The Murder of Holly Jean Cote (Massachusetts)

It was a Saturday night, and she’d just clocked out of work to join a group of friends down the street for drinks at a favorite local watering hole. Later, when Holly Jean Cote left that bar in the early hours of March 4, 1984, she was expected to meet at a friend’s house for a nightcap, but Holly never made it.

Since the earliest days of her disappearance, investigators have had a leading theory about what happened when she left the bar and who was involved, but proving it beyond a reasonable doubt is a different story. The suspect might not be going anywhere anytime soon, but for those who know and love Holly, they want the person responsible for her death to be held accountable.

Disappearance

As Saturday night, March 3, 1984 spilled over into the early hours of Sunday, March 4th, 28-year old Holly Jean Cote was finishing up a shift waiting tables at the Mahaki Restaurant in South Gardner, Massachusetts and she was ready to unwind with some friends. Holly had a 6-year old daughter and she’d been on her feet all night, so a drink and some socialization was definitely in order. According to reporting by Jason Feifer and Lisa D. Welsh for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Holly hopped in her 1969 Pontiac Tempest and drove about a half mile away from the restaurant to Mister D’s bar on Central Street in Gardner. She parked in a lot behind the building and headed inside to join the festivities.

When bartenders at Mister D’s announced last call around 2 a.m., Holly wasn’t ready to end the night just yet. According to an Associated Press report in the Athol Daily News, Holly’s friend Katie had invited her and one other person over for a night cap, and Holly said she’d be there. 

Katie waited and waited for Holly and the other person to arrive, the early morning hours creeping closer to sunrise with each tick of the clock, but they never showed up. 

I don’t know what went through Katie’s head that night. I don’t know if she worried about Holly or dismissed her absence as a simple change in plans. Maybe she thought Holly decided to turn in for the night after all, to get at least a few hours of sleep before the demands of motherhood were on her shoulders once again. 

But the next morning, Holly wasn’t at her home on Graham Street that she shared with her husband and daughter. Her car wasn’t parked outside and there was no indication that she’d come home at all after leaving Mister D’s bar. Holly’s husband, Joseph Cote, tried to track her down himself that morning. He drove by the bar and discovered that the Pontiac was right where Holly had left it in the parking lot hours before. Holly wasn’t anywhere to be found. With that, Joseph contacted police to report his wife missing.

Search Efforts & Discoveries

There was nothing about the circumstances of Holly’s life that had her family and friends thinking she would’ve up and left without telling someone. According to an Associated  Press report in the Boston Globe, when her sister, Theresa, learned that Holly didn’t come home, she was immediately fearful that something terrible had happened. Theresa said she talked on the phone with Holly every single day, and she knew that Holly loved her daughter, loved her husband, loved her whole family, so an unexplained absence could only mean that she wasn’t missing of her own free will.

Searching began around the small town of Gardner. Between law enforcement and volunteers supporting Holly’s family, about 50 people began combing wooded areas and the river banks, eventually stretching into the neighboring town of Templeton. During a search on Wednesday, March 7th, a significant amount of blood was discovered about 10 feet from the banks of the Otter River in Templeton. Samples of the blood were collected for testing.

Law enforcement took Holly’s disappearance seriously, stating that it was being treated more than a quote-unquote “standard missing persons case”, yet they hadn’t uncovered any conclusive evidence of foul play either. Testing on blood discovered near the river was determined to be from a dog, not a human.

Search efforts continued for over a week, and by March 12, police were saying that the Gardner area was pretty much exhausted without clues that led to Holly’s whereabouts. While law enforcement planned to expand the search into other areas, Holly’s family continued their own efforts, too, unwilling to rest until they could find and bring her home. 

Gardner was a true small-town community where people supported one another. As Holly’s family navigated the unknown, a local business owner donated $1000 to launch a reward fund. Soon after, donations were pouring in, raising the reward for information to $5000. But if any tips resulted from the promise of a payday, that’s not public information at this point. Months went by without any public updates in her case. 

Detective Sargent Richard Morrissey of the Gardner Police Department said in a March 9, 1984 article, “Maybe she’s been kidnapped, maybe she’s been held up somewhere. When you look at it, she’s a happily married girl. There’s no reason we could see she would leave. We’re nowhere. There are no leads whatsoever.”

It wasn’t until several months and bout of damaging torrential rain later that Holly’s whereabouts were finally discovered. 

Body Found

For six days in early June of 1984, Worcester county and other areas of Massachusetts were drenched with over seven inches of rain. The water levels of area rivers, including the Concord and the Charles, rose and crested, causing dangerous, damaging flooding in some towns. Residents were forced to evacuate while others were rescued from the rising waters. The conditions caused over $45 million in damage to farms, crops and roads, leading Governor Michael Dukakis to declare a state of emergency in the Connecticut River Valley.

Upstream from the Birch Hill Dam fed by the Otter River in the town of Royalston, a typically small stream had flooded to create a nearly 2700 acre lake. A manager of the dam said that the water was at least 26-feet above normal levels. It was the most full that waterway had been since the dam was built in the early 40s. So, on June 4, 1984, as the rain tapered off but before the flood waters had totally receded, some people decided to seize the opportunity for a unique adventure on this temporary lake.

Rowing in an area that was usually a shallow, murky swampland, two canoeists navigated around sunken trees. But their trip that day became memorable for an entirely different reason when they spotted the body of a woman wedged between two trees. The body was nude and appeared to have been in the water for quite some time. The people in the canoes didn’t know what to do. Calling for help wasn’t an option and they weren’t sure if they’d be able to navigate back to that exact spot if they left to contact police. According to reporting by Jason Feifer and Lisa D. Welsh for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the canoeists tied the body to their canoe and towed it to shore. When they reached park manager James Bacon, he called police.

Due to the state of decomposition, the medical examiner estimated that the woman had been in the water for at least a month, and the condition of the woman’s remains made visual identification impossible. The medical examiner hoped that dental records may be helpful to give this woman her name back…But investigators already had a hunch about who she might be.

At the time of the discovery, seven different missing persons cases of women who had disappeared within the previous 6 months, within a 45 mile radius, were still unsolved. Holly Jean Cote was among the list of women.

On June 6th, district attorney John J. Conte announced that dental records determined the body was Holly Jean Cote. While the medical examiner could not determine a conclusive cause of death, it was theorized based on autopsy findings that Holly had died from strangulation by asphyxiation. Her manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Holly Jean Cote’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.