One Unsolved episode dealt with the murder of a young woman in East Millinocket, Maine. It is an area I am familiar with, but I do not remember the young woman's name. I beleive her first name was Joyce. She had been out jogging and was found several days later in the woods behind her high school. I am searching for any updated case information, but I am not having much luck.

Any help? Thanks in advance.

Regrettably, it might not be of much help, but the Joyce McLain murder was briefly mentioned in a September 2003 article. The article has little to do with the case, but so far, it's the only thing I could find on the internet that is even remotely related to the case. It says that her killer was never found.

http://www.centralmaine.com/news/stories/030921rossigno.shtml

i think i remember this case, but not any details

i just remember it since its kinda close to when i live

hi i grew up in east millinocket. it is such a shame there has never been an arrest in this case as i feel the police know who the muderers are but have never followed up on this case. the murder changed forever the serenity of my hometown. if you would like to hear further i can be reached at cochinos10@hotmail.com

louis

hi i grew up in east millinocket. it is such a shame there has never been an arrest in this case as i feel the police know who the muderers are but have never followed up on this case. the murder changed forever the serenity of my hometown. if you would like to hear further i can be reached at cochinos10@hotmail.com

louis

Hey NakedSoul. I have had a camp near Mill and East Mill for about twenty years, and I have heard a lot about this case. I am sure however, that you have heard far more. I may contact you to swap a few things I heard, if that is okay.

what lake you have camp on.........i spent lots of time on ambajesus

the joyce mcclain case is very sad but it probably wont be solved. Its possible the killer has died or moved out of the area. its been 25 years, but we could always hope...

a very good possibility that the killer was never from the area to begin with -remember there was a softball tournament in the area around the time Joyce was murdered - In my opinion it was a drifter involved in this tournament (likely after having one too many beers) that did Joyce in which is why the killer has never been identified.

Later.

Point well taken dark. I never thought of that, hmmm makes you think now. I wonder if the police ever thought of that.. They should have tried to locate the other team and where they were from..

what lake you have camp on.........i spent lots of time on ambajesus

Small world, thats where my camp is. Fire road 17, the old east mill road, if I remember correctly.

How about yourself?

this is not a case of outsider/s killing joyce rather is a case of persons from east millinocket being the killers. the major suspects indeed have moved out of town but are very much alive and living out of state, sadly enough.

I noticed her case was on today. 26 years now since she was killed. Not sure if this has ever been posted but here's an article from last year that talks about her case:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:kpC337UX1sIJ:pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050809unsolved.shtml+joyce+mclain&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

I caught this segment today too. Eerie feeling knowing it was almost 26 years to the day she was murdered. If more than one person was involved it is surprising to me that someone hasn't talked...hasn't told somebody about what happened.

Well after reading this article it is sad that it hasnt been solved officially after 26 years. I say solved officially because I think the state police in Maine were either unable or unwilling to bust the guy that did this. I think they know who did it and wont do anything about it. According to an article I read, I believe it was posted earlier, there apperantly was both a softball tournament in town at that time and about 300 people were in town for it, both people that were playing in it and friends and relatives of people that were playing in it. There was also a bunch of construction workers in town that were working on a project and were staying in town temporarily. According to Joe Zamboni who was a member of the Maine State Police from 1982 to his retirement in 2004 and who was the detective in charge of the Joyce McClain case from 1986 until 2004 has said that his investigation took him outside of the town. He said the mistake the earlier detectives assigned to the case made was that they were focusing only on residents of the town as suspects and were not focusing on the numerous out of towners that were in town for the softball tournament and the construction workers working on the construction project. Zamboni has a suspect in mind but refused to identify him. Zamboni said "The person I believe is responsible for this is in a position that he's not going to be able to do it again. I'm going to leave it at that... He's no longer a threat to society." This tells me that the suspect Zamboni has in mind is either dead or in prison for another violent crime and serving a life sentence. Joyce McClain's mother has expressed lots of frustration with the Maine State police because she thinks they botched the investigation and in the mid 1980's she grew so angry she actually tried to have the Maine State Attorney General's office take over the investigation from the state police but the Attorney General refused. Here is the link to the article:

http://www.crimeandjustice.us/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t606.html

This is another very sad case in my opinion.........the fact that the police may have bungled the investigation early on makes me angry.......but hopefully Det. Zamboni is right and the suspect he was looking at is either dead or rotting away in prison.......

I assume the case remains unsolved to this day?

I believe that it had something to do with those softballers that were in the town that night. The 300 new recruits at the mill were also mentioned, but I think that they would have been found by now if one of them had anything to do with it. Were any of the softballers who were in town that night questioned. If the confrontation between Joyce and the softballers took place as UM depicted it, surely somebody would have seen something or someone.

the softball tourney in question was a state championship playoff ofr women and most of the 300 or so people who were involved in that tournament included a majority who came to east millinocket in whole family units. im not quite ready to accept they were the culprits. i still believe in my heart it was locals who did this.

Women can be psychos too, i.e. Marie Hilley.

doing a little bit of research on some cases

I found an article that Joyce's grandmother had written, and she stated that Joyce usually jogged with a partner, but that day her parner wasn't able to attend. I don't recall the segment mentioning this, it may have

Thats kinda weird, that her partner couldnt make it that day. Think she had anything to do with it? Just wondering.

Naw, I doubt it, coincidences happen all the time. It was probably, (again my opinion) a case where Joyce was jogging alone and whoever murdered her saw her jogging alone and decided to take advantage of a young woman jogging alone. Now whether this person knew Joyce or not is a different matter entirely. I do believe it is possible the person that murdered Joyce knew her. Of course it is also very possible, even likely that a person at either the construction site in town where a major construction project was going on at that time or a person from a softball tournament going on at the same time did it, from what I was reading, based on my memory about 3 thousand people that would normally not be there were in town at that time.

thought you would like to know that some things have been happening lately regarding this case. the evidence in this case was shared with the Vidocq Society(http://www.vidocq.org/vidocq.html) and suggestions were made by them to the Maine State Police.

After several attempts by Joyce's mother, Pam Mclain of East millinocket, Maine, to have the body disinterred for dna and forensic testing, the state of Maine would entertain no such idea. Money now has been raised to do just that and to retain Dr. Michael Baden to do the testing. Personally, I am glad that the benevolent people of the area have found it in their hearts to donate in wxcess of $16,000 for this task.

Hopefully there is one shred of evidence which might bring this case to a conclusion, no thanks to the State of Maine and the supposed powers that be

NakedSoul aka Louis

never been solved

Apparently "America's Most Wanted" is considering profiling Joyce's case:

http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=167769&zoneid=164

I'm surprised they've never profiled this case.

Oh I hope they do. Maybe this new exposure could be the key to solving this case. Her family deserves some peace. It's been almost 30 years.

dr michael baden and dr henry lee have been retained to do a new autopsy and investigation into Joyce's murder. disenterment and autopsy is supposed to happen during august.

louis
east millinocket native

dr michael baden and dr henry lee have been retained to do a new autopsy and investigation into Joyce's murder. disenterment and autopsy is supposed to happen during august.

louis
east millinocket native

Thanks...got it the first 2 times you told us.

dr michael baden and dr henry lee have been retained to do a new autopsy and investigation into Joyce's murder. disenterment and autopsy is supposed to happen during august.

louis
east millinocket native

Man you guys are being pretty rough. Thanks for the info Naked Soul. :)

I read on a site that her grave was vandalized the year after the second autopsy. Feces were smeared on the headstone and an angel figurine was shattered. Could have been teenage delinquents, however. I knew people in highschool capable of such things.

Wow... that's beyond pathetic for someone to vandalize a grave. I feel bad for her family. boggles my mind it's been 30 years and no new clues.

Yeah, who are these lowlifes that keep vandalizing her grave?

Are they tied to the murderers (or the murderers themselves)?

I noticed her case was on today. 26 years now since she was killed. Not sure if this has ever been posted but here's an article from last year that talks about her case:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:kpC337UX1sIJ:pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050809unsolved.shtml+joyce+mclain&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Hey Crystal, Who's the guy in your Avatar? I remember that case. He was wanted for fraud or something? I think his catchphrase at the end of his cheaply produced TV Ads was "Bye Bye Kids" or something. If I remember correctly he passed away before the authorities caught up with him and his Wife took all the rap alone? :confused:

Yeah, who are these lowlifes that keep vandalizing her grave?

Are they tied to the murderers (or the murderers themselves)?

I hope they find dna so we know who killed her :(

Just saw the Farina version of this today (I think it aired a couple days ago, but I recorded it on the DVR and just watched it today). He said at the end that the family was trying to have the body exhumed for DNA testing. I saw earlier in this thread that someone had mentioned they were doing some testing a couple years ago. Any updates with that? Seems like there might be DNA on the body since when the murder happened people didn't think about not leaving DNA.

Sad case. Hopefully Joyce's case can be solved so her family can have some form of peace. Two things I'd like to bring up.

1-UM brought up the fact that a local paper mill hired 300 new workers in Millinocket. They implied that one of the new workers killed Joyce. IMO, I think that's just pointing the finger at outsiders. In many small towns, local residents are more likely to blame an outsider for any sort of crime. However, this isn't a good way to approach the case. Joyce could have easily have been killed by someone who was familiar with her. The killer could be an ex-boyfriend, jealous girl, and so on. That's not to say that an outsider did not kill Joyce, but many small town murders are committed by local residents.

2-Around the same time Joyce was murdered, the NH killer (or killers) was active in the New England region (late 70's to late 80's). It's been said that the killer struck in New Hampshire (obviously), and Vermont. I think Joyce's killer is likely to be someone who knew her. However, it's interesting that the NH killer was in the same region,

I think her killer was someone that knew about her daily jogging routine.

I tend to think it was a group of outsiders who rushed her,covered her mouth and took her forcibly into the woods,as from what I have read no screams were heard. There's a little more about how she was killed here:http://bangordailynews.com/2012/06/01/news/penobscot/olympia-snowe-asks-fbi-to-review-32-year-old-joyce-mclain-murder-case/

I tend to think it was a group of outsiders who rushed her,covered her mouth and took her forcibly into the woods,as from what I have read no screams were heard. There's a little more about how she was killed here:http://bangordailynews.com/2012/06/01/news/penobscot/olympia-snowe-asks-fbi-to-review-32-year-old-joyce-mclain-murder-case/

Thanks for that article. For those wondering about the exhumation and DNA testing, the article that Steve_uk linked to liked to *another* article stating that in 2008, they were able to find physical evidence: http://bangordailynews.com/2008/08/29/news/state/mclain-autopsy-reveals-new-evidence/

I hope this means that with the FBI examining the case (and hopefully able to such DNA/physical evidence through their extensive database), the family can have some resolution to this tragedy...no matter how many years it has been.

I have so much admiration for Pam McLain and the Justice for Joyce committee. Year after year, decade after decade, they are endlessly fighting, campaigning and raising money to get this case pointed in the right direction. If this case is ever solved, it will be because of these people and their hard work and determination. It's just such a shame that everything is such a battle. It took 25 years for them just to get an autopsy approved.

Did anyone ever learn/discover what the physical evidence was that was found in the autopsy?

Did anyone ever learn/discover what the physical evidence was that was found in the autopsy?

In the articles that were linked (which, you really should. I totally forgot to mention that the one that Steve_uk linked to, actually discusses a possible suspect - someone named Fournier), it says that they cannot go into detail because they have to keep details confidential. I imagine they are seeking the FBI's help to reach a larger DNA database

I have so much admiration for Pam McLain and the Justice for Joyce committee. Year after year, decade after decade, they are endlessly fighting, campaigning and raising money to get this case pointed in the right direction. If this case is ever solved, it will be because of these people and their hard work and determination. It's just such a shame that everything is such a battle. It took 25 years for them just to get an autopsy approved.

Agreed! And they are right to persist. I never thought that in a million years we would find ANYTHING about Mike Riemer, and I was proven very wrong last year (thankfully. That case saddened me and intrigued me). Persistence pays off.

the cops pretty much just stopped caring about this case