Amy St. Laurent's Body Found
Maggie
bar to go to a party with some other men. Apparently the police are looking
hard at the man who said he dropped her off in downtown Portland at 2:00 a.m.
From the Portland Press Herald:
Police: Body is missing woman
By RAY ROUTHIER
Police said Sunday that the young woman found buried in Scarborough on Saturday
is Amy St. Laurent, the 25-year-old South Berwick woman missing since Oct. 21,
and that she was not killed at the site where the body was found.
Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood said the state Medical Examiner's Office
in Augusta is waiting for dental records or DNA tests to make a positive
identification, possibly today. But Chitwood said he is certain the woman is
St. Laurent, based on her physical description and the clothing she was wearing
when last seen.
He said Portland police and Maine State Police have determined that St. Laurent
was killed elsewhere and then buried in a wooded area off Route 22 in
Scarborough, about 150 yards from the road and half a mile from Smiling Hill
Farm.
Police now know the cause of death, but Chitwood would not reveal it because of
its importance to the investigation. He said finding the body has helped police
move the investigation forward in several ways, but wouldn't say whether an
arrest might be made soon.
"We have good, strong investigative leads, and those have only been enhanced by
her discovery," Chitwood said. "We've been focusing on individuals, we've given
individuals polygraphs, and we're going forward."
Chitwood said the discovery of the body helped confirm investigators' belief
that they were given inaccurate information by the last person known to be with
St. Laurent. He said police believe that man did not drop St. Laurent off in
the Old Port around 2 a.m. on Oct. 21, as he originally told them.
The man told police he left a Brighton Avenue residence with St. Laurent and
dropped her off near the Pavilion night club in the Old Port. Police say they
have substantiated that St. Laurent was at the Brighton Avenue address, but not
that she was dropped off in the Old Port.
"We have found that not to be true," said Chitwood, who would not identify the
man or say where he lived.
St. Laurent had been out in the Old Port on the night of Oct. 20, showing the
entertainment district to a male friend from Florida. Police said she later met
some other men she appeared to know while shooting pool at the Fore Play Sports
Pub.
Later that night, she saw those men again at the Pavilion. Authorities said she
left at closing time with some people to attend a party on Brighton Avenue, but
there was no party and she left there with one of the men she was with.
St. Laurent didn't show up for work the following week and didn't return home
to feed her cat. Friends and family taped posters with her photograph all
around the Old Port and in other communities in the area.
Chitwood said police "from day one" began investigating the disappearance as a
crime, but that there was no one clue that led searchers to Scarborough. "We
didn't have any one specific thing, but we had generalizations which pointed us
in that direction," he said.
The searchers who found the body were among 17 groups, with a total of 85
police officers and volunteers, who searched several sites in the Portland area
Saturday. Searchers used helicopters and planes as well as cadaver-sniffing
dogs.
St. Laurent's mother, Diane Jenkins of South Portland, was notified of the
discovery Saturday. Family members said Sunday that she will wait for a final
identification from medical examiners and for more information from police
before making any funeral arrangements or talking more about the ordeal.
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
Maggie
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