.
Those from away who think of Maine might first picture our rocky coastline and crashing waves and lighthouses and lobsters. But if that's all you know of Maine, you've missed out on the beauty of the flip side of our shiny coin. The Misardis town name comes from the Wabanaki language, meaning where two rivers meet. Misardis, in fact, is at the junction of the St. Croix and the Aroostook River, wedged in a valley between two hilltops.
The land that was eventually settled as Masardis is on the traditional territory of the Wabanaki Nation. Prior to settlement, the same land was an active site in the so-called Aroostook War. This bloodless conflict between the United States and the United Kingdom intended to settle a disputed border between northern Maine and New Brunswick, Canada.
According to the Aroostook County Chamber of Commerce, a team of University of Maine students, led by their professor Dave Putnam, discovered incredible artifacts from that conflict along the banks of the Aroostook River in Misardis. Pieces of an Aroostook war soldier's uniform, fire pits, and other items were recovered from the site. One of the best discovered in northern Maine. After the conflict, soldiers stayed in Misardis and sent for their families in other parts of the state.
Thomas Gosse and his family settled there in 1833, and then the family of John Nolan in 1835. They farmed for provisions during the warmer months, but the harsh northern Maine winters destroyed most of their crops within the first two years. Life in those early years of Misardis was anything but easy. Learning to live in the region and support a family was about surviving, not thriving.
Masardis was formally incorporated as a town in March of 1839, and more families came to make their home in the tiny village. The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad in 1895 made the region more accessible from southern parts of the state, as did automobiles. Joseph Pollard built a mill on the St. Croix stream, and a breastwork fort was built to house the artillery of Sheriff Strickland and Land Agent McIntyre.
For a time, troops camping in the area believed British troops might come up the river to capture soldiers. But the only thing that ever did make its way up through Masardis were loads of hay. There's limited information about the early days of Masardis now. A fire in 1919 destroyed nearly all of the town's records. But the anecdotes passed down through families keep pieces of the town's history alive.
In the late 1970s, Dean Rhodes for the Bangor Daily News described Masardis as a town untouched by the 20th century. Its small wooden houses were well kept, but clearly from another time, and its roads were narrow and some unpaved.
They had no schoolhouse of their own, no doctor's office. There was a church, though, and two stores along Main Street. Misardis residents of that time worked in the woods or the Lavec lumber mill or the potato processing plants in nearby Presque Isle and Washburn or for the railroad system. And before she retired, 78-year-old Leila Drew worked as a schoolteacher.
Born on the 4th of July in 1898, Leela Drew was a standout resident of the town of Massardis, Maine. Leela was a member of the Massardis Congregational Church, the Retired Teachers Association, and the American Legion Auxiliary, volunteering to host meetings and gatherings at her home whenever needed. You'd never guess her age, and Leela wouldn't want you to either.
Her fellow Misardis residents said she didn't want to be called a senior citizen, and she was fiercely independent. She had her own home, her own income, and her own car. One local described Leela as a vital woman, very energetic. She did everything for herself. Leela had raised two children with her late husband, a daughter named Marjorie and a son named Maxwell.
She was also a grandmother to seven and a great-grandmother to seven more. Though she was active in town, people said that Leila Drew minded her business and didn't care for town gossip. She was a nice woman, a lady, and quote, never did anything to anybody. That's why the events leading up to the discovery on March 18th, 1977,
were even more shocking for the town of Masardis and all who knew the quiet, nice lady named Leela Drew. It was March 18th, 1977, and the town was preparing for the annual Fireman's Ball. It was a big social event, one that brought many of Masardis' 300-something residents together, and Leela Drew was certainly planning to attend. Just a few hours before the ball was set to begin,
Leela's son Maxwell walked next door to his mother's home, a one and a half story stick-built house just over the bridge on Main Street. It was 4:45 p.m. when he stepped inside, expecting to find his mother preparing for the evening's festivities. Instead, he was met with a scene no son should ever have to witness. 78-year-old Leela Drew was dead.
As news of the death of Leela Drew made its way down Main Street, her neighbors and friends navigated feelings of sadness, confusion, and pure shock. The Fireman's Ball was a favorite annual event, but in the wake of Leela's unexpected death that night, the dance was called off, and the tiny town of Misardis mourned for days.
An entire week stretched on with social events postponed and community suppers cancelled as the investigation into her death began.
State police investigators sealed off Leela's home to collect evidence. At first, all investigators would say is that Leela suffered a head injury and that her death was unexplained. However, the Bangor Daily News reported that the Maine State Police Homicide Investigation Team would also respond to the scene. Homicide. Leela Drew was murdered. But who would do such a thing? And why?
Bangor Daily News journalist Dean Rhodes traveled to Misardis to spend some time with its residents, hoping to get a quote or two for his ongoing reporting on the case. What he encountered was a community wanting to talk, but reluctant to have their names printed alongside their comments. There was a clear fear of retribution, should they say too much, or cast suspicion on anyone in town for carrying out this unexplained homicide.
Rhodes asked two women sitting outside a local store if they believed the killer was one of them, a Masardis resident. No comment on that for me, one said. The other simply didn't reply. A man conducting his morning chores spoke to the doubt and also the fear around town that one of their own might be responsible for Leela's death. Quote, I'd be relieved to find it wasn't someone from town. That's about all you can hope for now.
Some people here would never get over such a thing if someone in town did it." As the town questioned their own sense of safety and wondered who might have the motivation to kill a woman like Leela, Maine State Police continued their investigation.
They believed Leela may have been deceased at least 24 hours before anyone found her body. In subsequent news reports by Dean Rhodes for the Bangor Daily News, new information was revealed about the scene and Leela's cause of death. Investigators found two cups of coffee sitting on her dining table. It's anyone's first assumption that it meant Leela, who lived alone, had a visitor who she gladly welcomed into her home.
and based on her habits, that cup of coffee was likely shared the same day her life ended. People who knew Leela said she wasn't one to let dishes or mugs linger on the table once a beverage or meal was complete. She would have promptly cleared them away and tidied up. Though the clue was minor, it led detectives to consider the theory that perhaps the person who sat sipping coffee with the woman was also the killer who brutally took her life.
Those same individuals who knew Lila to clean up swiftly after a meal also said that Lila was not one to welcome strangers into her home. But what was the word stranger in a town like Masardis? With just over 300 residents in the 1970s, everyone truly knew everyone. And it wasn't really a town an unknown traveler might pass through.
If you're headed further north from Holton, Maine, and deeper into the county, you're probably staying on Route 1 to Presque Isle and beyond. Masardis is a detour, unless you lived there, had family there, or had business in its neighboring towns. Crime lab experts from the Maine State Police spent hours at Leela's one-and-a-half-story home in the days after her death, processing the scene for evidence.
There was no sign of a break-in, furthering the theory that Leela knew her killer, but the kitchen did show signs of a struggle. The murder weapon was revealed a few days later. Whoever killed Leela beat her with a heavy, old-fashioned wooden kitchen chair, striking her five to ten times, with most of the blows landing on her head.
Three days into the investigation, state police said they were still processing the scene and had no suspects. Without signs of a break-in and nothing missing from the house, police were short of a motive, too. It seemed as quickly as the investigation began, the trail froze over.
In May of 1977, a few months later, Dean Rhodes followed up on the murder of Leela Drew for his ongoing reporting in the Bangor Daily News. State Police Detective Ed Mandel told him, quote, There's nothing solid. Progress has been very slow. It's not developing as fast as other cases. Mandel continued, We haven't got anyone we could present evidence and try and indict. I wish we did. End quote.
But talk continued in town. The town manager, Benton Craig, said that questions and rumors were plentiful in the community, but no one had anything real to go on. At that time, Leela Drew's murder was the only documented murder in the town's history, though it seemed the case was no closer to closure with each week, month, and year that passed.
However, the memory was a constant undercurrent in the small community. Six years after Leela's son discovered his mother's body on that March afternoon, the case was still unsolved. Yet one theory emerged among residents who were still reluctant to identify themselves. They believed the killer was a local, one of them.
Dean Rhodes wrote in his 1983 piece, quote, Today one finds the town filled with caution, distrust, and suspicion still, end quote. Around the sixth anniversary of Leela Drew's death in 1983, the Bangor Daily News received an anonymous letter in the mail, quote,
The unknown author identified themselves as a relative of Leela Drew, and they'd composed the letter from the point of view of the victim. It begins, I am hoping that it will remind the public that her murder is still unsolved. The Bangor Daily News published the text of the letter on March 18th, 1983, the six-year anniversary of Leela Drew's death. The letter reads,
My name is Leila Drew. I was murdered about six years ago on March 18th. I can't tell you what it is like to be murdered, other than the fact that the panic one experiences is beyond our wildest imagination. You will never know until you experience it. The horror and fear that encompasses you. You want to believe that this really isn't happening to you, but you know it's real.
Your life flashes before your eyes. Everything is happening so fast and then it's over. You are lying on the kitchen floor waiting for the pain to go away, waiting for the beatings to stop, waiting for the last blow to come so that it will no longer hurt. I thought I would write and ask you to publish this letter so that people out there would remember me.
It's odd, so I thought I would mention it to you, that I was killed on my husband's birthday. And even odder is the fact that I was murdered on the same day that he died by natural causes 15 years before. Coincidences are strange, aren't they? I won't bother you with any further grisly details. The aftermath was really something too. Before I knew it, detectives were swarming my house, fingerprinting everything inside and doing a lot of questioning.
Their work was very thorough, but they could only do so much. Everything was so frantic. Suddenly there was a paranoia in the community and everyone was locking their doors, acting confused and frightened. Everyone was convinced that it would be solved quickly. It had to be. There were only about 300 people in the community and somebody out there had to have seen or heard something. Well, to sum it all up,
My funeral is over. My life is over. I sometimes feel I have been forgotten. Please don't forget that I was a very happy lady before somebody ended my life so abruptly for me. I had a lot more life to live out. I wasn't senile. I didn't sit in my house and just exist. I lived. I don't feel it's just for another person to decide that I had lived long enough. Almost six years have passed since this happened in Masardis, Maine.
People have pretty much gotten over their fears, unlocked their doors, and in general, life in Masardis has gotten back to normal. In closing, let me leave you with this thought. The person that beat me to death is still out there. You may want to reconsider locking your doors at night. The coincidences raised by the anonymous letter certainly make me wonder if there's any significance to the date of Leela's murder.
being the same as her husband's birth and death. And I can't shake the thought of those coffee mugs sitting on Leela's table, and I wonder if they have been or could ever be processed for saliva and DNA evidence. Leela wasn't wealthy by any definition, but she'd been left her husband's property and money after he died.
The Bangor Daily News reported that Leela's late husband had made some shrewd investments, and so she likely lived comfortably. Still, nothing was missing from the house, so it's hard to argue that those shrewd investments or any financial benefit was the motive for ending the life of the widow so brutally. Leela's son Maxwell, who had discovered his mother's body, is now deceased. He was her next-door neighbor in Masardis.
so I have to wonder if he heard or saw anything of note that night. Whatever statements he may have given to police are considered confidential to protect the integrity of the investigation. When approached by the press, Maxwell said, quote, I'd rather not discuss it, end quote.
With the community wrapped up in their fears of speaking out of turn, as they called it, I wonder if their reluctance to talk extended beyond newspaper reporters looking for quotes. Perhaps a small town, as close as they were, withheld details and information from investigators, fearing for their own safety in the town they had no plans of leaving. You'd think in a town of barely 300 residents would make for a more narrow investigation.
Some cases involve interviews with at least that many individuals or more. Police could have spoken to the entire town. But if the town won't speak, where is the investigation to go? Perhaps a small town is just better at keeping its secrets. Townspeople remember state police arriving in Misardis each March in the years following Leela Drew's murder.
and the reassurance from authorities that they'd find out who was responsible. A local businessman, who again asked not to be identified, said, quote, I think the police have more to go on here than they're saying. They intimate that. I don't know if they're whistling in the dark. They say they're going to get it sometime, if it takes eight or nine years, end quote. But those eight or nine years passed, turning into decades later.
Now, 45 years later, it seems Leela Drew's case is no closer to answers than it was on that very first day in March of 1977. On March 17th, 1986, the family of Leela Drew sent her photo, along with a short poem to the Bangor Daily News, to publish an in-memoriam of the woman they lost. It reads...
Lila is survived today by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her case remains unsolved. If you are holding onto any piece of information that could bring closure to this long-standing cold case,
please contact Main State Police Major Crimes Unit North at 207-973-3750. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources for this case include extensive reporting by the late Dean Rhodes for Bangor Daily News, among other publications. All links are posted in the show notes at darkdowneast.com. This week for Missing New England, I want to bring your attention to the case of Emily Gallant.
30-year-old Emily Gallant was last seen in August of 2021. She was last known to be in New York State and was seen at a police precinct in Ridgewood, Queens, in New York. She is from Bangor, Maine, and was working in Holden, Maine before she left for New York and cut off contact with her family.
If you have seen her or have any information on her whereabouts, please contact Holden Police at 207-843-5442. All Missing New England featured cases are listed 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.
