Unsolved Homicide in Newport, Maine: Robert McKee

About Robert McKee

He was a sixth grade teacher at the Vickery School in Pittsfield, but when the kiddos were on summer vacation and his classroom was closed up until the fall, 35-year old Robert McKee picked up a full-time summer gig at McNally’s Texaco Station in Newport. He’d met his wife Dorte while stationed in Germany as first lieutenant for the U.S. Army in 1966 to 1968, and that extra cash from his service station attendant job meant he could afford to send Dorte back to Germany to visit her family. 

Robert McKee, by all accounts, was a family man. He had two children with Dorte, a young son and a daughter. Mike McNally, owner of the gas station where Robert worked, told Bruce Hertz of the Bangor Daily News that Robert was the kind of person you would like to have as a father or a son.

Following his time in Germany, Robert stayed in the Army Reserves, but returned to his hometown in Aroostook county and earned his teaching degree from the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Robert went above and beyond as a teacher. He was active in the SAD 53 Teachers Association, the Maine State Teachers Association, and was the faculty advisor of the science club. It was a quiet yet fulfilling life in smalltown Maine. 

Neither Robert nor residents of the Sebasticook Valley area knew that the mid-1970s would become a dark time for their community.

Shooting at the Texaco

In 1975, McNally’s Texaco station, where the Irving Oil now sits in Newport, was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact, the Texaco was the only all-night gas station between Bangor and Waterville, with just under 60 miles of dark Interstate connecting the two cities. 

The area certainly wasn’t built up like it is now. Residents called it a lonely, quiet stretch of road just off I-95, and when Robert McKee clocked in for his shift on June 20th, he’d be the only person working at the lonely, quiet service station overnight.

A Maine State Trooper, also on the overnight shift, stopped into the filling station around 1 a.m. Robert was there, attending to his duties. There was nothing amiss or worrisome, just a man doing his job. 3 hours later, the scene would be different. 

Fisherman in town with some buddies from Rhode Island pulled into the Texaco station. He and his friends had just fueled themselves up with an early morning meal at Shorette’s Diner and now they needed a little fuel for their vehicle, too. The pumps weren’t self-service like most of them are in Maine today, so the man and his friends waited for the attendant to come out. 

It was just before 4 a.m. and the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour or so. The sky was just warming with hints of dawn; the air was quiet save for the buzz of the ice cooler and Coca Cola vending machine sitting in the dim glow of the gas station lights. The fishermen waiting in their car for gasoline noticed a light was on inside McNally’s Texaco, but no one came to greet them outside at the pump. Anxious to get their day started, the driver stepped out of the car to see what was the hold up.

According to reporting by Bruce Hertz for the Bangor Daily News, as he opened the door to the station, the unsuspecting fisherman found Robert McKee lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Robert’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play for the full case wherever you get your podcasts.