Question re. theTrimmers:
a) So while Raymond Sr was drifting around the northeast with his son and using various names, his wife stayed married to him? What light has she been able to shed on his activities?
Father, Son Trial in Sex Attacks, Murders Delayed Boston Record American May 18, 1972
Youth Sentenced As a Sexually Dangerous Person Boston Herald June 20, 1973
A Sanford, ME, youth was sentenced to Middlesex Superior Court to "one day to life" at the Bridgewater State Hospital yesterday for being a "sexually dangerous person."
A court appointed psychiatrist said that Raymond T Trimmer, Jr., 16, had a behavioral pattern as an incorrigible child and had an antisocial personality.
He suggested that Bridgewater could supply the therapy needed for trimmer who was convicted in a jury-waived trial of assault and battery with a knife and attempt to rape a Reading girl on May 7, 1972.
Although at 16 he is a juvenile, Trimmer was tried as an adult, Sentence was imposed by Judge Robert Sullivan.
Trimmer's father, Raymond, Sr., is in a New Hampshire jail and scheduled to be returned to Massachusetts to face trial for offenses similar to that of his son.
White Plains police review 1972 attempted child rape The Journal News [White Plains, N.Y.] 09 July 2001 by Richard Liebson
Raymond Trimmer, also known as James Pantelakos, was arrested in New Lebanon, N.Y., on grand larceny, criminal impersonation and forgery charges after police said he stole someone else's identity and fraudulently collected Social Security benefits.
Trimmer and his son, Raymond Parsons, are being investigated by authorities in New York, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire in connection with a series of rapes and murders that occurred in those states in 1972. Parsons, now 45, was convicted of two rapes and an assault in Massachusetts in 1972 and is still serving his sentence at a Bridgewater, Mass., state hospital.
Authorities in 1972 said that Trimmer and Parsons, who was then 16, traveled together for several months and that, after his arrest in May of that year by North Reading, Mass., police, Parsons made incriminating statements about several murders and rapes that occurred in New York and New England.
Those cases included the January 1972 murder of 19-year-old Joanne Pechone in Utica, N.Y., and the murder later that year of an unidentified woman who had been strangled and dumped in a Bronx junk yard.
White Plains police Capt. Peter Viviano said on Friday that Parsons was the prime suspect in the May 1, 1972, attempted rape of a 7-year-old girl in the basement of a North Broadway apartment building. He said that after learning of Trimmer's arrest last week, local police decided to review that case.
"We know from our records that the victim picked Parsons from a photo array,'' said Viviano,
commander of the Detective Division. "Our records show that an arrest warrant was issued, so we're checking on the status of that warrant."
According to the 1972 White Plains case file, the victim told police a teen-age boy came up to her on North Broadway and asked her to help him find his lost dog. The boy held the girl's hand and led her to an apartment building basement, where she said he sexually molested her. At the same time, according to the 30-year-old police records, a patrol officer spotted Trimmer's blue Ford Mustang parked illegally on North Broadway and told him to move it.
When Trimmer and Parsons were arrested by North Reading, Mass., police a few days later in the rape of a 12-year-old Tewksbury girl, White Plains detectives drove there and interviewed both. Trimmer said he had gone to Sears for a cup of coffee and knew nothing about what his son was doing while they were in White Plains.
The records show that, in addition to the victim, two other White Plains children who reported being approached by a teen-ager asking for help in finding a lost dog on the day of the attempted rape also identified Parsons from a photo array.
Trimmer, whose criminal record goes back to 1952, served a year in prison for a 1973 attempted rape conviction in New Hampshire, five months for a 1975 parole violation and 10 months in 1993 after being convicted of falsifying evidence. He was never charged in the Massachusetts rape for which his son was convicted.
"Either through bad police work, or mistakes, or just because he was smart enough to get around it, he was never actually charged,'' said Neil "Butch" Fransen, the retired North Reading police sergeant who arrested Trimmer and Parsons in 1972. "I am not convinced that the two of them could have been riding around all that time, all over the country, with just the kid committing crimes."
Neither are other law enforcement officials. In April, a task force of federal and state authorities met in Portland, Maine, to discuss Trimmer and the murder and rape cases that have gone unsolved for three decades.
"The meeting was a multi-jurisdictional effort to see if any information could be gleaned on Raymond Trimmer,'' said Malinda Lawrence, senior assistant attorney general of New Hampshire.
Trimmer, who was living in Pittsfield, Mass., and working as a cook when he was arrested last month, is being held on $50,000 bail. His legal aide lawyer, Robert Linville, could not be reached for comment.
Suspects emerge in '71 case The mother of Judith Hand prays for closure in the 1971 death. Lewiston Sun Journal ME July 21, 2001 by Bobbie Hanstein
FARMINGTON-- As police in four New England states continue to investigate a father and son's possible involvement in a string of unsolved murders 30 years ago, the mother of one murder victim hopes, at long last, her daughter's killer will be found.
"I wish it was true," Lillian Hand said, sitting out front of her mobile home off high street. "I hope and pray it is true. Because it will put our hearts to rest."
Judith Hand, 15, vanished on Sept. 10, 1971. Her body was discovered 13 days later, buried in a sawdust pile just blocks from her Middle Street home. Since then decades of possible suspects have brought one false hope after another to the Hand family.
The latest suspects to surface came from a story in the Boston Herald July 3. It reported that Raymond Trimmer, 68, was arrested in late June on charges of fraud in New York, and that he was the subject, along with his son Raymond Parsons, 45, of a multistate investigation into the unsolved murders of several young girls in the early 1970s.
Maine State Police Spokesman Steve McCausland would not confirm that state police are actively pursuing Trimmer or his son as suspects in Hand's murder or any other unsolved murder in Maine. Two more unsolved Maine cases fitting the time frame and age of the victims include the 1970 murder of Mary Olenchuk in Ogunquit and 1972 murder of Alice Lothrop of Cape Elizabeth.
"We don't float names; we don't confirm suspects. It is of no investigative use to us," McCausland said.
ACTIVE INVESTIGATION
But a New York State Police homicide detective confirmed this week that they are continuing to investigate Trimmer and Parsons' past and possible involvement in the unsolved murders, including Hand's case.
"I'm in contact every day with authorities from Maine. New Hampshire and Massachusetts who are all interested in this guy," said Linda Cotter, Major Crimes Unit investigator of the New York State Police.
Trimmer, also known as James Pantelakos, was arrested last month in New Lebanon, N.Y., and charged with grand larceny, criminal impersonation, and fraudulent Social Security check cashing. Trimmer was living in Pittsfield, Mass. and working as a cook at a country club.
In 1972, Trimmer, then 16, was convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old Tewksbury girl and at least one other rape and assault. It was during the investigation that police discovered the father and son had been traveling throughout New England for months. Parsons is said to have allegedly made incriminating statements - according to unnamed sources in the Herald story - about the 1972 murder of 19-year-old Joanne Pechone in Utica N.Y., and an unidentified young woman found strangled in a Bronx N.Y., junkyard.
Trimmer was convicted in 1973 of an attempted rape in Kensington N.H., and served one year. Parsons remains incarcerated in the Bridgewater State Hospital. But they have never been charged in any of the murders.
In cases like these, McCausland said detectives would look at the suspects' possible motive and opportunity and then would look to see whether they could be placed in the area of the crime. The possibility of the suspect having some sort of relationship with the victim would be checked.
The detectives work to get "closer to the point of charging the individual," he said. The investigations get more difficult with time, generally, but are not impossible to solve.
"As time goes by, well, 30 years is obviously a long time, but we simply never say never, McCausland said. Investigator Cotter agreed, but said it will all take time. "(Trimmer) is charged and held right now, and when you consider that this isn't his first crime, there is much we have to look into," Cotter said.
TOO FEW CLUES
In 1971, without the benefit of today's forensic technology, and with the discovery of the body nearly two weeks later, few clues emerged in the Hand case.
On Sept 10 at about 3 p.m., a Friday, Lillian said good-bye to her daughter Judy as Lillian headed off with co-workers to her job, detailing croquet sets at Forster's Manufacturing in Wilton. She asked her daughter if she wanted a ride to her babysitting job with her young cousins a mile and a half away in West Farmington, but Judy said she would rather walk.
"But she never made it to West Farmington," Lillian said with tears in her blue eyes.
Lillian was phoned at work by a relative, who told her that her daughter never showed up. Alarmed, Lillian left work by 5 p.m. and headed home to look for Judy. The police were called immediately as family members frantically searched.
The following day a massive search involving police, game wardens, firefighters and volunteers came up with nothing. Two of Judy's friends said they had walked with her along Middle Street that Friday afternoon, but parted when they got to High Street.
"They looked up and down the river and the whole town was upset," Lillian said. And she feared the worse all along because it was so unlike Judy not to show up, she said.
"Maybe it was a mother's love, but I knew she wasn't going to be found. It just wasn't going to happen that way," Lillian said.
Thirteen days later Game Warden Martin Savage noticed an indentation in an old mill sawdust pile 100 yards back from the corner of Lincoln and Quebec Streets.
'DEEP DOWN IT HURTS'
From the moment she reported her daughter's disappearance, Lillian said many people have called her with ideas or tips about Judy's disappearance.
"During the first days, people would call to say they had just seen her walking in town, or they just spotted her up in Rangeley," Lillian said.
Judy's body was found and identified by the clothing she was last seen wearing, but people have not stopped calling.
"They say, 'I know who did it.' Every year, usually in the summer or near the time she disappeared, people still call. Last summer I received a letter saying they know all about it. It turned out to be a 21-year-old who knew nothing," Lillian said.
Other published reports have raised the family's hopes, the latest in 1988.
"The family has endured 30 years of false hopes," McCausland said. Until the case is solved, it remains an open and active investigation. He urged anyone with information to call the state police and not to contact the Hand family.
"Don't people realize that deep down it hurts," Lillian said. "It hasn't gotten any easier. I still go to the cemetery and cry for Judy."
Who killed Judith Hand? By Matt Hongoltz-Hetling
Trimmer was not prosecuted for any of the crimes, but he was convicted subsequently of attempted rape in 1973 and again for assault in 1978. In 2002, Trimmer was sentenced to serve up to 11 years for living under a false name and illegally collecting Social Security benefits as a cook at a Massachusetts country club. At age 72, he lost his 2006 appeal of that conviction in New York state’s Supreme Court.
Parsons is now 58 years old and incarcerated as a level-three sex offender, meaning that he is considered to be at high risk to re-offend. In a picture listed on the state’s sex offender registry, his blue eyes are now obscured by a pair of glasses. Most of his hair is gone. What remains is gray.
Did either man kill Judith Hand? No one in law enforcement can say for sure.
Richards, speaking only in a general sense, said there are times when police believe they’ve identified a killer but lack the evidence needed to prosecute.
“There are cases where we do feel fairly confident that we know who’s responsible, but we have to, or the attorney general’s office has to, prove these cases beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
But the law has not forgotten her.
One sign of that is the news that Judith Hand’s case has been discussed recently during Maine’s quarterly review process.
“I can tell you that case has been through that review recently to identify areas that can be worked,” Richards said.
That doesn’t mean that a break in the case is imminent, but it does mean that the detective to whom it is assigned felt there was some work that could be done to advance the investigation.
SEEKING CLOSURE
Meanwhile, the circle of people who remember and care about Judith Hand is shrinking.
Dennis Pike feels the world has changed in some fundamental way. When Hand disappeared, it rocked the community for weeks, for months. Parents kept their children closer at home, worried that a killer was roaming the area looking for the next victim.
Today, he said, such crimes don’t tend to hold center stage in the public consciousness for long. As in the offices of the Major Crime Unit, new horrific crimes come in the front door, piling up so quickly that any individual tragedy is lost in all the noise.
Pike also allows for the chance that this perception is a natural one for a man of advancing age.
“When I was a kid, I remember these old people saying, ‘I don’t have the heart to move forward,'” he said. “I have to say I know where they’re coming from.”
Judith would be 58 if she were still alive.
Her father is dead. Her mother, Lillian, died last year. Of her eight siblings, seven are still alive, though graying.
Judith’s brother Larry Hand, now 59, of Wilton, said his mother never stopped wondering about who had killed her daughter. Every year, she would get depressed in September, when the Farmington Fair brought, along with fried dough and carnival games, an unwelcome memory of a daughter lost.
He believes that his mother has learned in death what she could never find out in life.
“Now she’s up there with her,” he said. “She said then she would know, and I think she does now.”
Hand’s memory in the community at large is fading but still present.
Five years ago, in 2009, a handful of people gathered bearing candles in a remembrance of community murder victims.
Judith Hand was one name — two words — on a list of murdered or missing people that was read aloud, the sounds heard by a small circle of listeners before they faded into the night.
Other articles we'd like to get if you have access to them:
Drifter probed in N.E. killings Boston Herald [Boston, Mass] Lazar, Kay 03 July 2001
Missing evidence slowing probe into 70's murders Boston Herald [Boston, Mass] Lazar, Kay 09 July 2001
Man convicted in fraud case Times Union [Albany, N.Y.] 95 June 2002
a) So while Raymond Sr was drifting around the northeast with his son and using various names, his wife stayed married to him? What light has she been able to shed on his activities?
Father, Son Trial in Sex Attacks, Murders Delayed Boston Record American May 18, 1972
Youth Sentenced As a Sexually Dangerous Person Boston Herald June 20, 1973
A Sanford, ME, youth was sentenced to Middlesex Superior Court to "one day to life" at the Bridgewater State Hospital yesterday for being a "sexually dangerous person."
A court appointed psychiatrist said that Raymond T Trimmer, Jr., 16, had a behavioral pattern as an incorrigible child and had an antisocial personality.
He suggested that Bridgewater could supply the therapy needed for trimmer who was convicted in a jury-waived trial of assault and battery with a knife and attempt to rape a Reading girl on May 7, 1972.
Although at 16 he is a juvenile, Trimmer was tried as an adult, Sentence was imposed by Judge Robert Sullivan.
Trimmer's father, Raymond, Sr., is in a New Hampshire jail and scheduled to be returned to Massachusetts to face trial for offenses similar to that of his son.
White Plains police review 1972 attempted child rape The Journal News [White Plains, N.Y.] 09 July 2001 by Richard Liebson
Drifter, son focus of 4 states' probes of unsolved crimes
The arrest last month of a 68-year-old drifter suspected in a string of unsolved rapes and murders 30 years ago has prompted White Plains police to take a fresh look at the 1972 attempted rape of a 7-year-old girl.Raymond Trimmer, also known as James Pantelakos, was arrested in New Lebanon, N.Y., on grand larceny, criminal impersonation and forgery charges after police said he stole someone else's identity and fraudulently collected Social Security benefits.
Trimmer and his son, Raymond Parsons, are being investigated by authorities in New York, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire in connection with a series of rapes and murders that occurred in those states in 1972. Parsons, now 45, was convicted of two rapes and an assault in Massachusetts in 1972 and is still serving his sentence at a Bridgewater, Mass., state hospital.
Authorities in 1972 said that Trimmer and Parsons, who was then 16, traveled together for several months and that, after his arrest in May of that year by North Reading, Mass., police, Parsons made incriminating statements about several murders and rapes that occurred in New York and New England.
Those cases included the January 1972 murder of 19-year-old Joanne Pechone in Utica, N.Y., and the murder later that year of an unidentified woman who had been strangled and dumped in a Bronx junk yard.
White Plains police Capt. Peter Viviano said on Friday that Parsons was the prime suspect in the May 1, 1972, attempted rape of a 7-year-old girl in the basement of a North Broadway apartment building. He said that after learning of Trimmer's arrest last week, local police decided to review that case.
"We know from our records that the victim picked Parsons from a photo array,'' said Viviano,
commander of the Detective Division. "Our records show that an arrest warrant was issued, so we're checking on the status of that warrant."
According to the 1972 White Plains case file, the victim told police a teen-age boy came up to her on North Broadway and asked her to help him find his lost dog. The boy held the girl's hand and led her to an apartment building basement, where she said he sexually molested her. At the same time, according to the 30-year-old police records, a patrol officer spotted Trimmer's blue Ford Mustang parked illegally on North Broadway and told him to move it.
When Trimmer and Parsons were arrested by North Reading, Mass., police a few days later in the rape of a 12-year-old Tewksbury girl, White Plains detectives drove there and interviewed both. Trimmer said he had gone to Sears for a cup of coffee and knew nothing about what his son was doing while they were in White Plains.
The records show that, in addition to the victim, two other White Plains children who reported being approached by a teen-ager asking for help in finding a lost dog on the day of the attempted rape also identified Parsons from a photo array.
Trimmer, whose criminal record goes back to 1952, served a year in prison for a 1973 attempted rape conviction in New Hampshire, five months for a 1975 parole violation and 10 months in 1993 after being convicted of falsifying evidence. He was never charged in the Massachusetts rape for which his son was convicted.
"Either through bad police work, or mistakes, or just because he was smart enough to get around it, he was never actually charged,'' said Neil "Butch" Fransen, the retired North Reading police sergeant who arrested Trimmer and Parsons in 1972. "I am not convinced that the two of them could have been riding around all that time, all over the country, with just the kid committing crimes."
Neither are other law enforcement officials. In April, a task force of federal and state authorities met in Portland, Maine, to discuss Trimmer and the murder and rape cases that have gone unsolved for three decades.
"The meeting was a multi-jurisdictional effort to see if any information could be gleaned on Raymond Trimmer,'' said Malinda Lawrence, senior assistant attorney general of New Hampshire.
Trimmer, who was living in Pittsfield, Mass., and working as a cook when he was arrested last month, is being held on $50,000 bail. His legal aide lawyer, Robert Linville, could not be reached for comment.
Suspects emerge in '71 case The mother of Judith Hand prays for closure in the 1971 death. Lewiston Sun Journal ME July 21, 2001 by Bobbie Hanstein
"I wish it was true," Lillian Hand said, sitting out front of her mobile home off high street. "I hope and pray it is true. Because it will put our hearts to rest."
Judith Hand, 15, vanished on Sept. 10, 1971. Her body was discovered 13 days later, buried in a sawdust pile just blocks from her Middle Street home. Since then decades of possible suspects have brought one false hope after another to the Hand family.
Maine State Police Spokesman Steve McCausland would not confirm that state police are actively pursuing Trimmer or his son as suspects in Hand's murder or any other unsolved murder in Maine. Two more unsolved Maine cases fitting the time frame and age of the victims include the 1970 murder of Mary Olenchuk in Ogunquit and 1972 murder of Alice Lothrop of Cape Elizabeth.
"We don't float names; we don't confirm suspects. It is of no investigative use to us," McCausland said.
ACTIVE INVESTIGATION
But a New York State Police homicide detective confirmed this week that they are continuing to investigate Trimmer and Parsons' past and possible involvement in the unsolved murders, including Hand's case.
"I'm in contact every day with authorities from Maine. New Hampshire and Massachusetts who are all interested in this guy," said Linda Cotter, Major Crimes Unit investigator of the New York State Police.
Trimmer, also known as James Pantelakos, was arrested last month in New Lebanon, N.Y., and charged with grand larceny, criminal impersonation, and fraudulent Social Security check cashing. Trimmer was living in Pittsfield, Mass. and working as a cook at a country club.
In 1972, Trimmer, then 16, was convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old Tewksbury girl and at least one other rape and assault. It was during the investigation that police discovered the father and son had been traveling throughout New England for months. Parsons is said to have allegedly made incriminating statements - according to unnamed sources in the Herald story - about the 1972 murder of 19-year-old Joanne Pechone in Utica N.Y., and an unidentified young woman found strangled in a Bronx N.Y., junkyard.
Trimmer was convicted in 1973 of an attempted rape in Kensington N.H., and served one year. Parsons remains incarcerated in the Bridgewater State Hospital. But they have never been charged in any of the murders.
In cases like these, McCausland said detectives would look at the suspects' possible motive and opportunity and then would look to see whether they could be placed in the area of the crime. The possibility of the suspect having some sort of relationship with the victim would be checked.
The detectives work to get "closer to the point of charging the individual," he said. The investigations get more difficult with time, generally, but are not impossible to solve.
"As time goes by, well, 30 years is obviously a long time, but we simply never say never, McCausland said. Investigator Cotter agreed, but said it will all take time. "(Trimmer) is charged and held right now, and when you consider that this isn't his first crime, there is much we have to look into," Cotter said.
TOO FEW CLUES
In 1971, without the benefit of today's forensic technology, and with the discovery of the body nearly two weeks later, few clues emerged in the Hand case.
On Sept 10 at about 3 p.m., a Friday, Lillian said good-bye to her daughter Judy as Lillian headed off with co-workers to her job, detailing croquet sets at Forster's Manufacturing in Wilton. She asked her daughter if she wanted a ride to her babysitting job with her young cousins a mile and a half away in West Farmington, but Judy said she would rather walk.
"But she never made it to West Farmington," Lillian said with tears in her blue eyes.
Lillian was phoned at work by a relative, who told her that her daughter never showed up. Alarmed, Lillian left work by 5 p.m. and headed home to look for Judy. The police were called immediately as family members frantically searched.
The following day a massive search involving police, game wardens, firefighters and volunteers came up with nothing. Two of Judy's friends said they had walked with her along Middle Street that Friday afternoon, but parted when they got to High Street.
"They looked up and down the river and the whole town was upset," Lillian said. And she feared the worse all along because it was so unlike Judy not to show up, she said.
"Maybe it was a mother's love, but I knew she wasn't going to be found. It just wasn't going to happen that way," Lillian said.
Thirteen days later Game Warden Martin Savage noticed an indentation in an old mill sawdust pile 100 yards back from the corner of Lincoln and Quebec Streets.
'DEEP DOWN IT HURTS'
From the moment she reported her daughter's disappearance, Lillian said many people have called her with ideas or tips about Judy's disappearance.
"During the first days, people would call to say they had just seen her walking in town, or they just spotted her up in Rangeley," Lillian said.
Judy's body was found and identified by the clothing she was last seen wearing, but people have not stopped calling.
"They say, 'I know who did it.' Every year, usually in the summer or near the time she disappeared, people still call. Last summer I received a letter saying they know all about it. It turned out to be a 21-year-old who knew nothing," Lillian said.
Other published reports have raised the family's hopes, the latest in 1988.
"The family has endured 30 years of false hopes," McCausland said. Until the case is solved, it remains an open and active investigation. He urged anyone with information to call the state police and not to contact the Hand family.
"Don't people realize that deep down it hurts," Lillian said. "It hasn't gotten any easier. I still go to the cemetery and cry for Judy."
Who killed Judith Hand? By Matt Hongoltz-Hetling
Posted
...In 2001, the Hand case became part of a larger national story involving a Massachusetts-based father-and-son team suspected of raping and murdering a number of young women and girls across the Northeast in 1971 and 1972. In Maine, they were suspects in the murders of Alice Lothrop, of Cape Elizabeth, whose body was found in 1972; and Mary Olenchuk, who was killed in Ogunquit in 1971, as well as Hand. Investigators from Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York met in Portland to discuss the connections among the cases and to see whether they could help each other.
In 1972 Raymond Trimmer and his teenage son, Raymond Parsons, were arrested in connection with the rape of a 12-year-old girl from Tewksbury, Mass. Parsons, then 16, was convicted of the Tewksbury rape and at least one other rape and assault, and he was sentenced to Bridgewater State Hospital, Massachusetts’ state institution.Trimmer was not prosecuted for any of the crimes, but he was convicted subsequently of attempted rape in 1973 and again for assault in 1978. In 2002, Trimmer was sentenced to serve up to 11 years for living under a false name and illegally collecting Social Security benefits as a cook at a Massachusetts country club. At age 72, he lost his 2006 appeal of that conviction in New York state’s Supreme Court.
Parsons is now 58 years old and incarcerated as a level-three sex offender, meaning that he is considered to be at high risk to re-offend. In a picture listed on the state’s sex offender registry, his blue eyes are now obscured by a pair of glasses. Most of his hair is gone. What remains is gray.
Did either man kill Judith Hand? No one in law enforcement can say for sure.
Richards, speaking only in a general sense, said there are times when police believe they’ve identified a killer but lack the evidence needed to prosecute.
“There are cases where we do feel fairly confident that we know who’s responsible, but we have to, or the attorney general’s office has to, prove these cases beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
But the law has not forgotten her.
One sign of that is the news that Judith Hand’s case has been discussed recently during Maine’s quarterly review process.
“I can tell you that case has been through that review recently to identify areas that can be worked,” Richards said.
That doesn’t mean that a break in the case is imminent, but it does mean that the detective to whom it is assigned felt there was some work that could be done to advance the investigation.
SEEKING CLOSURE
Meanwhile, the circle of people who remember and care about Judith Hand is shrinking.
Dennis Pike feels the world has changed in some fundamental way. When Hand disappeared, it rocked the community for weeks, for months. Parents kept their children closer at home, worried that a killer was roaming the area looking for the next victim.
Today, he said, such crimes don’t tend to hold center stage in the public consciousness for long. As in the offices of the Major Crime Unit, new horrific crimes come in the front door, piling up so quickly that any individual tragedy is lost in all the noise.
Pike also allows for the chance that this perception is a natural one for a man of advancing age.
“When I was a kid, I remember these old people saying, ‘I don’t have the heart to move forward,'” he said. “I have to say I know where they’re coming from.”
Judith would be 58 if she were still alive.
Her father is dead. Her mother, Lillian, died last year. Of her eight siblings, seven are still alive, though graying.
Judith’s brother Larry Hand, now 59, of Wilton, said his mother never stopped wondering about who had killed her daughter. Every year, she would get depressed in September, when the Farmington Fair brought, along with fried dough and carnival games, an unwelcome memory of a daughter lost.
He believes that his mother has learned in death what she could never find out in life.
“Now she’s up there with her,” he said. “She said then she would know, and I think she does now.”
Hand’s memory in the community at large is fading but still present.
Five years ago, in 2009, a handful of people gathered bearing candles in a remembrance of community murder victims.
Judith Hand was one name — two words — on a list of murdered or missing people that was read aloud, the sounds heard by a small circle of listeners before they faded into the night.
Other articles we'd like to get if you have access to them:
Drifter probed in N.E. killings Boston Herald [Boston, Mass] Lazar, Kay 03 July 2001
Missing evidence slowing probe into 70's murders Boston Herald [Boston, Mass] Lazar, Kay 09 July 2001
Man convicted in fraud case Times Union [Albany, N.Y.] 95 June 2002
http://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/Raymond T Trimmer, Jr
ReplyDeleteThere was a plea bargain that he would go to Brigewater as a juvenile. The laws and the use of DNA testing were very lack at that time.
ReplyDeleteAre the Trimmers still possible suspects? Were they cleared? Interviewed?
ReplyDeleteThey are not suspects in the Allenstown case. As far as what other cases they may or may not be connected to, that is a question for law enforcement.
DeleteThis is crazy thats my grandfather and uncle and just googled his name because i have bever heard the reason why he was b jail his whole life i remember when i was 5 i visited him and seen ny grandfather throughout the tears i am now 30 and am very astonished as to these things they have or havent done my prayers and thoughts go out to all the victims families
DeleteChan, thank you for your message and your prayers/thoughts. I have a question for you- is your grandmother still living? I wonder if she or anyone else in the family knows more about where the father and son went over the years?
DeleteNo my grandmother passed away in 2013, my mom passed away 5 years ago and my aunt passed away in 2013 and my older brother 4 years ago and also my papa jack 15 years ago. I just reread this and I'm astonished to what happened many many years ago and my thoughts and prayers goes out to the victims families I'm truly sorry for their losses may they rest in peace. Growing up I've only seen my uncle a few times and my grandfather a few times also and never really knew what really happened back then and I'm so sorry to the victims and their families. I'm now in my 30's and had no idea about everything that happened back then and I'm Just very astonished to what I read.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the updates on these individuals.
DeleteBack in circa 1982, I was a new Concord, N.H. Police Officer and investigated Trimmer/Pantelakos on theft of a bunch of suits from Sears. Numerous Officers went to his residence on off of Second Street in Manchester, N.H. to make the arrest. Manchester showed up with K9s and many Officers. He went quietly. I remember reading his rap sheet and thinking he can't possibly think I was coming for him for stealing suits. Sad reading
ReplyDeleteWhy has this case been closed in the murder death of Alice Laton in Cape Elizabeth Maine 1972. Please open this case up and follow it through. I was a student of hers and want answers. Maine State Police Dropped the ball on this case. Its cold but time to solve is current. Get out there and finish your jobs. Alice was a sweet and loving lady that loved her students in Cape Elizabeth Maine. I was one of them and a Part Time Cop in Cape Elizabeth Maine at the time of her death. things were pushed under the rug and hushed up right after her death. I am talking a couple days WHY.
ReplyDelete