The Murder of Pamela Webb (Maine)

When Pamela Webb left her home in Winthrop, Maine, on the first Saturday of July in 1989, her dog and Bible beside her, she could not have anticipated that her road trip would be interrupted by a still unknown predator. There was no shortage of potential connections to explore following her presumed abduction and murder, but so far, the perceived similarities have not developed into any publicly named suspects or arrests.

What happened to Pamela Webb, and what are investigators doing to answer that question today, more than 35 years later?

Disappearance

It was Saturday, July 1, 1989 and 32-year old Pamela Webb had just tucked her nieces and nephews into bed after a day of making memories together. She lived just down the road from her mother and father, Virginia and Kenneth Webb, in Winthrop, Maine and all the grandkids were there for a sleepover. Susan Rayfield reports for the Sun Journal that Pamela helped with dinner and even treated the kiddos to ice cream sundaes with all the fixings before it was time to crawl into bed.

As the kids all drifted off to dreamland, Pamela headed back down the road to change. At 9:03 p.m. she made a brief phone call to her boyfriend, Josh, who lived in Mason, New Hampshire. Pamela told him she was about to leave for his place and expected to arrive around 1 a.m. Soon after that call, Kenneth saw his daughter trundle past their house in her pick-up truck with her dog Thumper riding shotgun.

Kenneth had to have shaken his head at the sight of his daughter’s less-than-reliable pickup rolling down the road that night. He’d wanted her to get rid of that thing for something more reliable…Not to mention, more practical. Pamela was just 5-foot-1 and had to use blocks to reach the pedals. But if she had any plans to listen to her father’s advice, she hadn’t yet done anything about it. The truck made it to New Hampshire just the weekend before no problem and besides, her boyfriend planned to tinker on it that weekend to see if he could solve some of the issues.

There are only a few things that have been publicly confirmed about Pamela’s travels after she left Winthrop that night. The first comes from a toll receipt. She passed through the Augusta toll booth (Mainers might refer to it as old exit 15) on the Maine Turnpike at 9:52 p.m. After that, what’s known about Pamela’s movements, what she faced on the dark but well-traveled Turnpike in the late night hours, we can only guess at now.

About Pamela Webb

Pamela Webb grew up in Winthrop, Maine, went to Winthrop High School and stayed in Winthrop as she began to build her adult life on a 10 acre plot of land she bought just down the road from her parents.

She loved horseback riding, her family, growing in her faith at church, and had always been passionate about music. She even studied music and voice at the University of Maine at Augusta for two years. She planned to continue her education after earning a little money with her job at Digital Equipment Corp. in the Augusta location as a quality control inspector. It was only going to be a short-term gig, but one year spilled over into two, and before she knew it, Pamela was approaching her 12 year anniversary at the company.

Digital Equipment Corp. had a “computer dating service”, which by the sounds of it was a late-80s version of a dating app, sans the swiping. That is how Pamela met her boyfriend Josh, who worked at the company’s location in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Her parents later described it as Pamela’s first serious relationship; they’d been dating about 8 weeks when Pamela left for his house that Saturday night.

Pamela is Missing

By 10 a.m. the next morning, July 2, Pamela’s boyfriend Josh had already been worrying for hours. Pamela didn’t show up at 1 a.m. as expected, or anytime after, and she hadn’t called to let him know if her plans had changed or if something happened along the way. Unable to track her down himself, Josh called police.

When the report of a missing person reached Maine State Police, the description of Pamela’s vehicle stuck out. The same kind of a truck, a blue 1981 Chevrolet C-10 pick-up, was spotted on the side of the Turnpike just a few hours earlier.

According to reporting by Steve Campbell for the Evening Express, a state trooper had pulled over to take a look at the truck around 7:30 a.m. It was parked on the shoulder about a half-mile north of the southbound Biddeford exit. There was a dog inside plus the signs of a flat tire in mid-repair; the spare was leaning up against the back bumper. Since it was a Sunday, there was no place to bring the dog (I’m assuming that meant Animal Control and area shelters were closed). So, the Trooper left the dog in the truck where it sat and didn’t call for a tow.

But that state trooper wasn’t the first to take notice of Pamela’s truck. Another trooper by the name of Jeffrey Haas was on duty the night of July 1st into the early hours of July 2nd, and when asked if he’d seen anything during his patrol, he said he actually saw the truck in question around 2 a.m. He checked it with a flashlight and saw a barking dog in the front seat. He also noticed that one of the rear tires was flat and the spare was leaning up against the rear bumper, just as the other Trooper described.

Trooper Haas filled out a patrol check card for the disabled vehicle. With the dog left inside, Trooper Haas just assumed the driver had gone to get help to fix the tire and would be back soon.

Now in broad daylight and with a missing persons report for the vehicle’s owner, those assumptions were proven terribly wrong. According to reporting by Tammy Wells for the Journal Tribune, when State Police took a closer look at the scene surrounding Pamela’s truck, they found two pools of blood on the pavement near the passenger side. On the ground nearby, a pair of earrings were pushed into the gravel.

Pamela’s dog Thumper was still inside the truck that morning, and he was okay, by the way. Police took him to a nearby tollbooth where he was spoiled with treats until Pamela’s parents were able to pick him up.

Everything else inside the truck seemed okay, too. Pamela’s personal belongings were still there, undisturbed, including her purse and Bible. Investigators didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with yet, but no money was missing from Pamela’s purse so robbery was quickly ruled out, and the blood and the earrings didn’t bode well. Police immediately feared for Pamela’s well-being and suspected she had been abducted.

Early Search & Investigation

Investigators treated the truck and the area surrounding it as a crime scene and began scouring for evidence. They collected the two sections of pavement with blood on them and sent them off for testing at the State Police Crime Lab. They believed, or worried, that the blood belonged to Pamela, but wanted to confirm it with blood type comparison. Police also located a footprint about 20 feet away from the truck and made a plaster cast of the impression in the soil.

Search dogs were brought to the location, but they didn’t find anything conclusive. A few articles of clothing were recovered about a half mile away from the truck – a pair of sneakers and a shirt, also a towel – but they didn’t appear to have anything to do with Pamela’s disappearance.

By July 3rd, news of the investigation began to circulate, and police hoped that publicity would lead to answers. That part of the highway, near the Biddeford exit, was heavily traveled, especially on the night of July 1st. Mike Laberge reports for the Kennebec Journal that there was an Allman Brothers 20th Anniversary concert in nearby Old Orchard Beach that let out around 10:30 p.m. that night. The Maine Turnpike Authority said the concert was the likely cause of increased traffic in the area, but the more cars passing by, the better as far as police were concerned. It meant more people may have seen Pamela or her truck. They were first interested in the stretch of time between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

The publicity did generate almost two dozen calls within the first day from people who had seen the blue Chevy on the shoulder of the turnpike, some mentioning that the emergency lights were flashing when they passed. While most said the truck was empty when they saw it, court records indicate that at least one caller who passed the truck around 11:20 p.m. said there was a woman near it at that time. With these initial calls from witnesses, police narrowed the timeline of Pamela’s assumed abduction to between 11 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.

Police expanded the search efforts in the following days, spanning a two-mile radius from the truck’s location with more search dogs on the ground and a National Guard helicopter circling overhead. On July 5, the search got even more intense with assistance from Game Wardens and personnel from the Brunswick Naval Air Station. Michele Valway reports for the Journal Tribune that a systematic search of the grassy and wooded areas between the shoulder of the Turnpike up to a security fence running parallel to the road, all the way down to the York tollbooth turned up some items – a pair of men’s pants, a pair of white knee high socks – but nothing believed to be connected to Pamela.

Investigators received several more calls in the days that followed, upwards of 70 reports from people who saw Pamela’s truck, allowing Maine State Police Captain Reynold LaMontagne to narrow the timeline even further. He stated that whatever happened to Pamela quote “in all likelihood” end quote, happened around 11:15 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. on the night of July 1st.

But exactly what happened and where she ended up was a question they still had yet to answer, and the evidence collected so far wasn’t giving police a full picture.

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