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The summer of Audi means it's scenic route season. In an Audi, you can ignore the GPS and find your own adventures. Get into an Audi during the Summer of Audi sales event at your local Audi dealer and see where it takes you. On Monday, May 31st, 1971, the quiet of a dark late spring evening in Bangor, Maine was interrupted by frightened screams inside an Otis Street apartment building.
Though several residents would later report hearing the sounds of a woman in distress, no one called for help. No one picked up the phone to dial the police, and no one checked in on their downstairs neighbor, 84-year-old Charlotte Dunn, until the next morning when help would be a lost cause. Police had a prime suspect for Charlotte Dunn's murder the very first day of the investigation, but they'd need to pull some crafty police work to secure the hard evidence against him.
crafty, or maybe questionable police work, depending on who you asked at the time. A rampant rumor mill, contentious evidence, and a slippery suspect made for a complicated investigation as Bangor Police worked jointly with the Maine State Police Homicide Division on a case for the first time. Charlotte Dunn would see justice, but not without a fight. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Charlotte Dunn on Dark Down East.
On the night of May 31st, 1971, a young mother's ears picked up an unusual sound. She was accustomed to the whimpers and cries of her infant. She even learned to interpret a hungry cry from a pained or tired one. But the noise she heard wasn't any of those sounds, and they weren't coming from her baby. She later described what she heard to Bangor Daily News writer John Day.
First, she heard screams with a loud banging and then, quote, low growling sounds like an animal or some kind of wild dog, end quote. The neighbor, identified only by her first name, Ann, thought the noises might be coming from the basement of the building. The old furnace was known to clang and groan as it fired up, but not the screaming. That certainly wasn't the furnace. Ann took her tiny baby into her arms and stepped out into the hallway.
She told John Day that she noticed the front door of the building was open. As she stood outside the door of a neighboring flat on the first floor, the growling noise grew louder. Her heartbeat rose into her ears. She was suddenly acutely aware of her vulnerability, standing there with her child pressed against her chest. Quote, End quote.
She did not call the police. Anne watched out the window from her pitch black apartment for any sign of an intruder fleeing on foot.
Had someone left the Otis Street building and turned left down State Street, Anne would have seen the person. But she didn't see anything. Not even a shadow, she told John Day. Her husband returned home from work 15 minutes later, and he didn't see anyone either. The next morning, Anne went with her mother and two brothers to take a look in the hallway near the apartment where she had heard the frightening noises the night before.
They noticed that the door was scratched and it was cracked on one side, but still locked. Anne spoke with other tenants in the building that morning and several of them reported hearing the noises and screams coming from Charlotte's apartment too. The residents of 11 Otis Street in Bangor, Maine would later tell reporters, "...at the time we thought it could have been a fight between a man and his wife. We were not sure whether the noise came from upstairs or from the Dunn apartment."
and still nobody called for help by 11 a.m the next morning the whole building learned the source of those sounds their neighbor charlotte dunn was dead 83 year old charlotte a dunn is described in nearly every media report at the time as a spinster
It's an outdated and derogatory term for an older, unmarried woman. Out of curiosity, I researched the origins of this word. It has its roots all the way back to mid-1300s England, when unwed women were automatically assigned a lower status by society. Also in those times, your occupation was often used as a surname. Think Smith, Tanner, Baker. And so spinster was used as a surname on legal documents for people who performed combing, carpentry,
carting, and spinning wool. And those people happened to be unmarried women because the occupation did not require expensive equipment that only husbands could buy their wives.
By the 17th century, according to Merriam-Webster, the term spinster was used on legal documents to describe unmarried women regardless of their actual occupation. But let me emphasize, the use of the term spinster to describe Charlotte Dunn is not only degrading, it completely dismisses her vibrant life of service, her dedication to her extended family, and her apparent entrepreneurial spirit.
Charlotte was born and raised in the Bangor Brewer area and spent most of her life there. Charlotte had no children of her own, but she was close and very involved with her nieces and nephews and her grandnieces and grandnephews. She had most recently worked at St. John's Parish Rectory as a cook and was a member of the St. John's Parish Council of Catholic Women. Before that, she was a
Charlotte and her sister Sarah were cooks for former Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall and former governor of the same state. In the 30s, just before World War II, Charlotte and Sarah operated a tea room together in Bar Harbor. Though it appeared Charlotte was slowing down her professional endeavors as an octogenarian, she supported and volunteered for many local charities close to her heart. She was still active with her church, attending mass several times a week.
Charlotte lived just a half mile from that church in an apartment at 11 Otis Street in Bangor. The building had 12 flats and hers was made up of one open room furnished with a bed and television, a dresser and wardrobe, two chairs, a table, and some houseplants with a small shared bathroom and kitchen.
Your home should be your safe space. Comfort and security are requisite. But for the last year of her 16 years on Otis Street, Charlotte Dunn lived in fear in her own home. On April 24th, 1970, a man stood in the hallway just outside Charlotte Dunn's apartment.
Without a word, he pushed Charlotte back into her apartment and exposed himself to her. According to reporting by John Day for the Bangor Daily News, Charlotte ran from the man, escaping into an adjacent apartment that shared a bathroom with hers. Her neighbor scared off the man before he could cause any further harm. Charlotte called the police and reported the attack, giving the best description she could
But her memory was clouded by fear. All she could tell them was that he was young, perhaps 30 years old, with a medium build and dark hair. After that, Charlotte reported up to 10 occasions of a peeping Tom lingering outside her windows and creeping around the building.
Each time she reported it to Bangor police, they'd come check it out but found nothing. Patrolman William Collins, who happened to be Charlotte's nephew, told the BDN, quote, I began to think maybe it was all in her mind. The boys came up here, but there was no indication of anything, end quote. But Charlotte wasn't the only person reporting a man prowling around and exposing himself to people in the east side of Bangor in late 1970 and early 1971.
A man matching the description of Charlotte's attacker had also exposed himself to other women and even children in the neighborhood. Because the description was so general, police told the Bangor Daily News, they couldn't be sure if there was one or many culprits.
Police noted that in two of the attacks, witnesses said the man took off in a blue and white Chevrolet station wagon. In two other incidents, the man drove a pickup truck. In at least one of the reports, the man fled in his car down Otis Street after exposing himself to two junior high school students.
Ever since that first night when the man accosted her in the hallway, Charlotte was extremely cautious about answering the door, especially since no culprit was ever apprehended for that incident or the many others. But a neighbor later told the Bangor Daily News that, despite her caution and fear, Charlotte only knew kindness. She was one of the nicest women you could ever meet, said a tenant of the 11 Otis Street apartment building. Quote,
"...so nice that she might open her door to somebody who gave her a convincing story." That same neighbor also said that Charlotte routinely shut off the hallway light just outside her apartment door at 11 p.m. every night. That was around the same time neighbors reported hearing screams, on May 31st, 1971.
On Monday morning, Memorial Day, May 31st, 1971, Charlotte attended Mass at St. John's Catholic Church at 9.30 a.m. and then visited a family plot at the adjoining cemetery. Although it was a holiday that day and Charlotte's day didn't appear to hold much more than her morning activities at church, the rest of her week was shaping up to be quite busy. She planned to attend her grandniece's wedding in Holton the coming weekend and had bought a new dress and
and made an appointment at the beauty parlor to get her hair freshened up the following morning for the occasion. But when her 10 o'clock appointment on Tuesday, June 1st rolled around, Charlotte didn't show up. A chain of telephone calls began to check in on her.
The wife of Charlotte's grandnephew called her sister, who had a key to the Otis Street building where Charlotte lived. That sister gave the key to her daughter Mary Lou and her son-in-law William Armez and asked them to go and see if Charlotte was home. According to the Bangor Daily News, Charlotte's apartment was locked when William and Mary Lou arrived at Otis Street.
Her morning newspaper was still sitting outside the door. William and Mary Lou knocked several times, but there was no response from inside the apartment. They were immediately struck with worry that perhaps Charlotte had suffered some sort of medical event, maybe a heart attack. So William began ramming the door with his shoulder until it crashed open. That's when William saw Charlotte laying lifeless on the floor in her nightclothes.
He turned to Mary Lou, saying "don't look" as he slammed the door on what he just saw. William yelled into the hallway for someone to call the police. Bangor police found Charlotte Dunn laying on her back, her head just inches from the door of her apartment with her legs and arms outstretched. Her apartment was relatively undisturbed, except for two dining chairs that were pushed out of place from their usual spot at the table and a broken candle laying on the ground.
Evidence technicians collected a number of items and photographed Charlotte Dunn's apartment, as well as dusted for fingerprints on the door and surfaces inside the apartment. They collected fingernail scrapings and paint chips found underneath Charlotte's body.
The evidence would be processed in the State Police Crime Lab in Augusta. Meanwhile, pathologist Dr. Rudolph Eyre performed the autopsy and found Charlotte's cause of death to be strangulation. Further testing was scheduled to determine if Charlotte had been sexually assaulted. Who would kill an 83-year-old woman and why?
Authorities considered a motive in the case, theorizing at first it was a robbery turned deadly. According to reporting by John Day for the Bangor Daily News, Charlotte Dunn used to collect the rent payments from the other tenants in the building at the end of the month, but she hadn't done that in nearly two years. Besides, there was another more obvious path the investigation could follow.
the man who had attacked Charlotte a year earlier, and her numerous reports of a young, dark-haired prowler. Did that man, the one that authorities could never find, come back to find her, his indecent exposure escalating to murder?
On the first day of the investigation, police questioned several men about the killing, including men with histories of sexual offenses. According to the Bangor Daily News, one of the men questioned was also previously charged with beating an elderly woman. When police pulled him in for an interview about Charlotte Dunn, they noted several visible scratches on his body. This man and the others brought in for questioning, however, were not named or labeled as suspects in public reports.
Investigators believed that fingerprints collected at the scene would ultimately narrow down the suspect pool. Two state troopers were tasked with the painstaking fingerprint analysis process, comparing prints lifted at the scene of Charlotte's murder with fingerprints on file from previously convicted criminals, with priority on those who had been convicted of high and aggravated assault and battery. Other evidence and prints were sent to the FBI laboratories in Washington for additional analysis.
While the prints were processed and authorities hoped for a match, the residents of Bangor took precautions to protect themselves in the meantime.
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Charlotte Dunn's murder left the people of Bangor on edge. David Bright reported for the Bangor Daily News that a pet store at the Union Mall fielded a request from a woman looking to buy a dog trained to kill. The pet store didn't have any, but offered to help source one from a training school for a fee of $500. Others went to local animal shelters in search of German shepherds and other canines known for guarding their humans.
Police in nearby Old Town received a call from a woman who wanted to learn self-defense techniques. She informed the officer that she found a pen that shot tear gas and planned to buy one. At Morrison's gun shop, cans of mace were flying off the shelves. An elderly woman walked into the shop carrying her late husband's revolver. It was in need of repair. She wanted it for self-preservation, she said. Quote, I'll keep it loaded, and I know how to use it, too. End quote.
The citizens of Bangor had every reason to be on high alert because the reports of strange men exposing themselves did not stop with the investigation into Charlotte Dunn's murder. On Friday, June 4th, Bangor police responded to a report of a young man walking naked along Church Road.
When police responded to the area, they found a man matching the description of the report, except he was wearing clothes. Officers asked him if he'd recently been walking around naked, and he said that he'd taken off his pants to get rid of a bug that had crawled inside. The man did not present any identification at the time, and it appears no charges were filed. The Bangor Daily News Police Beat headline read, "'Maybe it was ants in his pants.'"
In the days following Charlotte's murder, police received an influx of other previously unreported incidents of men exposing themselves and peering into windows. The flood of tips made for a lot of legwork, but police ran down every bit of information they received, no matter how unlikely it sounded. But a week later, the Bangor Daily News reported that authorities could reveal no developments or suspects, and they'd made no arrests in the killing of Charlotte Dunn.
Police had ruled out robbery as a motive too, because nothing was missing from Charlotte's flat, not even the watch on her wrist, which was of notable value. Following the results of the final autopsy report, police were convinced of their earliest hunch that their perp was a quote-unquote sexual deviant. Although pathologists didn't find any evidence of rape, they were of the opinion that Charlotte Dunn had been sexually molested in some way.
These days, Bangor police investigate their own homicides. But a week into Charlotte Dunn's case in 1971, the Attorney General's Office assigned a newly formed, specialized homicide squad of state police detectives to assist in the investigation.
According to reporting by John Day for the Bangor Daily News, this case was the first time that Bangor police did not have full jurisdiction over a homicide in their city. Still, it was a cooperative effort with one common goal. Get Charlotte Dunn's killer off the streets.
Over two weeks later, with still no arrests, the case received a tip from an interesting source, a so-called ESP expert from Southern Maine. Paul McCauley for the Bangor Daily News spoke with the man, who asked to remain anonymous to prevent an overload of inquiries. That always seemed to happen when he received any publicity for his extrasensory perception. McCauley reported that the man had previously assisted Maine State Police in other investigations,
and was impressively accurate on more than one occasion. Most notably, the man described the location and conditions of Mary Olinchuk before police discovered the young girl's body in a Kennebunkport barn.
As for Charlotte Dunn's killer, the ESP expert believed that he was probably 25 to 30 years old, of medium height and thin, with long dark hair and a prominent, sharp-ridged nose. He estimated that the man grew up somewhere within the grid of Broadway, Garland, Otis, and State Streets in Bangor. He believed the killer still lived in that area and was otherwise an unassuming, normal person until he, quote, "'goes off the deep end.'"
The man told John McCauley that Charlotte's killer had access to two cars. One was a blue over white Chevrolet station wagon and the other a pickup truck, but both of these details had previously been reported in the newspaper. Still, the man claimed that the cars belonged to a friend of the killer, who likely knew all about the murder but wasn't about to speak up. The cars were probably stashed away in a barn somewhere in Bangor, the ESP expert estimated.
The ESP expert also echoed a theory that authorities had considered, or at least acknowledged, from the very beginning of the investigation. The man believed that Charlotte Dunn's killer was also responsible for the death of another woman, named Effie McDonald, from several years earlier, and that he could strike again if not apprehended soon.
From the beginning, authorities admitted there were similarities between the killing of Charlotte Dunn and the still-unsolved 1965 homicide of Effie McDonald. On March 19, 1965, 54-year-old Effie McDonald was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in a vacant hotel room at the Bangor House where she worked as a chambermaid.
Though the case was still unsolved at the time of Charlotte's murder, and remains unsolved to this day, the Bangor Daily News reported in 1971 that authorities believed they knew who was responsible for Effie's murder. The suspect was described as a young man, 5 foot 10 inches tall, with brown hair and quote-unquote prominent brown eyes. Investigators did not deny that Charlotte Dunn's murder had several similarities to the death of Effie McDonald.
Both were older women. Both were sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The Bangor House Hotel at 174 Main Street was just over one mile away from Charlotte's Otis Street apartment building.
Plus, the description of the suspect in Effie's killing was similar to the description of the man who had exposed himself to Charlotte about a year before she was killed, though authorities made no statement at the time if that incident was conclusively linked to Charlotte's death.
Rumors like this one needed no additional encouragement to spread throughout the city of Bangor, but the assertion made by the ESP expert that Charlotte's killer was bound to strike again was like gasoline on an already blazing fire.
Investigating officer Thomas Landers of the Bangor Police Department started receiving phone calls at his house from citizens accusing the police of deliberately suppressing news about yet another murder, but there hadn't been another murder. The rumors were untrue, and they were beginning to impede the ongoing investigation as police chased down tip after tip, the unfounded information pouring in.
A month and a half into the investigation, authorities called for Charlotte Dunn's body to be exhumed for further testing and analysis. It was the first real update on the case in quite some time. There hadn't been much public discussion in weeks. Perhaps authorities were intentionally staying quiet so as to quell the rampant rumors and distracting theories that seemed to stem from any shred of detail released in the press.
But lack of public information did not mean the case was stagnant behind the scenes. Unbeknownst to the general public, authorities were just days away from an arrest thanks to an encounter with their prime suspect, which would lead to a contentious piece of new evidence.
According to reporting by Paul McCauley for the Bangor Daily News, 30-year-old Robert Inman was considered a suspect early on by Bangor police, as soon as an hour into the investigation before Charlotte's body was even removed from the scene. The evidence against him at the time was largely circumstantial, though. His physical description matched that of the man who had previously attacked Charlotte and
He used to live in the building, he had a questionable alibi for the night of the murder, and his criminal history aligned with the M.O. Inman used to live at the 11 Otis Street apartment building with his wife about two years earlier, around the same time that Charlotte Dunn was responsible for collecting rent payments on behalf of the landlord. It was assumed that Robert knew Charlotte and could have known her habits and routines.
Inman was also previously arrested and charged with indecent exposure in 1963. He was sentenced to two years for that offense, but the term was suspended.
In September of 1970, he was questioned as a suspect in an attack on a 70-year-old woman in nearby Holden. He ordered the woman to throw her purse out the window and threatened to burn her house down. When she reached for the phone, he yelled that he'd already cut the phone lines. The woman would ultimately chase him off with a revolver she kept at her bedside. Though Inman was picked up for questioning about this incident and managed to escape police custody in the process,
The woman couldn't positively identify Inman, and so no charges were ever filed. John Day reported for the Bangor Daily News that Robert Inman had other offenses to his name too, but it appears Inman never served any time behind bars. All of his sentences were suspended in favor of probation only. Then there was Inman's alibi for the night of May 31, 1971. It was shaky at best.
When he was first picked up for questioning as part of the Charlotte Dunn investigation, he told police he was home all night until he left for work the next morning. However, a friend of Inman's told police that on the night of the murder, he and Inman were actually drinking at a bar on State Street called Oasis until about 10.45 p.m. Police asked the friend if Inman had any scratches on him.
But the friend said that Inman was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and he didn't recall seeing any scratches or marks on his arms or hands. After a few rounds of pool, the friend said he dropped Inman off at home in Holden, about nine miles away from Otis Street in Bangor.
A statement by Robert Inman's wife described a similar timeline, that Inman left home around 5 p.m. and returned home sometime between 10.30 or 11 p.m. She fell asleep soon after he returned. What he did after making it back to his house in Holden was of particular interest to police because, according to court records, Inman pointed out some scratches on his arm's neck and face to his wife the next morning, saying he got them installing a fence around the house.
The circumstantial evidence against Robert Inman was compelling, but authorities would need physical evidence to support their hunch. And that would eventually come from two palm prints lifted from Charlotte's apartment and around Charlotte's body.
But a palm print wasn't useful unless investigators had something to compare it to. And they apparently didn't have Inman's palm print already on file from his previous run-ins with the law. So, Maine State Police had to find a way to get it.
Nabbing Robert Inman for Charlotte Dunn's murder all started with a speeding ticket. On June 26, 1971, a Maine State trooper was tracking Inman's movements, following him in his car from Inman's house in Holden as Inman drove towards Bangor. As Inman turned onto State Street in the neighboring town of Brewer, he inched up and over the speed limit, giving the trooper cause to pull him over.
According to court documents, the trooper arrested Inman for speeding and brought him into the Bangor Police Department for finger and palm prints. Inman appeared in court a few days later, entering a plea of not guilty to the speeding charge, but was ultimately convicted and sentenced to a $15 fine. But police didn't really care about the speeding, not really. The primary focus was Inman's palm prints. Did they match the prints at the scene of Charlotte's murder?
A dactylography expert, an expert in fingerprint identification, compared the two sets of prints and found that Robert Inman's palm print was identical to the print found next to Charlotte Dunn's body. With that, police needed to collect another palm print from Inman, but this time with a search warrant as part of the homicide investigation. Authorities obtained and executed that search warrant on July 20th, 1971.
Two Maine State Police detectives flew to an FBI lab in Washington, D.C. with the fresh set of prints to confirm that the prints at the scene of Charlotte Dunn's murder did in fact belong to Robert Inman. The very next day, with final confirmation from an FBI fingerprint expert, police walked into the Maine Highway Commission office on Mount Hope Avenue where Robert Inman worked as a soils test technician and placed him under arrest for the murder of Charlotte Dunn.
The admissibility of the palm print evidence, the method police employed to collect the prints, and other issues concerning how authorities zeroed in on and secured the arrest of Robert Inman would later come up in pretrial proceedings. But in late July 1971, Robert Inman was finally in custody and awaiting his first of many days in court.
He spent the first night in an isolated cell at the county jail, and after hearing the charges against him in 3rd District Court in Bangor, Inman was held without bail.
At Inman's probable cause hearing, a judge heard evidence from the FBI fingerprint expert who matched Inman's palm print to the one found at the scene. According to reporting by Paul McCauley for the Bangor Daily News, Agent Robert Ratliff testified that typically in fingerprint analysis, eight points of similarity is usually enough to conclude a match. In this case, Agent Ratliff identified 35 points of similarity between the two sets of prints.
Inman was represented by defense attorneys Bartolo Siciliano and Marshall Stern. Siciliano questioned Agent Ratliff at the probable cause hearing, asking about the possibility of two people having the same palm print and how long prints might remain someplace, clearly trying to get at that those prints by Inman had been left long before the night Charlotte was murdered, possibly when he lived in the building two years prior.
But State Police Lieutenant Charles Bruton testified that he questioned Inman during the first days of the investigation, and Inman claimed he knew Charlotte when he lived at 11 Otis Street but never went inside her apartment back then. Robert Inman's friend, who was out drinking and shooting pool with him on the night of the murder, and Inman's wife also testified at the probable cause hearing.
She smiled at her husband from the witness stand as she explained he was always getting scratches and cuts on his hands and arms from doing yard work and projects around the house. The judge ultimately determined that there was probable cause to charge Robert Inman with murder, and his case was scheduled to be heard by a grand jury that fall and would proceed to trial soon after, if not for several incidents and delays along the way.
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On Sunday, November 28, 1971, flames leapt from the windows of a two-and-a-half-story apartment building on Otis Street in Bangor. A piece in the Bangor Daily News states that three engine companies and one ladder company fought the blaze for over two hours. Two firemen were injured as they knocked down the flames, but the residents of the seven occupied apartments at the time escaped unharmed.
With the fire extinguished, the Bangor Fire Department made sense of the scene. That's when they realized it was the very same building where Charlotte Dunn was murdered earlier that year. Damage to the building was categorized as extensive, leaving most of the residences uninhabitable and several families and individuals homeless. Charlotte's apartment, which had been sealed by the state attorney general as part of the murder investigation and pending trial, had been a sort of ground zero for fighting the fire. Fire
firefighters had forced their way into the unit, leaving the once sealed and protected scene contaminated. The cause of the fire was under investigation. While the question of arson was raised, officials did not consider it a possibility at the time.
Meanwhile, Robert Inman's trial was slated for February in the coming year, and in preparation, his defense team filed several pre-trial motions, including a request for suppression of evidence. Inman's attorneys argued that the palm prints taken at the Bangor police station following Inman's arrest for speeding did not constitute probable cause for a search warrant for further palm prints, which were ultimately used to secure Inman's arrest on murder charges. They said the speeding ticket was a quote-unquote
Superior Court Justice Harold Rubin heard the argument and decided the defense team actually made a solid point. According to the Bangor Daily News, Rubin agreed that the methods of obtaining the palm print evidence were questionable, and he submitted the issue to the state Supreme Court to consider the legality of it all.
This motion effectively delayed the trial just days before its scheduled start date in February of 1972. But the even bigger implication of the ruling by Judge Rubin was that if the Supreme Court found the evidence was not obtained legally, the charges against Robert Inman could be dropped for lack of evidence. The case largely hinged on those palm prints, which supported the pieces of circumstantial evidence.
The Maine Supreme Court wouldn't hear the issue until the fall term, and so Inman remained in custody. The Bangor Daily News reported that a few months later, in April of 1971, Robert Inman was sent to the Bangor State Hospital for observation and an evaluation of his mental condition, which appears to have been a routine part of the pretrial process.
At the time, the state hospital had a pass system, which allowed any patient, regardless if they had charges against them, to request a pass, which allowed them to wander the hospital grounds. Robert Inman requested, and was granted, one of these little yellow slips, which operated on a trust system that the patient would return to their room as scheduled. Inman's was a two-hour pass, and he should have been back at his room by 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 5th,
But instead, he and another patient decided to break that trust. On Wednesday, April 5th, Robert Inman and Gary Vigieu walked away from the state hospital undetected at first. It wasn't until five hours later, two hours after Inman's past expired, that hospital officials contacted the police. Bangor police launched a massive manhunt for the two patients in the greater Bangor and Brewer area.
Finally, at 7 p.m. the same day, Inman and Vigou were apprehended in the parking lot of Tech Baring Co. in Brewer. The pair had stolen a beer truck from the pub in Bangor and were throwing back a few cold ones together.
The Morning Sentinel reported that County Attorney David Cox was not aware that the hospital had this PASS system in place and was shocked that a man charged with such a violent homicide could be granted free reign of hospital grounds which were not fenced or enclosed in any way. The superintendent of the hospital said that it wasn't their concern what their patients were charged with, telling the Morning Sentinel, quote, "...what they are charged with is not our problem."
Our problem is with their mental condition. They receive the same privileges as any other patient." End quote. Further investigation of the incident revealed that Inman had been granted numerous passes during his over two weeks at the state hospital and had returned as scheduled each time before.
Assistant Attorney General Richard Cohen intended to review the past system with the Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health and Corrections before determining if Inman and Vigou should be charged with escape or anything else. It was a gray area since technically they were granted permission to wander.
Two days later, the AG's office determined that Inman and Vigueux would not be charged with escape. The same day, the state hospital superintendent, whose idea it was to institute such a policy, announced the immediate suspension of the PASS system for alleged criminals, while simultaneously defending the policy in other instances.
Paul McCauley reported for the Bangor Daily News that the following week, the psychiatrist who signed the pass for Robert Inman, a Dr. John E. Turner, had resigned from the state hospital, citing his intentions to return to private practice.
Somehow, his escape from the state hospital wasn't Robert Inman's only attempt at evading his pending murder trial. While a ruling on the palm print evidence still lingered, pushing the trial date back even further, Inman remained in custody at the Penobscot County Jail in January of 1973.
Paul McCauley reported that on January 24th, Inman and another inmate went to the dispatcher's office to collect their nightly medication. Once inside the office, instead of taking their pills, Inman and the other inmate began beating the deputy on duty with the leg of a wooden stool. The deputy was able to escape and radio for help as the two inmates ran away, encountering a guard on their way through the cell block. Inman tried to lock the guard in a cell, but
but was unsuccessful thanks to another inmate preventing him from closing the door. Ten minutes into the escape attempt, Inman and the other inmate were restrained and placed in isolation cells.
Inman wasn't done wreaking havoc, though. He plugged the cell toilet with blankets, causing a flood that damaged the toilet and two mattresses. The next day, deputies found civilian clothes stashed in a hamper, apparently the outfits Inman and the other inmate intended to wear on their way out of jail. Inman continued to be an issue, but at long last, the trial, now nearly two years delayed, was about to move forward following a court decision.
The Maine Supreme Court finally ruled on the admissibility of the palm print evidence, though the final decision was impounded at the time. Public court records now unsealed indicate that the Supreme Court found the collection of Inman's palm prints following his arrest for speeding was authorized within the fingerprint statute and that his arrest for that infraction was not a quote-unquote sham arrest, as his lawyers argued.
The court also found that the term fingerprints could be construed to also include palm prints, and that the collection of the prints in this case met all three requirements of the statute. That A, fingerprints were to be used to identify the person in custody, B, they would be recorded and used in the investigation of crimes and the prosecution of criminals, and C, they would be used to identify fugitives from justice.
With that, the motion to suppress the palm prints was denied, and Robert Inman's trial for the murder of Charlotte Dunn finally began with jury selection on Monday, February 26, 1973.
On the first day of the trial, following final jury selection, the jurors loaded onto a bus for a trip to 11 Otis Street, where they viewed the scene of Charlotte Dunn's violent death. The trial was expected to take a week or longer, and this was the beginning of the state's demonstration of the evidence against Robert Inman.
The state continued to argue their case, calling several witnesses to the stand to testify what they heard and saw on the night of May 31, 1971 and the morning after.
Lieutenant Charles Bruton testified that Inman voluntarily submitted to questioning the day after the murder, knowing he was a suspect, and that Inman denied ever being in the room with Charlotte Dunn. Bruton also testified to seeing scratches and marks on Inman's hands, cheek, and neck on the morning of June 1st.
Of course, the previously debated palm print evidence was introduced at trial, with the fingerprint expert testifying to the match made in an advanced FBI crime lab in Washington. Deputy Attorney General Cohen told the jury that the position of the print, found on the right side of Charlotte's body, could have only been left by her killer. The state rested their case, turning the floor over to the defense, who planned to call several of Robert Inman's family members to the stand.
Paul McCauley detailed the court proceedings for the Bangor Daily News, reporting that Inman's parents both took the stand for the defense and testified that on May 31, 1971, he and his wife and child spent the day with them at Pushaw Lake. They also testified that Inman had an acne condition and that he was known to scratch and pick at his neck and face until the marks bled, which could explain what the detectives saw the day Inman was questioned.
Inman's wife also testified on Inman's behalf, saying that on the night of the murder, Robert did go into Bangor for drinks, but he returned home at 10.45 p.m., and she was certain he did not leave again. The friend that Inman reportedly had drinks with that night testified too, echoing the time frame. Inman himself, meanwhile, did not testify in his own defense.
The case was finally turned over to the jury for deliberation on Thursday, March 8th, 1973. It had been almost two years since that terrible night when Charlotte Dunn's cries for help went unanswered, her life ending within the four walls of her own home after a year of living in fear. It only took the jury 50 minutes to reach their verdict, finding Robert Inman guilty of homicide.
At his sentencing a few days later, Inman received a mandatory life term at Maine State Prison. Robert Inman would go on to challenge his sentencing and appeal the jury's verdict, citing the rapid deliberations as reason enough to throw out the conviction and revisit the case. The courts disagreed, though. Robert Inman, to the best of my research and knowledge, remained in prison until his death. There are no records of a Robert Inman currently in Maine State Prison.
Charlotte A. Dunn had just one immediate family member surviving when she was killed, a sister named Marguerite. But Charlotte's loss was a heavy blow to the many nieces, nephews, and grandnieces and nephews she was close to. In an article in the Bangor Daily News, there's a photo of one of Charlotte's grandnieces hugging Officer William Collins, who was also Charlotte's nephew. They were consoling each other for their mutual loss.
In covering this case, I think about the grandniece whose wedding was just days away. Charlotte would have been there to celebrate the nuptials with a brand new dress and a fresh hairdo, if not for the man who selfishly chose to end her life. Instead, her seat was empty, her dress unworn.
With each case I cover, I ask why over and over again. But there is no acceptable answer to that one-word question because the taking of an innocent life is always senseless. It is a vile act that defies reason, compassion, and the sanctity of life itself. Charlotte's life, every life, holds inherent worth, a tapestry of experiences, dreams, and connections that should be cherished and nurtured.
Murder tears through this delicate fabric with callous disregard, leaving behind a trail of shattered families, inconsolable grief, and unfulfilled potentials. But Charlotte Dunn's legacy is much more than how her 83 years concluded. Hers was a life of service and of charity, of dedication to family, and of kindness, even if a knock on her door would not match it. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East.
Sources cited and referenced for this episode are listed at darkdowneast.com. Please follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. And if you could, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I love to hear what you think of the show and what you want to hear next, and reviews are really the best way to support this show and the cases I cover.
If you have a personal connection to a case and you want me to cover it on this podcast, please contact me at hello at darkdowneast.com. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and homicide cases. 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.
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