Finding Amy

by Joseph K. Loughlin

  From the description of what Amy St. Laurent had been wearing on the night she disappeared, it appeared that the decision to check out Portland's nightlife must have been spontaneous. In jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers, Amy wasn't dressed for a night on the town.

  Information the detectives gathered suggested that over the course of that Saturday evening, Rubright had been making unwelcome advances to Amy and she might have been worn down, irritated and frustrated with him. She had been drinking, though witnesses varied widely in their views of whether she was intoxicated. They learned that her action in finding a dance partner when Rubright wouldn't dance was not unusual. When Amy had gone to the Pavilion with Sparrow, she would find herself a partner if she wanted to dance and he didn't.

  Detectives had Rubright's version of the facts. They had Gorman's version of the facts. They had located witnesses who had observed Amy, Rubright, and Gorman during the course of the evening. Now, their challenge would be to imagine Amy's version. As information was developed, the detectives would do this imagining to develop theories about what had happened, constantly reassessing what they knew, based on their suspects and on their increasingly deep knowledge of who Amy St. Laurent was.

  They would picture Amy going through Saturday evening. Playing pool. Buying Rubright pizza. Going to find a dance partner, since he didn't want to dance. Meeting Gorman and Sharma at the Pavilion bar. Amy at the Brighton Avenue apartment, increasingly uncomfortable as no party materialized and her instincts told her she wasn't where she wanted to be. The detectives drove the dark streets she might have traveled, mentally following the car of one suspect or another down those same streets, imagining the clash of wills of a man intent on having sex, who might have became enraged when he was refused, and an independent, capable woman who didn't intend to be anyone's victim.

  Chapter Five

  By Wednesday, detectives had checked out Eric Rubright's story more fully. A perfect example of a small thing that tells a big story, Rubright's receipts from the convenience store in South Portland gave them both a location and a time of purchase. That, in turn, led them to a time-stamped surveillance camera tape that put Rubright at the store paying for gas and purchasing food and soda at 1:36 a.m. Neighbors confirmed that Rubright's car was at Amy's apartment on Sunday morning and that her coat, which Rubright said he had left on the hood of her car, was lying on the ground.

  The specifics of his suspiciously detailed story were checking out. Police had interviewed him twice, and polygraphed him. With no reason to arrest him or detain him further, they had to let Rubright leave the state. On Wednesday, Rubright agreed to allow police to collect blood for DNA and hair samples. Evidence technician Kevin McDonald went with a detective to the airport and collected these before Rubright left.

  In the conference room, watching the videotape from the convenience store, detectives could see that it confirmed Rubright's story. Bruce Coffin, studying the tape, remembered thinking, “Wow, there he is, just like he said. But maybe the girl is still in the car.” And questions still remained. Was it possible that, after leaving the store, Rubright had driven back to Portland and reencountered St. Laurent? Detectives drove the route Eric Rubright had taken from the Old Port parking garage to the convenience store, late at night as Rubright had, and back to the Old Port again.

  Later in the week, Detective Kevin Curran, an MSP trooper interviewing toll takers on the turnpike, located a female attendant at the Scarborough exchange who remembered a heavyset male matching Rubright's description showing up at her booth early Sunday morning, searching for change and, after coming up with only fifteen cents, asking if he could please use the highway because it was the only route he knew to the house where he'd been staying. She was certain this had happened around 2:00 a.m., as this was when she normally had a snack. Based on this timeline, it would have been practically impossible for him to have returned to Portland and picked up St. Laurent.

  Police also contacted the agency from which Rubright had rented the GMC Envoy and arranged to have any trash that had been collected from the vehicle saved. Before the vehicle was cleaned and returned to service, it was towed to police headquarters at 109 Middle Street, where it underwent a forensic examination by Portland evidence technicians. Crazy as it was, Rubright's story was checking out.

  Although police had to continue to entertain the outside possibility that Rubright was involved in Amy's disappearance, his timeline didn't mesh with what they knew about Amy's activities after she left the Pavilion. By the time Gorman said he'd dropped Amy off, back in the Old Port, Eric Rubright was talking his way onto the turnpike. Still, while Rubright's story was being checked, investigators searched around the convenience store, South Portland cemeteries, wooded areas, and roadsides along the route that he had taken, looking for Amy or her body, and drove from the Pavilion to the turnpike entrance at night to check the timing.

  The detectives also had to check out Richard Sparrow's activities on the night that Amy St. Laurent disappeared. Despite the breakup, he had maintained a presence in St. Laurent's life. They knew he had been sufficiently uncomfortable with the idea of another guy staying at St. Laurent's apartment that he had been there Friday night to check Rubright out.

  It was possible that if Amy St. Laurent was stuck without a ride in the Old Port, she might have called him to come and pick her up. It was an outside possibility, since her mother was nearby in South Portland and Sparrow lived more than an hour away in New Hampshire, but a jealous ex-boyfriend known to have been arguing with a missing person could not be ignored.

  Sparrow told them he had spent Saturday evening with friends but that the friends had a small child, so it had been an early evening and he had then returned to Newmarket, New Hampshire, where he was sharing an apartment with two female roommates. Detectives interviewed the couple he had spent the evening with, who confirmed Sparrow's version of the story. They then went to New Hampshire and separately interviewed the two roommates, each of whom confirmed his timeline for late Saturday evening and for Sunday. On the basis of the information they had gathered and the timeline they'd made, they felt they could eliminate Richard Sparrow as a suspect.

  Just as they were checking the details of Eric Rubright's story, another major focus in this early stage of the investigation would be to test Russ Gorman's story by interviewing the residents of the Brighton Avenue apartment and witnesses such as bartenders, doormen, and customers who might have seen him with Amy St. Laurent at Fore Play, the Pavilion, or the Iguana, another Portland bar where police learned that Gorman, Kush Sharma, and Amy St. Laurent had stopped briefly so St. Laurent and Sharma could use the bathroom before driving to the Brighton Avenue apartment.

  On Wednesday, October 24, police reinterviewed Gorman's roommates Jason Cook and Kush Sharma. Sharma's story was essentially the same as Gorman's. He said Gorman had been gone only twenty or twenty-five minutes, then was in for the rest of the night. That he (Sharma) and Jason Cook were sitting on couches watching TV when Gorman returned. That Gorman used the phone and then joined them. Sometime later, the other roommates, Dave Grazier and his fiancée, Dawn Schimrich, returned. Sharma also remembered that Dave Grazier had been at the apartment when Gorman first arrived with Amy, then left to go pick up Dawn.

  Jason Cook reported that he had been the manager at the Iguana bar that evening and had left work at approximately 1:45 a.m., arriving back at the apartment between 1:45 and 2:00 a.m. He arrived as Gorman and Amy St. Laurent were leaving. Gorman introduced St. Laurent, and she wished Cook a happy birthday before she and Gorman left in Gorman's car. Cook told detectives that Gorman returned to the apartment about twenty minutes later. Cook stated that he was on the computer sending an e-mail to his aunt in Florida when Gorman returned and that Gorman came in and asked to use the telephone to call his ex-girlfriend, Jamie. (Gorman was seeking permission to use the phone because he wasn't a rent-paying tenant of the apartment.)

  So far, Gorman's story seemed to be corroborated by h
is roommates. But both Cook and Sharma had described a lifestyle in which nights spent in bars and clubs followed by drinking at home were the norm and details of one day could easily become confused with events of another. Detectives would take none of this at face value without looking for other ways to confirm the stories. It was a basic part of their investigative process—interview, assess, reinterview, check other sources such as witnesses, tapes, or phone records, corroborating and recorroborating information until they felt it was clear. (For example, they would subpoena many witnesses’ cell phone records for the night Amy disappeared.)

  Next they interviewed the third roommate, David Grazier. Grazier reported that he lived at the Brighton Avenue address with two roommates, Cook and Sharma, and his fiancée, Dawn Schimrich. Recently a friend of Cook and Sharma, Russ Gorman, had been sleeping on their couch. Grazier stated that when he returned from work on Sunday morning between 12:15 and 12:30 a.m., no one was home. He showered and received a call from his fiancée, asking him to pick her up at the Iguana to go to a restaurant called the Station for breakfast. He left the apartment between 1:00 and 1:30 a.m.

  Before he left, Sharma, Gorman, and a girl they introduced as Amy came into the apartment. Grazier identified her from a photograph as Amy St. Laurent. He then picked up his fiancée and they went to the Station. He arrived back at the apartment between 3:00 and 3:15 a.m. His fiancée, Dawn, who had traveled in a different car, arrived at about the same time. At that time, he visited all the rooms on the living floor (there were also two bedrooms upstairs) and did not see Gorman. He stated that Gorman might have been out on the porch, smoking, as smoking wasn't allowed in the apartment.

  Grazier told the detectives he had been very tired and had almost immediately gone to bed. When he woke between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. and came downstairs to use the bathroom, he found Gorman in there, washing. Gorman was fully dressed, did not appear to have been asleep, and wandered restlessly around the apartment after leaving the bathroom. Grazier told police he had later mentioned not seeing Gorman in the house when he returned at 3:00 a.m. to Jason Cook, who had responded, “Well, he was there.”

  Grazier's fiancée, Dawn Schimrich, told detectives that she had been at the Iguana earlier in the evening and had seen Russ Gorman, Rush Sharma, and a blond girl in jeans come in around 1:00 a.m. to use the bathroom. Her friend Stacy Rolfe was outside the Iguana and spoke with Sharma, Gorman, and the girl. Schimrich then left to go to breakfast at the Station. When she arrived home a few minutes after 3:00 a.m., Sharma was on one couch and Cook on the other, watching TV. She talked with them for about twenty minutes before going to bed. She did not see Gorman in the apartment.

  That same day, Wednesday, October 24, Danny Young got a call from a man who identified himself as Matt Despins. Despins said he had some information he felt compelled to share and asked to meet with Detective Young. Despins came to the police station around 4:00 p.m. He told Young that he was good friends with Cook, Sharma, and Gorman. He was also acquainted with Julie St. Laurent, the missing woman's sister.

  Matt Despins told Young that he had been working at the Iguana as a bouncer Saturday night and had seen Sharma, Gorman, and Amy St. Laurent come in sometime after 1:00 a.m. He had been annoyed with Sharma for bringing people into the bar after hours because it violated state liquor laws, which required that all patrons must be off the premises and liquor put away by fifteen minutes after closing time.

  Despins told Young that when Sharma and Gorman came in, Gorman immediately went upstairs to speak with Jason Cook. After Gorman had talked to Cook and left the club with Sharma and St. Laurent, Despins went to see Cook, who was acting as manager that evening, to ask if he wanted to go out with a group of them to the Station for breakfast. Cook was usually up for such things, especially if a girl named Shyla Cameron was going, since Cook was interested in Shyla. On this occasion, however, Cook acted weird, said that he wasn't feeling well and that he was going home.

  Matt Despins also told Young that he had been in Gorman's car a week earlier and the car was littered with dust, dirt, and trash. Despins had teased Gorman about the fact that although he detailed cars for a living, his own car was filthy. Gorman had told him that the car was a piece of junk and he wasn't going to waste his time cleaning it. Despins reported that he had gotten into Gorman's car the following week, on the Monday or Tuesday after St. Laurent disappeared, and found the car detailed and clean right down to the dashboard and radio knobs, the seats slippery from being so clean.

  The interview was being recorded, but Young made a note of this very significant detail—a big flag for the detectives. On Tuesday, Gorman had been “too busy” to let them search his car. Now Young was hearing that the car had been cleaned, most likely by the busy man himself.

  Matt Despins also told Young that Gorman had talked to him about polygraph exams. Despins thought his friend seemed overly concerned about polygraphs for someone who insisted he was “innocent.” He said that Gorman had also spoken with another friend of theirs, Ryan Campbell, who was a part-time police officer in Old Orchard Beach, and that Campbell and Gorman had used Ryan Campbell's computer to research polygraphs on the Internet and printed out some information for Gorman. Ryan Campbell had told Despins he was missing a handgun and believed that Gorman had taken it.

  Beads of sweat dot Danny's forehead as he pokes his face into my office. “Lieutenant, I'm going to talk to Sergeant Joyce and update. You want in?”

  “Yeah,” I tell him, “get Tom and let's do it in here.”

  Tom jerks his way into my office, closes the door, and my photo of McSorley's Pub in New York City falls to the floor. “That's your dad, Tom, telling you to slow down.” Tom waits impatiently because there is so much going on with this and other cases.

  “Go, Dan,” I say.

  Glasses over his nose, Dan flips the pages of his notepad and goes over all the players. “Eventually, there's flags on this Gorman. This guy is all wrong and I like him for it. He's got background. He's on probation. Tells me, ‘I'm definitely seeing a lawyer.’ Won't take a poly and is asking his friends about polygraph exams. Won't cooperate and let us see his car. He's real easy with us, used to police, got a real attitude. His timing is all off and that story about dropping the girl off at the Pavilion is bullshit. There's no way.”

  Danny flips more pages. “He's seen cleaning himself up in the apartment at 4:30 in the morning, then paces around. He's the last person seen with the girl. I cannot eliminate him at this point.”

  “Which one is he, Dan? Oh, yeah, the little guy with the spiky hair? I thought he was a bit arrogant and cocky in a police station.” Dan goes on with the other stories of people like Jason Cook, Kush Sharma, Shyla Cameron, Dave Grazier, and others, but Gorman is a flag, no doubt. A lot of behavioral indicators.

  “Okay, Dan, keep it going and brief me with Tom. I don't want you to have to repeat it all the time.”

  “You know, Lieutenant, sometimes repeating all of this helps me put it in order, so I don't mind.”

  “That's what I like about you, Danny.” Tom gets up to leave with Dan as we move on to other things. But Dan stops for a moment and says, “One other thing, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, Dan?”

  “This guy Gorman detailed his shitbox car right after this girl was missing.”

  Whoa! Post-offense galore. “You're right, Dan. He is wrong all the way.”

  Danny Young was focused on trying to find Amy, and on trying to get a straight story about what had happened early Sunday morning, conducting numerous interviews, making dozens of phone calls, and fielding dozens more every day, as well as coordinating information coming in from other detectives. At this stage, as Chief Chitwood told the media, five detectives were working on the case full time. All were going as hard as they could, working against the grim reality that, with every day that passed, evidence was being lost. Tangible, physical evidence can be lost through deliberate destruction but also through natural processes such as weather and
temperature. Memory evidence, too, quickly fades or gets distorted over time.

  Then, too, the case wasn't taking place in a vacuum. Amy St. Laurent disappeared only six weeks after the events of 9/11, in the middle of hundreds of other cases and a workload significantly increased by the new threat of terrorism. Detectives were constantly called back in from other assignments or after their shifts ended for bomb threats, for suspicious packages, for explosives searches, and for anthrax alerts when people reported the presence of suspicious powders. Everyone was hypervigilant. The department received hundreds of calls about suspicious people. Muslims in Portland were alleging harassment. People were scared, and when people are scared, they look to their police for security. It really cranked up the pressure that two of the 9/11 terrorists who crashed into the World Trade Center, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, had started their trip in Portland.

  People start waving now, saying hello, asking how we are, considering their mortality. It's pro-police all of a sudden, which is refreshing in spite of the horror, but it won't last. The pressure from the media is relentless. Everything in white powder form is anthrax.

  There is tension between police and fire personnel. At times, when fire won't go into a building because of a hazardous materials situation, cops end up doing it out of frustration. We are all negotiating through our new world with trepidation, anger, and frustration. Occasionally, when weary police and firefighters try to sort out a scene, it almost comes to blows.

  “You freakin’ guys have the hazmat [hazardous materials truck]. Who's supposed to go in?”

  “Yeah, well, we never dealt with this shit!”

  “Well, neither did we.”

  As we argue, I think: The terrorists have certainly succeeded in further breaking us all down. This is exactly what they want. There are safety and union issues, command and communications issues, masses of emergency personnel gathered around a building trying to determine where to proceed next. These complicated decision processes create tremendous pressure. It's happening everywhere and we have to take each one seriously.