The Disappearance of Patrick Merrill (New Hampshire)

One spring evening in 1987, a college student got into a green car in Plymouth, New Hampshire and vanished.

His friends believed he was coming back. His family knew he would have called if he’d left on his own. But he was gone, and the man believed to be with him on the night he disappeared had a long history of run-ins with the law.

What started as a missing persons investigation soon stretched across state lines, into jail breaks, forged identities, strange searches in the Vermont woods, and disturbing yet inconclusive physical evidence.

Police identified one suspect at the time. The missing man’s family believes they know what happened. But nearly four decades later, no one has ever been charged.

If you have information about the disappearance of Patrick Merrill, please report it to the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit.

Patrick Merrill is Missing

It was April 6th, 1987, and 21-year-old Patrick Merrill had quite a few plans for his Monday night. He and his friend Nancy were supposed to meet up around 8 p.m. to hang out, but before that, Patrick had to take care of some prearranged business. A few of his close friends knew exactly what kind of “business” Patrick was up to. In fact, some had a stake in the transaction, and I can imagine they were waiting for him to come back that night, maybe watching the clock, maybe feeling a little anxious for him to return. Of course, Nancy was waiting, too. According to reporting by Paul R. Lessard for the New Hampshire Union Leader, 8 p.m. came and went. Then more time passed. And at some point, what might have started as annoyance or confusion turned into something sharper. Patrick wasn’t just late. No one knew where he was. Nancy started checking in with Patrick’s other friends, many of them students at Plymouth State College in Plymouth, New Hampshire, like Patrick. They all got the unsettling feeling that something was wrong. The last time anyone had seen him, Patrick was getting into a green car, and he looked nervous. Word reached Patrick’s family out of state that Patrick was unaccounted for, including his sister, Laurie Merrill. “His friends from Plymouth State University said that he was missing, and the last time he was seen was in a car with this man, and my mother called to tell me. And we both drove up there immediately with the feeling of doom. You know, our only hope was that he would return quickly,” Laurie shared. That “feeling of doom” never really left, but in those first hours and days, Patrick’s family had to hold it alongside hope. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he was hurt. Maybe there was some version of this where he came home and explained what had happened. Police and local media circulated details of Patrick’s last known whereabouts: He was last seen around 7:30 p.m. on April 6th in the center of Plymouth, sitting in the front seat of a green Mercury Comet or Ford Maverick with Vermont license plates. The driver of that vehicle was described as average build with dark hair. Police also released a description of another man they wanted to question: someone wearing a tan poncho with red stripes, a t-shirt, blue jeans, sneakers, and carrying a backpack. As police focused on the car, the men, and the last place Patrick had been seen, Laurie and her family were thinking about the person they were waiting for. Not a case. Not an investigation. But Patrick.

About Patrick Merrill

Laurie loved her little brother from the first moment she laid eyes on him. “Friends and family had gathered for the great homecoming of Patrick Douglas Merrill,” Laurie began. “And it was like a party of celebration, and I couldn’t believe it when I saw him ‘cause he was just this beautiful baby. He had red cheeks and curly hair and blue eyes. I loved him so immediately, right away, with a big sister protection and love.” Patrick was the youngest of three children, born on March 17th, 1966. His birthday, St. Patrick’s Day, became his namesake, given to him by the nurses who cared for mother and baby after he was born. From the way Laurie describes him, Patrick was one of those kids who came into the world with his own powerful current running through him. “He was always exceptionally smart. He was outgoing and he was funny and he was friendly. He loved sports. He loved chess, so he started beating me in chess when he was about five years old, or a little bit older than that, and so I stopped playing with him because I was too competitive.” Patrick also had a very clear sense of himself from early on. He didn’t seem all that interested in bending himself into whatever shape other people expected. Laurie remembered, “He was also a little bit of a radical, a maverick because we went to summer camp together, and he wouldn’t wear his shoes and he didn’t wanna shower, but everyone thought he was so cool. This kid that walked around like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown, he was always dirty and barefooted and didn’t wanna conform, you know, so he always had a strong enough self-opinion to do his own thing, his own way, without worrying about public opinion.” As he got older, that independence sometimes collided with structure. School was a place where Patrick’s intelligence was obvious, but the rules around it did not always fit him. “There’s a certain period of his time that he was very rebellious against authority. And he wound up dropping out of high school along with a couple of his best friends, they all dropped out at the same time and they got their general equivalency degrees. And then Patrick started taking classes at Plymouth State University and he wanted to be a lawyer. He was always very good at school. He just wasn’t good at following the rules.” Patrick was finding his way back toward structure, toward school, toward a future. By 1987, he was a college kid, doing college kid things, maybe still a bit rebellious, but nothing that crossed into a pattern of serious law breaking. “The only crime he committed was smoking marijuana, which was illegal in the eighties.” He was not a criminal mastermind. He was a young guy who thought the world was safer than it was. Maybe that is why in the days leading up to his disappearance Patrick said yes to something without fully understanding how dangerous it could be. Patrick Merrill’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.