April 29, 2025 • 19 mins
Is 50 years too long for justice? Not when you're a family waiting for answers. Today we look into a cold case of a teenager who went missing, and why locals still wonder if her disappearance is connected to an unsolved murder in the same area.
Do you have any comments, or a case you’d like to suggest? You’ll find a comment form and case submission link at LordanArts.com.
Thank you CBS News, ABC News, The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, Willimington Star News, The Lowell Sun, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, The Doe Network, The Charley Project, Medium.com, Websleuths, Reddit, Joeturnerbooks.com, Seacoastonline.com, The Townsend Police Department and Wikipedia for information contributing to today’s story.
This episode written by The Certified Roarikle and John Lordan, produced by LordanArts.
This is not intended to act as a means of proving or disproving anything related to the investigation. It is a conversation about the current known facts and theories being discussed. Everyone directly or indirectly referred to is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
LordanArts 2025
Do you have any comments, or a case you’d like to suggest? You’ll find a comment form and case submission link at LordanArts.com.
Thank you CBS News, ABC News, The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, Willimington Star News, The Lowell Sun, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, The Doe Network, The Charley Project, Medium.com, Websleuths, Reddit, Joeturnerbooks.com, Seacoastonline.com, The Townsend Police Department and Wikipedia for information contributing to today’s story.
This episode written by The Certified Roarikle and John Lordan, produced by LordanArts.
This is not intended to act as a means of proving or disproving anything related to the investigation. It is a conversation about the current known facts and theories being discussed. Everyone directly or indirectly referred to is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
LordanArts 2025
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It was nineteen seventy seven. Jimmy Carter had just stepped
into the White House, promising a new era of honesty
after the scars of Watergate. The film Saturday Night Fever
would start a cultural shockwave with disco as punk rock
firmly placed its roots both in the UK and the
United States. Star Wars blasted onto theater screens, reshaping pop
(00:42):
culture forever. But beyond the headlines and the Hollywood blockbusters,
America was also wrestling with rising crime, and many families
were tragically learning the lesson that the safe haven our
neighborhoods once represented in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties
was no more. I'm John Lordon, and today we're looking
(01:03):
into the seriously mysterious disappearance of Deborah Quimby. Deborah Ann
Quimby was born on October ninth, nineteen sixty three, to parents,
Richard and Anne. They lived together in towns And, Massachusetts,
a small town with around nine thousand people at the time. Debbie,
as she was called by her family, was thirteen years
old in nineteen seventy seven, and she had attended Spaulding
(01:25):
Memorial School, just a short distance away from her home.
Her mother also worked as a second grade teacher there,
and her grandfather, John Verne Quimby, was the former principal.
He had served the school for over twenty years. It
was Tuesday, May third when Debbie arrived home from school.
She wrote a note for her mom, letting her know
that she was going to her grandparents campsite, which was
(01:47):
located near Vinton Pond. This was a recreational property. Her
grandparents lived somewhere else, but it seemed like Debbie was
trying to get away from things. In this note, she
also said that she was having some issues and she
was going there to think things through. She ended by
saying that she would call home later. Debbie headed out
(02:08):
on her Brown Tokar, a ten speed the boy's version
of that bike, headed for her grandparents' campsite, located almost
five miles away. Vinton Pond is near Pearl Hill State Park,
and the route that Debbie would take on that day
was Turnpike Road, just off of Route one nineteen. At
a moderate pace on a bicycle, the ride should have
taken her about thirty minutes. The route was very rural
(02:31):
and described by many as being in the sticks. Several
people said that it was a road only traveled by locals,
but Debbie wasn't alone. Most accounts of this story state
that Debbie was accompanied by a friend, well at least
for part of the ride. They continued together until a
fork in the road, and as Debbie continued down Turnpike Road,
(02:52):
her friend turned around and went home. Little information about
this friend has been released. However, some sources claim that
it was actually two boys who were brothers, that accompanied
her that day. It was even claimed that at one
point Debbie was upset and crying, telling the brothers that
she was going to run away, though those statements were
(03:12):
reportedly discounted by law enforcement. Anne came home to find
the letter and expected her daughter to call soon, as
it stated. However, time passed and with each minute her
concern raised. She soon decided to call police, and she
reported her thirteen year old daughter missing. Obviously, a teen
runaway is a fairly common situation and one that frequently
(03:34):
sees them found or coming home a short time later,
but this just wasn't one of those cases. Thankfully, the
police response was quick, with searches being conducted almost immediately.
Officers and her parents would search at the campsite Debbie
said she was going to, but no sign of Debbie
was found there. One source claimed that the family searched
(03:56):
a cabin nearby and they didn't find anything, but they
did see that there was cigarette butts in an ash
tray found there, and not a brand that anyone in
the family had smoked. Police have never confirmed this, but
I do hope that if this was the case, that
they collected those as evidence. With modern DNA advancements, you
(04:17):
never know what that clue could yield. However, there's another
very big question on my mind. Did Debbie even make
it to the cabin that day? The police would search
Debbie's locker at school and found another compelling clue. They
located a note that Debbie had written to another student,
but obviously she hadn't delivered it. In this note was
(04:37):
a map drawn by Debbie, letting the friend know how
to get to her grandparents' campsite. The note also said
that Debbie was upset and she needed to talk. It's
unclear if she was upset with the person that she
had written the note to, or if she was upset
with someone else and she wanted to talk about it
with the person that she had written the note to,
but since she didn't deliver the note, the question of
(05:00):
was she going to meet up with anyone that day
is up in the air. Debbie Quimby stood at five
foot one and weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. Most
articles you can find on this case state that she
appeared to be older, possibly even passing off as a
seventeen year old. She reportedly had many older boys paying
attention to her, and it was rumored that she may
(05:22):
have been pregnant, but I could find no solid sources
to confirm this speculation. The question about Debbie meeting up
with someone also kicked around with her parents. Articles claim
that her parents believe it is possible she was going
to meet with a specific person that day, though who
that could have been is the big question. Did she
keep the letter asking her friend to come to the
(05:44):
cabin because she had invited someone else. Irving Marshall Senior
was the police chief at the time, and he did
everything he could to find Debbie. Years later, his son,
(06:05):
Irving Marshall Junior, who was just a rookie patrolman at
the time that Debbie went missing, would also become chief
of police and continue his father's work. He was on
the force for only two weeks when Debbie went missing,
but this case would turn into a career long effort.
Chief Marshall has never let Debbie's case be forgotten and
(06:25):
is said that he thinks about this case every single day.
That being said, the case had certainly gone cold. There
was no trace of Debbie and also important to note,
no trace of her ten speed bike. Debbie had literally
vanished and investigators needed to take a different approach to
try to get this case moving again. In nineteen eighty seven,
(06:46):
the police headed to Virginia to question a Townshend native,
Jeffrey Allen Ward. He had admitted to sexually assaulting and
murdering a thirty eight year old woman and a fourteen
year old girl. However, he would deny any involvement in
Debbie's case, and no evidence was found to link him
to her disappearance. Debbie's parents would remind the press of
what they were going through. Quote, Debbie is thought of
(07:09):
by both of us every single day of our life,
every single day, her mother, Anne Quimby, would tell them.
In two thousand and two, an anonymous letter was sent
to Chief Marshall. The letter which filled about three quarters
of the page, said to search Walker Pond. Walker Pond
is located on Turnpike Road, not far from where Debbie
(07:30):
was last seen. The chief of police took this tip
seriously and they conducted a sonar side search of Walker
Pond in May of two thousand and three, but they
found no signs of Debbie. Then in November of two
thousand and three, another letter came in again. The anonymous tipster,
which is suspected to be the same person as the first,
(07:51):
since the envelope had similar handwriting, said to take a
closer look at a specific area of that pond. The
police did just that. Dogs were brought in and the
pond was nearly completely drained. Reports state that a piece
of a shirt, two buttons, a piece of denim, and
parts of a bicycle, including a frame from the same
(08:12):
era as when Debbie vanished, were found. Investigators were hopeful
that this was some indication that they were on the
right track. The items were sent to the state crime
Lab for forensic testing, but came back with no connection
to Debbie. This is the challenge with anonymous information. It
seemed clear that someone was trying to be helpful, but
(08:32):
the question of where were they getting the information from
leaves a gap that investigators just can't close. The anonymous
letters had come from New Hampshire, one from Bedford, and
one from Manchester. The police have never located the letter writer.
Many believe it could have been a hoax, or was
it an act to throw the investigation even further off.
(08:54):
I wouldn't think so. This case was already cold when
those tips came in. My gut's telling me that someone
is indeed trying to be helpful here, but to really
do that, they have to take the next step and
have an open conversation with someone who knows what questions
to ask. Debbie's case once again went cold until another
push would occur. In two thousand and nine, a private
(09:17):
investigation team called the Missing Person Special Investigations Unit began
working with the police department trying to move Debbie's case forward.
Chief Marshall has spoken to Robert Reinhart from that team
and notes that quote, a lot of the things he
was telling me come in line with our past investigation
and people we had spoken to. From what he told me,
(09:38):
They've been working on this investigation the last couple of
months extensively Reinhart would tell the local press, being thirteen
years old, we think she was meeting up with someone.
It sounds like she met up with the wrong person.
Apparently the wrong person to meet up with is Robert Reinhardt.
Several years later, he would be charged with multiple ca
(10:00):
coounts of fraud, including soliciting to donate to Missing Person
Special Investigation Unit, a private for profit business. But it
actually even gets worse than that, According to the Lowell Son,
he also solicited contributions directly from Debbie's mother, on top
of attempting to convince the town to pay over eleven
(10:20):
thousand dollars in phone expenses for his fake investigation. He
initially pled not guilty, but was convicted by a jury
of eleven counts of larceny over two hundred and fifty dollars,
two counts of attempted larceny over two hundred and fifty dollars,
and one count of larceny under two hundred and fifty dollars.
He was also deemed a common and notorious thief and
(10:42):
sentenced to eight to ten years in prison, as well
as being ordered to repay his victims one hundred and
sixty nine thousand dollars in restitution. He also attempted to
pay a witness five hundred dollars to influence their testimony
in his case. While he clearly didn't help the investmtigation,
others were willing to. In twenty ten, with help from
(11:04):
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the FBI,
investigators conducted new interviews, speaking to people that they had
interviewed previously, but also to others. Even though they did
this with little media fanfare, it seemed to prompt an
unexpected response. A third letter arrived. Quote. I received an
(11:25):
anonymous letter in the mail addressed to the towns and
Police Department, which prompted us to do some preliminary searching,
said Chief Marshal. While he wouldn't discuss the precise contents
of this letter, it led to another ground search, primarily
in a wooded area near the road where Debbie was writing.
Chief Marshall would report that the search did not turn
up any new evidence and they have no viable suspects.
(11:48):
But he did tell CBS News an interesting fact. While
conducting these new interviews, he is finding some inconsistencies in
the stories. Will these help lead investigators to the truth
of this case. While they have no viable suspects, some
people have wondered if Debbie's case is related to another
tragedy in this small town. Four years before Debbie's disappearance,
(12:10):
in nineteen seventy three, Judith Viewing, a thirty one year
old fourth grade teacher at Spalding Memorial School, was brutally
murdered and left in the woods behind her home. Considering
Debbie's age, there is a chance that she could have
even been in Judith's class. However, we can't confirm if
she was due to the records for that year being destroyed.
(12:32):
Judith was reported to be a lovely woman with a
kind soul, someone who was very into the art scene,
and she loved to paint. She even had some of
her paintings on display. Locally, she was known as the
type of person who just didn't have any enemies. Judith
had worked at Spalding since nineteen sixty four, and while
there she worked with Debbie's grandpa Verne, working alongside him.
(12:54):
She was an officer for the Spalding Teachers Association, and
for at least two years she and Verne were in
charge of ticket sales for the annual music festival. By
the time nineteen seventy three, rulled around Vern was sixty
five and he was retired, but he still served as
chairman of the North Middlesex Regional School Committee. Judith had
bought her house on Main Street in May of nineteen
(13:16):
seventy and just down the road from her was Police
Chief Marshall Senior's home. Judith lived in her home with
her large dog. On September ninth, nineteen seventy three, the
neighbor heard Judith's dog barking continuously and they went to
check on her. They found that the door to her
home was open. It's unclear if that would have been
(13:37):
the norm, but there was no obvious sign of break
in or other distress. The neighbor decided to call Judith's
brother to come over and check on her, while another neighbor,
a man named Leroy Schofield, went to check a nearby trail.
Leroy knew that Judith was somewhat of a free spirit
and she loved nature, often taking walks in the woods
behind her home. On this search, he noticed parts of
(13:59):
a bl blanket under tree debris and some rocks. There
was clearly something under the blanket. The neighbor called the police,
and soon they confirmed that they had found the body
of Judith Bwick. It was found less than one hundred
feet from her home. Judith had been stabbed several times
in the chest, though it appeared she had not been
sexually assaulted. Everyone was baffled as to who would have
(14:23):
committed such a heinous crime in their community. The next morning,
Judith's car was located by a gravel pit worker. Her
purse was inside the car, which was only half a
mile from her home in what locals called the sand pit.
This was actually just a gravel pit with an area
where locals would dump items that they no longer wanted.
(14:43):
But this location is also not far from walk or
Pond on Turnpike Road, the same road where several years
later Debbie would Vanish. Many wonder why the killer would
have taken the risk to try to dispose of her
vehicle there. The attack clearly happened near her home. Was
this a means of getting away? It also raises a
(15:03):
big question in terms of motive, Since her purse was
found still in the vehicle, this didn't seem to be
a robbery gone wrong, and with no signs of a
sexual assault. What exactly was the motive here? The sand
pit was also known as a place where high school
students would hang out, and because of that, some wondered
if the attacker was actually a former student of Judith's.
(15:26):
Others wondered if there was a serial killer on the
loose in the area, since Judith's death was actually one
of five that happened nearby in a four month period,
But law enforcement says there's no connection to these cases,
and Judith's case, just like Debbie's, is still unsolved. Is
it possible that whomever killed Judith also kidnapped Debbie? We
(15:48):
know there is a lot of potential for connection in
these cases, both victims being at the same school, both
occurrences happening near Turnpike Road, but no solid information connecting
these cases has been revealed, at least publicly. On one hand,
we have a thirty one year old woman brutally killed
in what has components of being some form of active passion,
(16:11):
attacking her chest using a knife in a way described
as overkilled by some, and then the care of covering
the body in a blanket. Was that an act of
compassion or guilt? On the other end, We have a
giant mystery because we just don't know what happened to Debbie.
We know she was dealing with something a fairly common
status for anyone entering their teenage years. She had written
(16:34):
a friend saying she wanted to talk, but then kept
the letter. However, she mentioned to her mother that something
was bothering her enough that she needed to go somewhere
to clear her head. Was it family issues, social struggles,
or maybe it was indeed something with a potential romantic interest,
But there just isn't enough information for us to know
for sure. What is sure is that if someone did
(16:57):
something to Debbie, they covered it up well enough that
we still don't have answers all these years later. Where
is she? Where's her bike? The possibilities seem endless in
Debbie's case, but there is only one truth about what
happened that day. Someone out there has the information, and
after all these years, isn't it time to give that
(17:18):
info to law enforcement and get it off your back?
Anne Anne Richard left Debbie's room exactly how she left it.
They stayed in the same family home for many years
before moving closer to Anne's family near Vinton Pond. Anne
remained a teacher at Spalding until two thousand and five,
when she retired. She has unfortunately since passed on as
(17:40):
well as her husband, never knowing what happened to their
precious daughter, whom to them was quote a warm, fun
loving girl who missed out on so much. Deborah Anne
Quimby was thirteen years old when she vanished on May third,
nineteen seventy seven. She was five foot one inch tall,
weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, with brown hair and
(18:00):
brown eyes. She was wearing blue jeans, a multicolored shirt
with a royal blue Pop Warner cheerleader's jacket with Debbie
written on one sleeve. Debbie was last scene writing a
brown Tokara Tenspeed Boys bicycle. If you have any information
on Debbie's case or the murder of Judith Wig, please
contact the Townsend Police Department at nine seven eight five
(18:22):
nine seven two two four to two. Do you have
any comments or a case you'd like to suggest, You'll
find a comment form and caseubmission link at Lordenarts dot com.
Thank you, CBS News, ABC News, The Boston Herald, The
Boston Globe, Wilmington Star News, The Lowell Sun the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the DOE Network, the
(18:44):
Charlie Project, Medium dot Com, Webslutes, Reddit, Joe Turner books
dot com, Seacoast Online dot com, the Townsend Police Department,
and Wikipedia for information contributing to today's story. This episode
was written by The Roracle and John Lorden and produced Arts.
Thank you to our audience here for the live recording
session hosted on the YouTube channel Lorden Arts Studio Too.
(19:07):
Most of all, thank you for listening. I'm John Lorden.
Please join me again next week for a story I
know you'll find seriously mysterious.
It was nineteen seventy seven. Jimmy Carter had just stepped
into the White House, promising a new era of honesty
after the scars of Watergate. The film Saturday Night Fever
would start a cultural shockwave with disco as punk rock
firmly placed its roots both in the UK and the
United States. Star Wars blasted onto theater screens, reshaping pop
(00:42):
culture forever. But beyond the headlines and the Hollywood blockbusters,
America was also wrestling with rising crime, and many families
were tragically learning the lesson that the safe haven our
neighborhoods once represented in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties
was no more. I'm John Lordon, and today we're looking
(01:03):
into the seriously mysterious disappearance of Deborah Quimby. Deborah Ann
Quimby was born on October ninth, nineteen sixty three, to parents,
Richard and Anne. They lived together in towns And, Massachusetts,
a small town with around nine thousand people at the time. Debbie,
as she was called by her family, was thirteen years
old in nineteen seventy seven, and she had attended Spaulding
(01:25):
Memorial School, just a short distance away from her home.
Her mother also worked as a second grade teacher there,
and her grandfather, John Verne Quimby, was the former principal.
He had served the school for over twenty years. It
was Tuesday, May third when Debbie arrived home from school.
She wrote a note for her mom, letting her know
that she was going to her grandparents campsite, which was
(01:47):
located near Vinton Pond. This was a recreational property. Her
grandparents lived somewhere else, but it seemed like Debbie was
trying to get away from things. In this note, she
also said that she was having some issues and she
was going there to think things through. She ended by
saying that she would call home later. Debbie headed out
(02:08):
on her Brown Tokar, a ten speed the boy's version
of that bike, headed for her grandparents' campsite, located almost
five miles away. Vinton Pond is near Pearl Hill State Park,
and the route that Debbie would take on that day
was Turnpike Road, just off of Route one nineteen. At
a moderate pace on a bicycle, the ride should have
taken her about thirty minutes. The route was very rural
(02:31):
and described by many as being in the sticks. Several
people said that it was a road only traveled by locals,
but Debbie wasn't alone. Most accounts of this story state
that Debbie was accompanied by a friend, well at least
for part of the ride. They continued together until a
fork in the road, and as Debbie continued down Turnpike Road,
(02:52):
her friend turned around and went home. Little information about
this friend has been released. However, some sources claim that
it was actually two boys who were brothers, that accompanied
her that day. It was even claimed that at one
point Debbie was upset and crying, telling the brothers that
she was going to run away, though those statements were
(03:12):
reportedly discounted by law enforcement. Anne came home to find
the letter and expected her daughter to call soon, as
it stated. However, time passed and with each minute her
concern raised. She soon decided to call police, and she
reported her thirteen year old daughter missing. Obviously, a teen
runaway is a fairly common situation and one that frequently
(03:34):
sees them found or coming home a short time later,
but this just wasn't one of those cases. Thankfully, the
police response was quick, with searches being conducted almost immediately.
Officers and her parents would search at the campsite Debbie
said she was going to, but no sign of Debbie
was found there. One source claimed that the family searched
(03:56):
a cabin nearby and they didn't find anything, but they
did see that there was cigarette butts in an ash
tray found there, and not a brand that anyone in
the family had smoked. Police have never confirmed this, but
I do hope that if this was the case, that
they collected those as evidence. With modern DNA advancements, you
(04:17):
never know what that clue could yield. However, there's another
very big question on my mind. Did Debbie even make
it to the cabin that day? The police would search
Debbie's locker at school and found another compelling clue. They
located a note that Debbie had written to another student,
but obviously she hadn't delivered it. In this note was
(04:37):
a map drawn by Debbie, letting the friend know how
to get to her grandparents' campsite. The note also said
that Debbie was upset and she needed to talk. It's
unclear if she was upset with the person that she
had written the note to, or if she was upset
with someone else and she wanted to talk about it
with the person that she had written the note to,
but since she didn't deliver the note, the question of
(05:00):
was she going to meet up with anyone that day
is up in the air. Debbie Quimby stood at five
foot one and weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. Most
articles you can find on this case state that she
appeared to be older, possibly even passing off as a
seventeen year old. She reportedly had many older boys paying
attention to her, and it was rumored that she may
(05:22):
have been pregnant, but I could find no solid sources
to confirm this speculation. The question about Debbie meeting up
with someone also kicked around with her parents. Articles claim
that her parents believe it is possible she was going
to meet with a specific person that day, though who
that could have been is the big question. Did she
keep the letter asking her friend to come to the
(05:44):
cabin because she had invited someone else. Irving Marshall Senior
was the police chief at the time, and he did
everything he could to find Debbie. Years later, his son,
(06:05):
Irving Marshall Junior, who was just a rookie patrolman at
the time that Debbie went missing, would also become chief
of police and continue his father's work. He was on
the force for only two weeks when Debbie went missing,
but this case would turn into a career long effort.
Chief Marshall has never let Debbie's case be forgotten and
(06:25):
is said that he thinks about this case every single day.
That being said, the case had certainly gone cold. There
was no trace of Debbie and also important to note,
no trace of her ten speed bike. Debbie had literally
vanished and investigators needed to take a different approach to
try to get this case moving again. In nineteen eighty seven,
(06:46):
the police headed to Virginia to question a Townshend native,
Jeffrey Allen Ward. He had admitted to sexually assaulting and
murdering a thirty eight year old woman and a fourteen
year old girl. However, he would deny any involvement in
Debbie's case, and no evidence was found to link him
to her disappearance. Debbie's parents would remind the press of
what they were going through. Quote, Debbie is thought of
(07:09):
by both of us every single day of our life,
every single day, her mother, Anne Quimby, would tell them.
In two thousand and two, an anonymous letter was sent
to Chief Marshall. The letter which filled about three quarters
of the page, said to search Walker Pond. Walker Pond
is located on Turnpike Road, not far from where Debbie
(07:30):
was last seen. The chief of police took this tip
seriously and they conducted a sonar side search of Walker
Pond in May of two thousand and three, but they
found no signs of Debbie. Then in November of two
thousand and three, another letter came in again. The anonymous tipster,
which is suspected to be the same person as the first,
(07:51):
since the envelope had similar handwriting, said to take a
closer look at a specific area of that pond. The
police did just that. Dogs were brought in and the
pond was nearly completely drained. Reports state that a piece
of a shirt, two buttons, a piece of denim, and
parts of a bicycle, including a frame from the same
(08:12):
era as when Debbie vanished, were found. Investigators were hopeful
that this was some indication that they were on the
right track. The items were sent to the state crime
Lab for forensic testing, but came back with no connection
to Debbie. This is the challenge with anonymous information. It
seemed clear that someone was trying to be helpful, but
(08:32):
the question of where were they getting the information from
leaves a gap that investigators just can't close. The anonymous
letters had come from New Hampshire, one from Bedford, and
one from Manchester. The police have never located the letter writer.
Many believe it could have been a hoax, or was
it an act to throw the investigation even further off.
(08:54):
I wouldn't think so. This case was already cold when
those tips came in. My gut's telling me that someone
is indeed trying to be helpful here, but to really
do that, they have to take the next step and
have an open conversation with someone who knows what questions
to ask. Debbie's case once again went cold until another
push would occur. In two thousand and nine, a private
(09:17):
investigation team called the Missing Person Special Investigations Unit began
working with the police department trying to move Debbie's case forward.
Chief Marshall has spoken to Robert Reinhart from that team
and notes that quote, a lot of the things he
was telling me come in line with our past investigation
and people we had spoken to. From what he told me,
(09:38):
They've been working on this investigation the last couple of
months extensively Reinhart would tell the local press, being thirteen
years old, we think she was meeting up with someone.
It sounds like she met up with the wrong person.
Apparently the wrong person to meet up with is Robert Reinhardt.
Several years later, he would be charged with multiple ca
(10:00):
coounts of fraud, including soliciting to donate to Missing Person
Special Investigation Unit, a private for profit business. But it
actually even gets worse than that, According to the Lowell Son,
he also solicited contributions directly from Debbie's mother, on top
of attempting to convince the town to pay over eleven
(10:20):
thousand dollars in phone expenses for his fake investigation. He
initially pled not guilty, but was convicted by a jury
of eleven counts of larceny over two hundred and fifty dollars,
two counts of attempted larceny over two hundred and fifty dollars,
and one count of larceny under two hundred and fifty dollars.
He was also deemed a common and notorious thief and
(10:42):
sentenced to eight to ten years in prison, as well
as being ordered to repay his victims one hundred and
sixty nine thousand dollars in restitution. He also attempted to
pay a witness five hundred dollars to influence their testimony
in his case. While he clearly didn't help the investmtigation,
others were willing to. In twenty ten, with help from
(11:04):
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the FBI,
investigators conducted new interviews, speaking to people that they had
interviewed previously, but also to others. Even though they did
this with little media fanfare, it seemed to prompt an
unexpected response. A third letter arrived. Quote. I received an
(11:25):
anonymous letter in the mail addressed to the towns and
Police Department, which prompted us to do some preliminary searching,
said Chief Marshal. While he wouldn't discuss the precise contents
of this letter, it led to another ground search, primarily
in a wooded area near the road where Debbie was writing.
Chief Marshall would report that the search did not turn
up any new evidence and they have no viable suspects.
(11:48):
But he did tell CBS News an interesting fact. While
conducting these new interviews, he is finding some inconsistencies in
the stories. Will these help lead investigators to the truth
of this case. While they have no viable suspects, some
people have wondered if Debbie's case is related to another
tragedy in this small town. Four years before Debbie's disappearance,
(12:10):
in nineteen seventy three, Judith Viewing, a thirty one year
old fourth grade teacher at Spalding Memorial School, was brutally
murdered and left in the woods behind her home. Considering
Debbie's age, there is a chance that she could have
even been in Judith's class. However, we can't confirm if
she was due to the records for that year being destroyed.
(12:32):
Judith was reported to be a lovely woman with a
kind soul, someone who was very into the art scene,
and she loved to paint. She even had some of
her paintings on display. Locally, she was known as the
type of person who just didn't have any enemies. Judith
had worked at Spalding since nineteen sixty four, and while
there she worked with Debbie's grandpa Verne, working alongside him.
(12:54):
She was an officer for the Spalding Teachers Association, and
for at least two years she and Verne were in
charge of ticket sales for the annual music festival. By
the time nineteen seventy three, rulled around Vern was sixty
five and he was retired, but he still served as
chairman of the North Middlesex Regional School Committee. Judith had
bought her house on Main Street in May of nineteen
(13:16):
seventy and just down the road from her was Police
Chief Marshall Senior's home. Judith lived in her home with
her large dog. On September ninth, nineteen seventy three, the
neighbor heard Judith's dog barking continuously and they went to
check on her. They found that the door to her
home was open. It's unclear if that would have been
(13:37):
the norm, but there was no obvious sign of break
in or other distress. The neighbor decided to call Judith's
brother to come over and check on her, while another neighbor,
a man named Leroy Schofield, went to check a nearby trail.
Leroy knew that Judith was somewhat of a free spirit
and she loved nature, often taking walks in the woods
behind her home. On this search, he noticed parts of
(13:59):
a bl blanket under tree debris and some rocks. There
was clearly something under the blanket. The neighbor called the police,
and soon they confirmed that they had found the body
of Judith Bwick. It was found less than one hundred
feet from her home. Judith had been stabbed several times
in the chest, though it appeared she had not been
sexually assaulted. Everyone was baffled as to who would have
(14:23):
committed such a heinous crime in their community. The next morning,
Judith's car was located by a gravel pit worker. Her
purse was inside the car, which was only half a
mile from her home in what locals called the sand pit.
This was actually just a gravel pit with an area
where locals would dump items that they no longer wanted.
(14:43):
But this location is also not far from walk or
Pond on Turnpike Road, the same road where several years
later Debbie would Vanish. Many wonder why the killer would
have taken the risk to try to dispose of her
vehicle there. The attack clearly happened near her home. Was
this a means of getting away? It also raises a
(15:03):
big question in terms of motive, Since her purse was
found still in the vehicle, this didn't seem to be
a robbery gone wrong, and with no signs of a
sexual assault. What exactly was the motive here? The sand
pit was also known as a place where high school
students would hang out, and because of that, some wondered
if the attacker was actually a former student of Judith's.
(15:26):
Others wondered if there was a serial killer on the
loose in the area, since Judith's death was actually one
of five that happened nearby in a four month period,
But law enforcement says there's no connection to these cases,
and Judith's case, just like Debbie's, is still unsolved. Is
it possible that whomever killed Judith also kidnapped Debbie? We
(15:48):
know there is a lot of potential for connection in
these cases, both victims being at the same school, both
occurrences happening near Turnpike Road, but no solid information connecting
these cases has been revealed, at least publicly. On one hand,
we have a thirty one year old woman brutally killed
in what has components of being some form of active passion,
(16:11):
attacking her chest using a knife in a way described
as overkilled by some, and then the care of covering
the body in a blanket. Was that an act of
compassion or guilt? On the other end, We have a
giant mystery because we just don't know what happened to Debbie.
We know she was dealing with something a fairly common
status for anyone entering their teenage years. She had written
(16:34):
a friend saying she wanted to talk, but then kept
the letter. However, she mentioned to her mother that something
was bothering her enough that she needed to go somewhere
to clear her head. Was it family issues, social struggles,
or maybe it was indeed something with a potential romantic interest,
But there just isn't enough information for us to know
for sure. What is sure is that if someone did
(16:57):
something to Debbie, they covered it up well enough that
we still don't have answers all these years later. Where
is she? Where's her bike? The possibilities seem endless in
Debbie's case, but there is only one truth about what
happened that day. Someone out there has the information, and
after all these years, isn't it time to give that
(17:18):
info to law enforcement and get it off your back?
Anne Anne Richard left Debbie's room exactly how she left it.
They stayed in the same family home for many years
before moving closer to Anne's family near Vinton Pond. Anne
remained a teacher at Spalding until two thousand and five,
when she retired. She has unfortunately since passed on as
(17:40):
well as her husband, never knowing what happened to their
precious daughter, whom to them was quote a warm, fun
loving girl who missed out on so much. Deborah Anne
Quimby was thirteen years old when she vanished on May third,
nineteen seventy seven. She was five foot one inch tall,
weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, with brown hair and
(18:00):
brown eyes. She was wearing blue jeans, a multicolored shirt
with a royal blue Pop Warner cheerleader's jacket with Debbie
written on one sleeve. Debbie was last scene writing a
brown Tokara Tenspeed Boys bicycle. If you have any information
on Debbie's case or the murder of Judith Wig, please
contact the Townsend Police Department at nine seven eight five
(18:22):
nine seven two two four to two. Do you have
any comments or a case you'd like to suggest, You'll
find a comment form and caseubmission link at Lordenarts dot com.
Thank you, CBS News, ABC News, The Boston Herald, The
Boston Globe, Wilmington Star News, The Lowell Sun the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the DOE Network, the
(18:44):
Charlie Project, Medium dot Com, Webslutes, Reddit, Joe Turner books
dot com, Seacoast Online dot com, the Townsend Police Department,
and Wikipedia for information contributing to today's story. This episode
was written by The Roracle and John Lorden and produced Arts.
Thank you to our audience here for the live recording
session hosted on the YouTube channel Lorden Arts Studio Too.
(19:07):
Most of all, thank you for listening. I'm John Lorden.
Please join me again next week for a story I
know you'll find seriously mysterious.
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