I really struggle with Maine cases. In my mind I envision the entire state as this adorable little seaside town with a historic downtown and a place to get a lobster roll on every corner. Unfortunately we wouldn’t be recording if that was the case. This story is one that I have known about for a bit and it has recently been covered by some other podcasts and I just couldn’t seem to step away from it. We are navigating advocacy in Saco (sock-oh), Maine. Saco is a town of around 20k people along the Atlantic coast. Their town is “friendly by nature” which is why it is their town motto. It sits less than 2 hours north of Boston and has stunning beaches, a historic downtown and home to many seafood restaurants. Outdoor recreation is one of their main draws to the area and with a terrain that has beaches, bogs, forests and fields it can accommodate all hobbies.

With crime statistics well below the national median, neighborhood scout gives Saco a 28 on their crime index with your chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 696.

Bob and Lise Ouellette were well known in the community. They owned and operated Prudential Realty as well as volunteered with various organizations including having a seat on the Historic Commission and being a member of the Rotary Club.

Bob and Lise gave birth to their oldest daughter, Ashley Erin, on March 29, 1983. She was a sweet and well-liked young lady. In elementary school, she was a straight A student and was always well dressed. Ashley loved to dance and smile.

In her teen years, Ashley began to rebel a bit against her parents and at 13 she began smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, staying out late breaking curfew and was a little boy crazy. These smaller acts of rebellion escalated quickly and Ashley ran away from home. Her parents reported her missing and asked for their help because they felt that Ashley had recruited the help of one of her older male friends. Police were able to locate her at the home of 2 older boys named Daniel and Steven Sanborn. Steven was 3 years older than Ashley and she had a crush on him. All three were classmates.

In the state of Maine, the age of consent is 16 years old so legally Ashley couldn’t consent to sex, but they had a sexual relationship regardless of the law.

Bob and Lise were concerned with the route Ashley’s life was taking and chose to help her. They enrolled her in an alternative education program at the Thornton Academy and got her counseling. While at the Academy, Ashley was thriving. She was popular and well-liked by her instructors.

After a bit of time, Ashley was showing true promise and was following rules and acting responsibly. She was earning her parents trust back and they began loosening the reins a bit.

On Tuesday, February 9, 1999, Ashley, now 15 years old, spent the night with her friend Alia Page. It was a school night and her parents were hesitant at first to let her stay but since she had made such great strides in improvement they let her stay with the understanding the girls would go to school the following morning together.

Alia lived around a mile away from the Ouellette’s household and Ashley’s mom dropped her off for the sleepover, but one thing Lise didn’t know was that Alia’s parents were out of town and would not be home that evening. Lise wouldn’t learn this until later.

At 10pm, Ashley called home from Alia’s house phone telling her mother goodnight. In the background there were a few girls chatting and when her mother inquired about what they were up to, Ashley said they were painting their nails.

Ashley told her mother she loved her and then the two hung up. Lise didn’t know then that this would be the last time she would speak to her daughter.

Approximately 5 miles away from Daniel and Steven Sanford’s home, a man named Michael Lopes and his mother were driving down Pine Point Road just before 4 am. This road is a fairly busy road that intersects the main highway, Highway 1, connecting Saco to Scarborough. Near the Scarborough Marsh Nature Center, Michael noticed a body laying in the center of the road. Ashley was lying in line with the center stripes, facedown with her arms out straight. Michael later told the Portland Press Herald that it appeared as if she had been placed there.

Michael pulled off the road and called 911 and immediately attempted to help Ashley. He could not find a pulse, her skin was blue but her body was warm to the touch. Remember this is February in Maine, according to Wunderground.com, around 4am the high was approximately 19 degrees fahrenheit. If her body was still warm, she couldn’t have been there very long.

Even though Michael couldn’t find a pulse he was trained in CPR procedures and he immediately started performing CPR on Ashley. She had no scrapes or bruises visible, was dressed in a shirt, sweatshirt, black leggings and platform shoes. She also had a small amount of blood around her nose and mouth.

Even with Michael’s attempts at saving her, Ashley was pronounced deceased on scene. Detectives were called out and began searching for identification but they were unable to find anything near or on her body. She wasn’t wearing a coat and she did not have a purse or any personal belongings near her. No jewelry, no identification, nothing.

Given the circumstances and scene, detectives determined that Ashley had been murdered even though they did not have her name. They sent her body for autopsy and the local police department reached out to the Maine State Police for assistance. Homicide is not a regular occurrence in these small town jurisdictions. It is normal for them to reach out to the larger departments to ensure a proper investigation can take place.

Local law enforcement focused on identifying the victim and knowing she was a teen they reached out to local schools. Asking for attendance records to see who did not make it to school that day. When this turned up unsuccessful initially, missing persons reports were checked, as well as canvassing neighborhoods. When they still were unable to identify the victim, police provided a description to the local news television station. On their noon broadcast they provided this information to the public. Several people saw the report and called in stating the description sounded like 15 year old Ashley.

Police contacted Bob and Lise at approximately 1:45 in the afternoon inquiring about Ashley’s whereabouts. Ashley’s parents assumed that Ashley had gone to school that morning with Alia since that was the plan they had agreed upon. Detectives asked them both to meet them at the station where they asked Bob and Lise to identify the victim with a photograph.

Bob and Lise confirmed that it was in fact Ashley that was found in the middle of Pine Point Rd.

Later that same afternoon, the medical examiner completed the autopsy and found that Ashley had died by manual strangulation. The report also stated that it appeared as if she had “sexual contact” before her death and no other signs of injury were apparent. The medical examiner also noted that she had some brown vegetation in her hair as well as light gravel type dirt on her clothing.

Detectives interviewed Bob and Lise about Ashley and where she was the night before. They of course told them about the sleepover and that Lise had spoken with her daughter around 10pm. She mentioned that the girls said they were painting their nails and that she had said their goodnights and I love yous and that was the last she had heard from Ashley.

Investigators then turned to Ashley’s friends in an attempt to learn of what happened in those hours from 10pm when Ashley last spoke with her mom and 4am when Michael found her body in the middle of the road.

Based on the interviews conducted, law enforcement was able to piece together that after Ashley hung up the phone with her mom at 10pm, a party was held at Alia’s home. The teens were drinking and boys were present. Including Daniel Sanborn and his friend “Jay” Carney. Not long after the party started, Ashley told Alia that she wanted to go see Steven Sanborn. She still had a crush on Steven and she told Alia “When I get a buzz on I get a crush on Steve.”

Ashley asked another attendee, Edwin, for a ride to house in Saco. She told him that it was her aunt’s house and she had to babysit in the morning. He didn’t know that he was actually taking Ashley to Steve’s. On route the two stopped for Edwin to buy cigarettes and soda. When they arrived at Steve’s house at 50 Mast Hill Road, Ashley knocked on the door but no one answered. Edwin then took her to a nearby gas station to use a payphone to call Steve. It was around 10:45 pm when she called but Steven wouldn’t come to the phone because he was asleep and didn’t want to talk.

The timeline over the next one and a half to two hours is unclear. What is known is that Daniel Sanborn had left Alia’s party and had returned home.

At 12:30am Edwin again took Ashley to the Sanborn home where he dropped Ashley off and returned to Alia’s party.

Following this testimony detectives reach out to Daniel and Steven along with their parents. They told the detectives that around 12:30am Ashley was knocking on the door of the basement, where Daniel and Steven’s rooms are located. When she knocked it woke up Daniel. She said that she had gotten into an argument with her parents and that they kicked her out of the house and she had nowhere to stay. Daniel then asked his mother if Ashley could stay and given the hour she said it was fine if she stayed on the couch in the basement.

At 12:45am, Daniel’s mother noticed him getting a soda out of the fridge and when she questioned what he was doing, he said that he was getting Ashley something to drink. She then went to sleep and when she woke up in the morning, Ashley wasn’t there. She assumed she left sometime during the night.

Daniel stated that the last time he saw Ashley was when he gave her the orange soda. He said that Ashley complained about the basement being too hot and that she said she was going upstairs to the living room sofa to sleep and that was the last time he said he saw her. He woke up, noticed she wasn’t there and he went to school like normal.

Steven’s questioning was less helpful than Daniels. He said he was asleep when she arrived and that he assumed Ashley spent the night in Dan’s room with him because that was common practice for Dan and that when he woke up he went to school that morning and then heard about a deceased girl and that it may be Ashley.

Another of Dan’s friends had been staying with them at the time and he too said he went to sleep before Ashley showed up and that during the night he didn’t hear anything.

During Daniel’s interrogation, detectives peeked into his 1991 Eagle Summit. They saw brown dry grass in the floorboard that seemed consistent to the vegetation found in Ashley’s hair. A warrant was issued and the car was seized for investigation. When the car was processed, they found a gold ring, a black blouse, fingernail particles, a scarf, and hair.

When attempting to corroborate Daniel’s story about him going to school Wednesday morning, they learned that Daniel had lied. According to attendance records, he had been marked absent. When they approached him with this new found information, Daniel changed his story and said he had skipped school, slept in and then spent the afternoon with friends in Old Orchard Beach.

With this information, a search warrant was issued for the Sanborn home. After several days of investigating, a trail of blood droplets on the floor between the kitchen and living room were found. Swabs were gathered and sent off for analysis. An open condom wrapper and “other signs of sexual activity” were found. Carpet, upholstery items, a purple cord, bed linens, jewelry and a stained pillow were among other listed items that were collected as evidence.

Testing determined later that the blood droplets returned to be “not of human origin”.

Fingernail clippings, hair samples, and saliva were all collected from Daniel along with some clothing and more jewelry.

Even with these testimonies, law enforcement still had a 3.5 hour window where Ashley’s whereabouts are unknown. Ashley’s mom did not believe that she would have just left the house in the middle of the night on her own. The Sanborn home was in a remote wooded area 10 miles away from her home. Too far to walk anywhere else. She would have called her parents or her uncle for a ride even if it would have gotten her in trouble.

Still trying to narrow the timeline of when Ashley could be murdered, on February 12, law enforcement hosted an assembly at Thornton Academy begging for more information. The following day was Ashley’s funeral. Many detectives attended in the event that anyone would want to approach them with information.

Weeks after Ashley died on February 21, an interview with the Portland Press was released. Law enforcement stated they were still working through evidence and following leads but evaded any questions about suspects. They firmly stated that Ashley was last seen alive at the Sanborn home. Bob and Lise were also interviewed. They talked about how they were sad that they were never going to know who Ashley was going to become. They felt that while her path in life had veered off momentarily she was moving into a new phase but was now never going to get to show anyone.

Around a month after Ashley’s death, the Ouellettes stood in front of Thornton Academy and announced a $10k reward. Detectives were confident that people knew more than they were saying and that they had the information they needed and that the reward may entice them forward.

The next update in Ashley’s story wouldn’t be until the end of May when the State Police announced that they had conducted 200 interviews and had all of the evidence processed. However they stated they were not yet able to reach the “standards of probable cause for an arrest on any one particular person”

They also still had a gap in the timeline from when she was dropped off at the Sanborn home and when she was found. They still firmly stated that they were not able to “place Ashley alive outside the Sanborn residence” They also stated that there had “direct, solid knowledge” about what happened to Ashley but did not elaborate.

Six months later in November, Ashley’s parents mentioned they had heard rumors that someone was afraid to come forward with what they knew about Ashley. They announced that anonymous tips would be accepted and doubled the reward to $20,000.

At the one year mark, Law enforcement told media they believed this case was “very solvable”. They just needed probable cause to make an arrest and evidence to prove their case.

In May of 2000, police released a bit of information that created a could be connection between Ashley’s murder and the disappearance of a 21 year old college student named Angel “Tony” Torres.

Tony had attended a party at a friends house in Biddeford, Maine a few months after Ashley was murdered on May 21, 1999. Biddeford is approximately 1 mile from Saco. Jay Carney was also present at this party. Do you remember Jay? He was at the party at Alia’s house with Daniel Sanborn the night Ashley died.

At this party in May, Tony and Jay left to go to the store together around 2 am. A short time later, Jay returned alone to the party and was described as being “upset and disheveled”. Tony was never seen again. When law enforcement questioned Jay after the missing report was filed, Jay told them that he saw Tony at the store and he was looking for a ride back to his parents house or somewhere in New Hampshire. A man with a red truck was going to drive him there and that was the last time Jay saw Tony. When law enforcement asked Tony’s parents if this was something he would do, they disagreed. Tony would not show up in the middle of the night unannounced at their home.

His family believes that Tony was murdered because in March just after Ashley was killed, the family was watching the news together and when a news report aired, he told them that he had hung out with Ashley and even said “I know the people who killed her”. He didn’t say who, just that he knew. They advised him to go to the police with the information or to never say anything again.

In an interview with True Crime Daily, they express their regrets about not making him immediately go to the police. They firmly believe that there is a direct connection between their son’s disappearance and Ashley’s murder. Law enforcement has not made a connection in an official capacity but they have expressed that they believe Tony is deceased and that Jay knows more than he has let on. Tony is still listed as missing.

In February 2001, at the 2 year anniversary, the Ouellettes filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Sanborns stating that the Sandborns should have contacted the Ouellettes when she showed up at their door that night. They also mentioned that they shouldn’t have let her sleep on a couch outside of the room of two sexually active older teen boys. They were not seeking money but wanted answers as to what happened to Ashley.

Daniel continued to deny any allegations that he was involved with Ashley and the Sanborns filed for bankruptcy putting the civil lawsuit on hold.

In May of 2001, Ashley’s father Bob died suddenly from a heart attack at 49 years old. He had no history of heart disease and many believed that he died of a broken heart. The stress of Ashley’s murder and the fight for justice killed him.

Lise continued fighting for Ashley and in February 2002, a judge dismissed the wrongful death lawsuit. The Sanborn’s lawyer claimed that the two families resolved the issue outside of court and that his clients “felt horrible” for Lise and Ashley’s little sister.

At the four year mark, police provided an update stating that tips were still trickling in but again the evidence was not present for an arrest.

Ashley’s story grows cold until 2015 when a new cold case unit was established in the Maine State Police. They pleaded with the public to come forward. Still no arrests were made.

In 2019 at the 20 year mark, Maine State Police shared that they believed they knew what happened to Ashley they just could not make an arrest because the evidence they had was not enough to be able to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

This is one of the cases that they just need ONE MORE PIECE. Or ONE MORE PERSON to say something.

Detectives believe that the person who killed Ashley was intimate in their relations due to the fact that she was strangled. They also have been quoted stating they were looking at a “Very small number of people who are responsible”. They did not specify if it was one person or more than one that they believed to be responsible.

When the Portland Press Herald released an update on the anniversary in 2019, they mentioned that the Sanborn brothers were still living with their parents in the same home on Mast Hill Road. Daniel had been in and out of prison for various charges including drug trafficking, drug possession, assault, theft, federal counterfeiting. Steven also had convictions of endangering the welfare of a child, theft, assault, drug possession, and DUI.

Just this month, NewsCenter Maine posted an update on the 25th anniversary of Ashley’s murder that despite a “Vigorous investigation and many interviews” Ashley’s case remains unsolved. They are still pleading with the public for help.

Tony is also still missing. Jay Carney died of a drug overdose in 2015. There is a $20,000 reward still available in both of these cases.

If you know anything, regardless of how small, it is time to be brave, step forward and share that information with law enforcement. You can contact the Maine State Police at 207.624.7074.

If you would like to support Ashley’s family, there is a Facebook page at “Remembering Ashley E. Ouellette”.

Sources:

Connerty-Marin, David and Ragland, Sarah, “Body of Saco teenager…”, Portland Press Herald, Feb. 11, 1999
Burnett, Lee, “Girl’s homicide stuns…”, Journal Tribune, Feb. 11, 1999
Bouchard, Kelley, “20 years later…”, Portland Press Herald, Feb. 10, 2019
N/A, “Teen girl at sleepover…”, True Crime Daily, Apr. 21, 2016
Williamson, Josh, “Police ask students…”, Journal Tribune, Feb. 12, 1999
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Bouchard, Kelley, “Parents offer $10,000…”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 19, 1999
N/A, “Police call slaying…”, Associated Press, Feb. 8, 2000
Bouchard, Kelley, “Girl’s slaying called…”, Portland Press Herald, Feb. 6, 2000
Kesich, Gregory, “Two unsolved cases…”, Portland Press Herald, May 20, 2000
Wells, Tammy, “Lawsuit seeks answers…”, Journal Tribune, Feb. 6, 2001
Merrill, Meadow Rue, “Someone killed our…”, The Boston Globe, Feb. 25, 2001
N/A, “Judge dismisses lawsuit…”, Portland Press Herald, Feb. 22, 2002
Merrill, Meadow Rue, “Lengthy ordeal”, The Boston Globe, Mar. 4, 2003
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Russell, Eric, “What happened to…”, Portland Press Herald, May 19, 2019

Maine : Ashley Ouellette

Maryland : Arlene Byrd & Antonio Smith

Louisiana : Nanette Krentel