The Murders of Cynthia Kane-Clark & Dawn Shippee (Rhode Island)
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When friends Cynthia Cain Clark and Don Shippey both turned up the victims of homicide, one after the other, in the same two-month span, investigators were faced with a complex investigation. It's now been over 20 years since the two women were killed in neighboring Rhode Island towns, and police are still looking for answers. I'm Kylie Lowe, and these are the cases of Cynthia Cain Clark and Don Shippey.

On Dark Downies. In the fall of 2002, 27-year-old Cynthia Kane Clark, who went by Cindy, was getting back on her feet. According to reporting by Megan Wims for the Providence Journal, Cindy's friend said she was a good-hearted, giving person. But she also had a rough life.

Her childhood was spent between foster homes, and as an adult, her marriage ended in a difficult divorce. Substance use disorder had played a recurring role in her day-to-day, but she had recently sought treatment in a rehabilitation program. When she completed the program, Cindy found a new apartment for herself, where her kids could stay too. The apartment building sat at the corner of Washington and Nolan Streets in the Arctic area of West Warwick, Rhode Island.

The building had three floors plus a walkout basement level where Cindy's unit was located. One of the basement level doors led out to the large parking area behind the building. News reports indicate that this parking lot was often the scene of parties. People hanging out well into the early hours of the morning kind of thing.

West Warwick police records show that for the roughly six-month period that Cindy lived there, officers occasionally responded to the address to break up a crowd or to tell people to keep the noise down. However, on the morning of Saturday, November 9th, 2002, police were called to the building for much more than a noise complaint. According to reporting by WPRI, it was Cindy's young daughter who found her mother's body in the apartment.

When investigators arrived, it was obvious that Cindy was the victim of a gunshot wound. From that moment, her death was treated as a homicide. Local police said that it was Wes Warwick's first murder in about four years. The investigation into Cindy's murder began swiftly but quietly. Police weren't saying if they had a list of suspects or much else about what the search of the crime scene may have produced for clues as to who was responsible for the murder.

And although it had been reported that Cindy suffered an apparent gunshot wound, that wasn't immediately ruled her cause of death. Police said that the medical examiner's office could take as long as six months to determine the precise cause of death, pending toxicology results and other information. Neighbors in the building suggested that whatever happened to Cindy had actually started the night before.

One tenant in the building reported hearing an argument in the parking area outside the apartment on Friday night. The neighbor said he then saw a man with blood on his hands being taken away in handcuffs. Other neighbors described Cindy and that same man as best friends and that they were often seen on walks together with Cindy's kids.

Police did not confirm these stories from neighbors or comment on any police activity at the same building the night before Cindy was found dead. I requested records from the West Warwick Police Department for any incidents at Cindy's address on that Friday night, November 8th. The records clerk told me that they don't have any record of an incident or police responding to the Washington Street building on the night of November 8th.

So maybe this story about Cindy's male best friend in handcuffs isn't accurate. About five days later, police were reassuring West Warwick residents that Cindy's death was not a random act. Police Chief Peter Brousseau said that it wasn't like someone was out there on a killing rampage. And yet, they also hadn't yet arrested anybody for the murder.

Police were continuing to follow a few leads but appealed to the public for more information about the days and hours before Cindy was killed. Meanwhile, police were interviewing possible witnesses as well as those closest to Cindy, including a friend she reportedly met in the treatment program. Her name was Dawn Shippey.

According to witness statements summarized in an affidavit by Detective Robert DeCarlo, 30-year-old Dawn Shippey met Cindy while they were both at a treatment facility in Providence about five or six months before Cindy's death. They became friends, close enough that when Dawn and her husband separated, she stayed with Cindy at her apartment in West Warwick. But something happened during their few months of friendship.

There's a record of at least one argument breaking out loud enough for the police to show up. On October 13th, 2002, a West Warwick police officer responded to Cindy's apartment building around 2 a.m. for a noise disturbance call. A brief narrative of the incident by the officer states that Cindy was in an argument with her friend Don. Both were intoxicated and Cindy wasn't letting Don get behind the wheel of a car.

The officer asked the women to keep it down and both went back inside for the night. A few hours later, West Warwick police responded to a second noise complaint at the building. But this time, her reports have allowed party in the backyard. Neither Cindy nor Dawn's name is referenced in the report of the incident. It's around this time in the weeks leading up to Cindy's death that a witness says Dawn had started seeing the father of one of Cindy's children.

Cindy wasn't happy about it and reportedly told the man that if he didn't end things with Don, she wasn't going to let him see their child anymore. And it sounds like the guy did try to break up with Don, which triggered an argument between Don and the man. He told her to never come back. A witness, who happened to be a different man Don had previously dated, said the argument and breakup left Don extremely upset and convinced nobody liked her.

The same witness also told police that the night before Cindy was found dead in her apartment, he had spent the night with Don. The witness stated to police that at several points during that night, he woke up to find Don fully clothed and standing over the bed unable to sleep. The man went back to bed after Don said she was going to find a sleeping pill. When he woke up a few hours later at 6 a.m., he sensed something was off.

He said that his car keys were on the floor, not in his jeans where he'd left them, and the front seat of his car was moved up closer to the steering wheel. He asked Dawn if she had driven his car somewhere, but she said no. He also said he noticed that someone used his cell phone while he was sleeping.

Court documents state that when a West Warwick police detective interviewed Dawn a few days into the investigation, she confirmed that this man, the witness, had spent the night at her house the night of Cindy's murder. Dawn also stated that she'd been getting some strange prank phone calls ever since Cindy was murdered, and she thought they were coming from the father of Cindy's child. She also told them that the father of Cindy's child was at a friend's house on the night Cindy was killed.

Within a few hours of that interview, Dawn called police to report that she just got a phone call from an unknown woman who said the father of Cindy's child just called and asked that she called Dawn because he wanted her to go find a gun that he'd thrown into some bushes at the friend's house he was staying at on the night Cindy was shot. It was quite the game of telephone, but police followed up on Dawn's story.

An extensive three-hour search for the gun the next day at the precise location Dawn reported was unsuccessful. No gun. Meanwhile, police had encountered another potential problem with Dawn's story. They knew that the father of Cindy's child was with intake at the adult correctional institutions at the time he supposedly called the unknown woman. So he wouldn't have actually been able to make that call.

Interestingly, a few hours after police searched the bushes and surrounding area for a firearm allegedly connected to Cindy's murder, a kid getting off the school bus nearby managed to stumble upon a .32 caliber gun in the very spot that had been scoured by investigators earlier that day. Police stated in court documents that if the gun had been there all along, they would have found it.

The alleged love triangle between Don and Cindy and the father of Cindy's child, the bizarre, possibly false reports about a phone call and a gun in the bushes by Don, it was all part of mounting suspicion that Don may have had something to do with Cindy's death. So two and a half weeks after Cindy was killed, police searched Don's residence at Fairview Avenue in Coventry, Rhode Island.

The search warrant indicates investigators were looking for firearms, ammo, spent casings, and bullet fragments, as well as metal grinding tools. As a result of the search, they found and seized a single spent round of ball ammunition, two vices, a pair of gardening gloves, and Don's father's truck.

What investigators learned from that evidence, what it told them about Cindy's murder and Dawn's possible involvement in the case, is unclear. Because a month after the search of her home, Dawn was murdered too.

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She dropped her children off to see their father in Warwick before heading to the Middle of Nowhere Diner in Exeter, Rhode Island, about 15 miles away. She had breakfast with her father, Thomas Menard, who went by Tom. About 24 hours later, on Saturday, December 28th, Tom reported Dawn missing.

Around noon that Sunday, December 29th, a fisherman in a slow-moving, shallow spot along the Wood River in the Arcadia Management Area of Exeter, Rhode Island, cast his line into the water typically stocked with Atlantic salmon and trout, only to find something that didn't belong. There, in about three feet of water, he spotted the half-submerged body of a woman.

When investigators responded to the scene off Route 165, just about a thousand feet south of the Department of Environmental Management checkpoint, they noted that the woman's forehead was cut and bloodied, and she had bruises on her knees and cuts on the back of her head and ear, as well as her left palm. It wasn't immediately clear what caused her death. That would be for the medical examiner to determine. But it soon became obvious who this woman was.

She matched the description of Don Shippey, who had been reported missing the day before. The diner where she was last seen alive was less than five miles away from the spot where her remains were recovered. As the yellow crime scene tape went up, investigators combed the area for evidence and clues as to what happened to the woman.

They noted blood in the snow near where she was found, and about three miles away from the scene, police located Dawn's abandoned Dodge Caravan. There was blood on the steering wheel and behind the front passenger seat. Two coffee cups sat in the center console, which were collected as evidence. Rhode Island State Police were handling Dawn's case, and given the circumstances of where and how her body was discovered, foul play was suspected from the jump.

Meanwhile, West Warwick police were still investigating Cindy's murder a few towns over. Now with a person of interest in that case, also the victim of an apparent homicide, the investigations got significantly more complicated.

As of early January 2003, three detectives were still working Cindy's case. They'd interviewed over 60 people, and following Dawn's death, investigators returned to her residence for a second search. They collected discharge paperwork from a psychiatric hospital, apparently for Dawn, and a copy of Cindy's obituary that had been cut from the newspaper, among other items.

Though what significance those items held in Cindy's case aren't immediately obvious. Now, Dawn's residence at Fairview Avenue in Coventry, where she had lived with her estranged husband and their children, was owned by Dawn's father, Tom. Tom had lived in the same house with Dawn and her family at one point, too, though he had since moved in with his girlfriend in West Warwick.

From the investigation into Dawn's murder, state police could see that Dawn and Tom had talked on the phone several times leading up to the day he reported her missing. And he was among the last people, if not the very last person, to see her alive. When reporters from the Providence Journal spoke to Tom in the wake of the discovery of Dawn's body, he was reportedly shaken and confused by it all.

Tom remarked that she was a healthy, strong girl and a really good kid that gave him wonderful grandchildren. We don't know what's happened, he said. Within a few months, though, Tom himself was at the center of the investigation.

As reported by Keys News, on Wednesday, March 12, 2003, Tom Menard was on vacation with his girlfriend in Key West, Florida, having a poolside martini when detectives interrupted the evening. Law enforcement had been staking out the guest house at a South Street property to make sure he was home before approaching their suspect in the yard around 8 p.m. Tom was placed under arrest on weapon and drug charges out of Rhode Island.

charges that resulted from the investigation into the murder of his daughter, Dawn. A search warrant issued the day before Tom's arrest states that Rhode Island State Police searched Tom's home for any and all clothing he wore on December 27, 2002. That would have been the day, he says, he last saw Dawn alive.

Police were also after videos, written documents, receipts, firearms, cigarettes, and blunt force weapons that might pertain to Don's death. An additional search warrant issued the same day indicated that police also searched Tom's Chevy pickup for any and all human blood, hair fibers, fingerprints, saliva, blunt force instruments, dirt, dust, soil, documents, receipts, or any other evidence pertaining to the death of Don Shippey.

According to reporting by Megan Wims for the Providence Journal, during those searches, police found and seized a black club, a knife, camel cigarettes, and a small bag of white rocks, among other items. Investigators also found a small amount of weed, prescription painkillers, and a .44 caliber snub-nosed revolver in a drawer next to Tom's bed.

Dawn's cause of death still had not been publicly released by the medical examiner's office at the time of this search. However, the revolver was of particular interest to her murder investigation. According to an affidavit prepared by State Police Detective Benjamin Barney, Dawn had told her stepsister that if anything ever happened to her, quote, Tom did it, end quote.

She had given her stepsister a photo of a gun that matched the revolver seized in the search of Tom's house. Police had also collected Tom's hair, blood, and fingerprint samples as part of the investigation, and an affidavit shows that his fingerprints were found on one of the coffee cups found in Dawn's Dodge Caravan that was abandoned a few miles away from the site of her remains. The other cup had Dawn's fingerprints on it.

These were all compelling, if not alarming, details. But the arrest of Tom wasn't for the murder of his daughter. These were drug charges for the weed and prescription painkiller found at his house and firearms charges because in Rhode Island, those who have been convicted of a crime of violence either within Rhode Island or elsewhere cannot possess a firearm. And Tom was a felon.

Back in August of 1981, Tom was charged with arson for burning down a bar he owned in Wilcox, Arizona. He was convicted of that charge and served four years in prison. Arson is considered a violent crime under Rhode Island state law, so with the discovery of a revolver in his side table drawer, Tom was charged with possession of a firearm after committing a violent felony, which carried a two-to-ten-year prison sentence.

He was extradited and transported back to Rhode Island from Florida for his initial court appearance. He posted bail and was released to await further proceedings. The arson charge in Tom's past is interesting. Fire seemed to follow Tom wherever he went. Not only that, this wasn't the first time he was one degree of separation away from a homicide case either.

S. Robert Ciapponelli reports for the Providence Journal that less than three years earlier, on November 30th, 2000, Tom Menard woke up to the sound of smoke detectors blaring their unmistakable alarm and flames climbing the carpeted stairs from the finished basement of his house on Fairview Avenue. He tried to snuff out the fire, but was no match for the blaze, so he grabbed the phone to dial 911 sometime after 10 p.m.,

At the time, Dawn, her husband, and their kids lived upstairs in that house. But luckily, they were all able to safely escape along with Tom as firefighters arrived on the scene and began knocking down the flames that leapt from the front door.

By 1:30 a.m., the fire was fully extinguished. Around 3:30 a.m., Dawn's husband, who had been at the hospital with their youngest child for a precautionary evaluation, returned to the house and went inside to grab some of their things before going to stay with the rest of the family at a friend's house. A few hours later, just after 9 a.m. on December 1st, a second fire broke out at the Fairview Avenue house.

Reports state that this second fire seemed strange to fire officials since no one was home and the utilities had been turned off. Both fires originated from the basement, but the second started in a different location than the first, though it was unclear at that point the cause for either of the fires.

The house sustained smoke damage to the second floor and fire damage in the cellar in the first floor, but the fire chief thought it was salvageable and didn't need to be condemned. Tom wasn't so sure, and they'd lost almost everything in the fires. But he was just happy everyone was okay, he said.

An affidavit states that there were reportedly two more fires on separate occasions at the same house during the summer of 2002, and that Tom and possibly Dawn were under suspicion of arson. Neither were charged in connection with any fires at the Fairview Avenue house. However, police learned that Dawn and Tom had previously argued over the insurance payouts for at least one of the fires.

There's something else I learned about Tom Menard's past. Before the fires at his home in Rhode Island, and even before his arson conviction in Arizona, Tom had also been arrested and arraigned on charges of first-degree murder and robbery alongside his brother Bruce Dumaine. The pair were accused of killing a man named Frank Malloy in Tucson, Arizona, back in August of 1976.

According to reporting in the Arizona Daily Star by Jay Gonzalez, Frank's wife reported him missing on August 28th after he left home with thousands of dollars in cash the night before and never returned. About 11 days later, a man walking in the woods discovered Frank's body in a shallow grave. Frank died of two gunshot wounds to his torso and three to his head.

Police zeroed in on Tom and his brother Bruce based on phone calls between Frank and Tom on the night Frank disappeared. However, the charges against Tom were later dropped due to lack of evidence, and he went on to testify against his brother. Tom stated that he had set up a meeting with Frank on the night he disappeared because he'd lent Frank $1,000 to finance an alleged drug deal and hadn't been paid back.

The plan was to meet at a local restaurant so Tom could get the money back. He brought his brother along, but when they got there, the restaurant was closed, so the three men went to a bar instead. After that, Frank was never seen alive again. Other witnesses testified at trial that Bruce confessed to killing Frank during a seance-type ritual intended to summon Frank Malloy's spirit.

Witnesses to the confession said that Bruce claimed he did it for the money and he was very sorry he did it. He was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery and received a life sentence. It appears Tom left Arizona after that and settled down in Rhode Island at the Fairview Avenue home that he renovated himself.

the same house that nearly burned down several times, and where Dawn was living when she was reported missing by her father in December of 2002. In October of 2003, Tom Menard was finally arraigned on the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a painkiller, and possession of marijuana charges. He pleaded not guilty to all counts and then soon after filed a motion for dismissal,

His attorney argued that in the state of Arizona where Tom was convicted of arson, that charge is not considered a violent crime like it is in Rhode Island. So then, Tom shouldn't be charged with possession of a firearm after a violent felony if Arizona didn't consider him to be a violent felon. A Superior Court judge actually granted that defense motion to dismiss the firearm possession charge, but did not dismiss the drug-related charges.

The Attorney General's Office appealed this decision, arguing that since Tom was a Rhode Island resident, the laws of that state are what mattered, not Arizona where he was convicted. The state Supreme Court finally ruled on the case in 2006, and the gun charge against Tom was reinstated. It was sent back to Kent County Superior Court for trial, along with the two other pending charges for marijuana and prescription painkiller possession.

According to court records, the drug charges were ultimately dismissed, and Tom ended up pleading no contest to an amended charge of carrying a pistol without a license. The case was closed in 2007. Updates regarding the investigations into both Cindy Kane Clark and Don Shippey's murders had noticeably dropped off during this time. Both cases were still active, though, according to state police.

In January of 2004, Major Stephen O'Donnell told Megan Wims of the Providence Journal that he believed they even had enough to get an indictment, but nothing else. Not enough to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. He wouldn't name a suspect, though it wasn't hard to read between the lines. All while the drug and gun charges against Tom were pending, he was involved in a lawsuit of his own.

It turns out that Tom held a life insurance policy on his daughter Dawn, and after she was found dead, he intended to collect on that policy.

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Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com slash now to learn more and get started. That's sling.com slash now. Sling.com slash now. On April 16th, 2003, Tom Menard submitted a claim for the proceeds of a life insurance policy he held on his daughter, Dawn Shippey.

As was required to claim the insurance payout, Tom submitted a death certificate for Dawn, which stated that her cause of death was pending further studies. That line triggered an investigation by the insurance company, which revealed that Dawn's death was considered a homicide and the Rhode Island State Police investigation was ongoing.

On May 8th, 2003, the insurance company received a written letter from State Police Sergeant Kevin P. Hopkins stating that Mr. Thomas Leo Menard is a suspect in the homicide of his daughter, Dawn Shippey. With that, the insurance company couldn't determine if Tom was entitled to the proceeds of the life insurance policy, despite being the primary beneficiary.

Because under Rhode Island law, a beneficiary who murders the insured person is disqualified from receiving the payout. The contingent beneficiary, Don's mother, was deceased, and so if Tom was disqualified, the proceeds should go to Don's estate and the heirs of that estate. With that, on September 1st, 2006, the Prudential Insurance Company of America filed a complaint for interpleader relief in Rhode Island District Court.

Interpreter relief is a legal mechanism that helps resolve complex disputes over property or funds by involving the court to determine the rightful claimant as a way to protect the stakeholder, in this case the insurance company, from multiple liabilities.

Tom filed a counterclaim to this suit, saying the policy was sold and issued to him for his daughter Dawn on or around August 23rd, 1989. She would have been around 17 years old at the time. Tom maintained the payments and he had always been the primary beneficiary.

He claimed that Don's death was in fact an accidental death, and according to the terms of the policy, he was entitled to the face amount of $50,000 plus the accidental death benefit of $50,000 for a total of $100,000 plus interest. He demanded that the court order the insurance company to pay him what he was contractually owed.

But the insurance company was trying to conduct further investigation into Tom as a suspect for Don's murder, and they wanted him deposed. His deposition was scheduled for June 4th, 2007, and they set forth a list of interrogatories, or formal questions they had for Tom. The list included, did Tom's attorney inform him that state police considered him the number one suspect in Don's death?

Did Tom have an alibi for the night of Dawn's death? What was he doing on Saturday, December 28th through 11.47 a.m. on Sunday, December 29th? And the questions just continued in that vein. The day before the deposition was scheduled, Tom's legal team notified the insurance company's legal team that they weren't available and would need to reschedule. So a second date was set for a few weeks out.

But before that date came, Tom filed for a protective order to, in essence, protect himself from having to answer any questions. At a hearing on the protective order, Tom's attorney argued that the insurance company was only trying to investigate the murder of Don Shippey and Tom's possible involvement in it now to bolster their original refusal to pay back when Tom first filed for payment back in 2003.

which, according to cited precedents in court filings, you can't do that. You can't use new information to back up a claim made in the past, they said. A judge ultimately denied Tom's motion for protective order and said that he could be deposed at a later date with the understanding that he could also invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and could object to questions that might be covered by attorney-client privilege.

The deposition was scheduled now, a third time, for July 25th. Again, Tom's attorney wasn't available that day, so it was rescheduled again. But a few days prior, Tom filed for another protective order, stating that he hurt his knee at work and he was not well enough to testify at length in a deposition at that time.

The insurance company fought this protective order, saying that they'd seen no supporting documentation that Tom was so incapacitated that he couldn't answer any questions. And they even offered to do the deposition at his house so he could be where he was most comfortable. The court again denied Tom's motion and he was ordered to appear for a deposition.

Meanwhile, simultaneous to the effort to get Tom to answer questions about the murder of his daughter, the insurance company was asking similar questions of the Attorney General's Office and Rhode Island State Police. The AG and State Police mostly claimed law enforcement and other privileges in their responses, which eventually led to in-camera review of certain investigative materials,

This meant that files produced by state police and the AG's office relating to the investigation of Don's murder could be viewed in private by the court, and a summary of the contents could be released to the parties of the suit, but not the public. The summaries of the case file documents seem to have answered questions put forth by the insurance company to investigators. Questions like,

Did Tom ever refuse to answer a question while being interviewed by police in connection with Dawn's murder? Did he ever refuse to meet police as part of the investigation? Did he ever refuse to provide information or evidence? Did state police ever conclude that Tom wasn't cooperating fully with the investigation? The specific answers to those questions were, of course, redacted from court filings.

But in January of 2008, less than a month after that in-camera review of confidential materials, the life insurance case was settled. The terms of the settlement are sealed, but it appears that proceeds of the life insurance policy held on Don Shippey were distributed to somebody or multiple somebodies as a result of the settlement.

It's unclear from the available court documents if Tom Menard was ever actually deposed as part of the life insurance suit. But one of the only answers Tom ever gave to the interrogatories relevant to the topic of his daughter's murder was in response to this question.

Describe in full and complete detail your activities on Saturday, December 28th, 2002, from the moment you awoke, and on Sunday, December 29th, 2002, from the moment you awoke until 1147 a.m. December 28th, 2002, would have been the day Tom reported his daughter missing. The 29th was the day she was found missing.

Tom's answer to the question was, quote, I do not recall my actions from almost five years ago, end quote. To be clear, although Rhode Island State Police identified Thomas Menard as a suspect for Dawn's death, he has never been charged with murder for her death.

Although the revolver seized from his home was once at the center of police scrutiny in Don's murder, the medical examiner's office ultimately ruled her cause of death to be cranial and cervical spinal cord injuries due to blunt force trauma, hypothermia, and freshwater drowning, not a gunshot wound.

However, Don's friend Cindy Kane Clark did die from brain injuries and skull fractures resulting from a gunshot wound. And Tom Menard's name has been discussed in connection with Cindy's case too. The .32 caliber revolver found in the bushes as part of the investigation into Cindy's death was believed to be connected to Tom in some way.

However, it's impossible to ignore the fact that Dawn was once considered a suspect for Cindy's murder. She and Cindy had gotten into arguments. There was that situation with Dawn dating the father of Cindy's child and other evidence that cast suspicion her way. I'm not sure the status of that now, if Dawn is still a suspect after her death.

In recent years, whenever Dawn's case gets any publicity, investigators only say that her case could be connected to Cindy's murder. But do not elaborate further. West Warwick Police Detective Sergeant Thomas Nye told WPRI in 2019, "...it seems a little coincidental. Two friends, very short time apart, were both murdered."

In the years since she lost her mom, Cindy's daughter Katie has yearned to know why someone would take her mother's life, who she remembers as a good person who loved her two young children. Dawn's family members remember her generous and caring heart. A poem by one of Dawn's children was published in a local newspaper a year after she was killed. It reads, quote, My mom is high up in heaven and she is now at peace. No more pain or troubles, no more grief.

Police need the missing pieces that have eluded both investigations for over 20 years. If you have information relating to the murder of Cindy Kane Clark or Dawn Shippey,

please call the Cold Case Rhode Island tip line at 1-877-RISOLVE. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers.

I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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