The Disappearance of Marilyn Lehan (Maine)

It wasn’t unusual for months or even years to pass without contact between Marilyn Lehan and her family, but when her brother decided to make a spontaneous visit to Marilyn’s home in Maine one summer, it set off alarm bells. The stories about her last known whereabouts don’t make sense to her family, and at this point, no one knows for sure the last time she was seen alive.

The Motorcycle Trip

It was August of 2012 and Pat Lehan had already put thousands of miles on his motorcycle as he crossed the border into Maine. He was on a long-haul international trip with a group of friends, starting in Colorado and reaching as far east as Newfoundland, Canada before looping back west again. But as Pat turned onto Route 1 in Calais, Maine and ventured south, he was solo. He’d split off from the larger group to pay his sister and her husband a surprise visit. 

The last Pat heard from his younger sister, Marilyn Lehan, she was living in the town of Eastport about as Downeast as you can get. Pat followed his map towards Clark Street and his sister’s sprawling oceanfront property on Harris Cove. The house was set back from the road down a long gravel driveway. The tires on Pat’s motorcycle kicked up some dust as he coasted towards the shingled cottage. He was looking forward to catching up with Marilyn. It had been years since they last talked. 

Pat rapped on the front door and waited. A few moments passed and he knocked again, but no one answered. Glancing back towards Clark Street, Pat decided to check in with the nextdoor neighbors, reasoning that they might have an idea when Marilyn would return. 

The conversation that came next was more than Pat had bargained for.

“I wasn’t expecting this, but I sat down and had a long, probably a two hour conversation with them in their kitchen,” Pat continued. “And I was, you know, just astounded.”

According to the next door neighbors, who we’ll call by the fake surname, the Marsdens, Marilyn wasn’t going to answer the door at the house on Clark Street. She hadn’t lived there for years. Her husband was gone, too. The house had new owners, and where Marilyn went next, they really couldn’t be sure.

“That was a kind of really tough experience because I thought I was going to be able to meet up with them and everything and be hunky dory and things were okay. But they gave a lot of information that they thought was kind of suspicious,” Pat explained. “It raised a red flag in our minds or in my mind, you know, that something must be wrong.”

About Marilyn Lehan

Marilyn Lehan was the youngest of four children. She and her three brothers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska in the 50s and 60s. She went to Catholic schools up through senior year, except for a brief period when she tried out public school. Pat remembered Marilyn getting overwhelmed with how big the school was, so she eventually returned to her former high school where she graduated among the top of her class. She earned an academic scholarship to Seattle University in Washington. 

According to the 1977 commencement program for Seattle University, Marilyn graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in humanities. At some point during her years on campus, Marilyn started dating a fellow Seattle U student. I’m going to call him by the fake name David. 

As of 1975, Marilyn and David were both sophomores at the university, but I don’t see his name among the students Marilyn graduated with in 1977 or in the commencement program for the following year. In any event, Marilyn and David got married in August of 1977. At least one of the witnesses listed on their marriage certificate was also a student in Marilyn’s class at Seattle U. Pat isn’t sure if they had a big wedding or if it was just a small affair with a few friends, but they were fairly young, just 21 and 22, and by his assessment, probably didn’t have much for a ceremony and reception.

Marilyn and David’s lifestyle could be described as somewhat nomadic. They left Seattle and moved to New York and then Pennsylvania, they lived in Flagstaff, Arizona and Bodega Bay, California, spent some time in Marilyn’s hometown of Omaha before returning to Seattle. They also lived in Montana for a time. In each new locale, David set up shop as a carpenter and ran his own construction business while Marilyn did the bookkeeping for him.

As Pat explained, Marilyn and David really didn’t keep in great contact with family. At one point, Pat and his wife relocated to Washington state and lived just across Puget Sound from where his sister and brother-in-law lived. It would’ve only been a short ferry ride away, yet they rarely saw each other, if ever. They were six years apart and their lives were on different paths, and going long stretches of time without hearing from Marilyn was just the norm. They’d send Christmas cards to each other around the holidays and have the occasional visit, but they lived separate lives. 

There was a time, though, that Marilyn turned to Pat and his wife when things with David were rocky. Sometime around 1988 or 1989, Marilyn and David separated, or at least, they were spending some intentional time apart. At the time, Pat was traveling a lot for work and his wife was home with their three young children, so Marilyn moved into their home. Why Marilyn and David separated, Pat isn’t sure, but they eventually reconciled and moved off to another state together.

Pat’s next memorable visit with his sister was in 2001 after their mother passed away. Pat had plans to finish the basement at his house into a family room, somewhere the kids could turn up the stereo and not bother the grown-ups, so David offered his construction expertise for the job and Marilyn came along, too. Pat’s wife and kids were on a trip to Italy, so it was just Pat and his sister and brother-in-law, plugging away on the basement project.

“We just had a great time,” Pat remembered, “They were here for almost a month and then right before they left, the kids came back, and Marilyn, of course, during this time, her cat and her African gray parrot Emmett were here, and so the kids were really entertained with that.”

One thing Pat can say about his sister with total confidence is that she loved her pets. She had dogs and cats throughout her life, but perhaps the most unique of her menagerie was her beloved African Grey Parrot named Emmett. You can see a photo of Emmett perched on Marilyn’s shoulder at darkdowneast.com. It was taken in 1996. Emmett had been part of the family for years.

The same year that Marilyn and David helped renovate Pat’s basement, Marilyn bought the house on Clark Street in Eastport, Maine. She used part of the six-figure inheritance from her mother’s estate to put $30,000 down.

The Eastport property was and is a beautiful place, right on the water. At the time Marilyn owned it, the parcel was around 14-acres with access rights to the beach along the bay. She seemed to embrace the saltwater lifestyle.

In the summer of 2002, Pat’s teenage son flew out to Maine to visit his aunt Marilyn and uncle David. A blurry photo shows Marilyn and her nephew on a large sailboat. She’s wearing a yellow rainjacket, not unlike the wet weather gear donned by lobster fishermen. The nephew has said that everything was normal and there was nothing remarkable about Marilyn and David during that trip. 

That visit by Pat’s son was the last time anyone in Marilyn’s family saw her in person. They had other contact with Marilyn after that, at least one documented instance in 2003. According to Marilyn’s family, David was experiencing some health struggles around that time, maybe melanoma, maybe a burst appendix, their recollections vary. It’s believed that neither Marilyn nor David had health insurance and so they started to get into some debt from medical bills and the financial strain grew from there. 

Marilyn borrowed some money from another one of her brothers, a little over $3000 in February of 2003. The check was made out to both Marilyn and her husband, and it was deposited on March 5, 2003. Both Marilyn and her husband endorsed the check.

That’s really the last time they can trace that Marilyn was alive and well and living in Eastport, Maine. Pat fell into the rhythm of his own life and years went by without hearing from his sister. Again, it was just normal to go long stretches of time without talking to or seeing Marilyn. That was their dynamic. 

When the holidays rolled around in 2008 and 2009, the Lehans went about their annual tradition of sending family Christmas cards. Both years, they dropped one in the mail stamped and addressed to Marilyn Lehan at her Clark Street address in Eastport, Maine.

Pat told me, “My wife sent them a Christmas card and never heard back from them. We did not receive one back. And I think that’s what started it…The next year we sent the card and it came back undeliverable. That’s what kind of set off the alarm.”

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