The Suspicious Death of Valerie Carr (Maine)

Ian Vance was just a kid when he lost his mother, Valerie Carr. Her death was ruled an accident, but now as an adult, he questions everything. Details unearthed from decades of court records reveal the circumstances of Valerie’s life leading up to her death…Circumstances he feels should’ve been scrutinized more closely before closing his mother’s case.

November 6, 2008

It was November 6, 2008 and Ian Vance was 12-years old. He lived in Bangor, Maine in the Capehart apartment community with his brother and sister, and his mother, 37-year old Valerie Carr. Ian is a grown up now, with a wife and children of his own, but his memory of that day will never fade.

“ I get home, go upstairs, I put my backpack away,” Ian began. 

“It was kind of odd, so when I walked in the door all the lights were off, and so I thought, kind of weird, okay, you know, whatever. And I remember standing by the door and I yelled to my mom hey, I’m going over to – my friend’s nickname was Boo Boo, cause he always got hurt – so I was like, hey mom, I’m going to Boo Boo’s house, we’re gonna play video games, you know, I’ll be back later. And I took a double take, and I was looking, and I was like, I was looking at her stomach to see if it was rising and falling and, you know, my mind played a trick on me. Basically, it was, my mom’s too young. She can’t be dead. She is breathing. Just go play with your friends, she’ll be making dinner by the time you get back and so I said I love you, see you later. And I left.”

Ian’s sister was in an after school program so she got home after him that day as she usually did.

Ian explained, “A couple hours, two, three hours maybe, she found me at my friend’s house and my sister came up the stairs and she’s like, mommy’s being really weird. She’s just sitting on the couch and her movie’s over and she’s just sitting there. And I was trying to think rationally in my head. Okay, well, she’s been having migraines lately, you know, past couple months and she’s probably just tired. You know, instead of going up to bed, she fell asleep on the couch.”

“I asked my sister, is she sitting like this? Her legs kind of spread out, her arms to her side and her head back. And my sister said yes. And at that moment I knew something was very wrong.”

They ran back to their apartment as fast as their legs could carry them.

“And I opened the door,  I turned the lights on and she’s in the exact same position as she was two or three hours before,” Ian continued. “We both run up to her. We’re shaking her. We’re trying to wake her up.”

Ian grabbed a phone to call his friend’s dad, who rushed to the apartment to get Ian and his sister out of there before calling police. 

First responders attempted to revive Valerie, but it was too late. Her time of death is listed as 5:01 p.m. the time she was found, however, it’s believed she was already dead when Ian first saw her body when he got home from school around 3:30 that afternoon.(1)

Investigation

Bangor Police responded to the apartment to investigate the unattended death. I requested records from the investigation from Bangor PD and received a scant 6-page file with a few investigative narratives for case number 08-072869. 

Detective Tim Cotton was among the responding officers that day. If you’re from Maine, you may know the name Tim Cotton. He’s known locally and across the country for his humorous Facebook posts on the Bangor Police Department Page and a few books he’s written. This case was pre-social media fame.

Detective Cotton arrived at the scene around 6 p.m. Another officer already there advised Detective Cotton that there was a partial bottle of Sertraline (a generic version of Zoloft) in Valerie’s bedroom. Sertraline is an SSRI, and is often prescribed to treat depression, anxiety, and other disorders. 

According to Det. Cotton’s narrative, the prescription had been filled four days earlier, November 2, with 15 100mg tablets. Dosing instructions said the tablets should be cut in half. 13 pills out of the 15 remained in the bottle, suggesting that Valerie was taking the medication according to the prescribed dosage: half of a tablet each day for the previous four days.(1p3)

Det. Cotton viewed Valerie’s bedroom and didn’t see anything unusual about it, but he photographed the room along with the other two bedrooms on the second floor and the bathroom anyway, as was routine. He also photographed the medicine cabinet and its contents. Again, nothing unusual to speak of there.

The detective couldn’t find any doctors appointments listed amongst Valerie’s paperwork at home, and when he spoke to people who knew Valerie they couldn’t think of any medical condition that might explain her sudden death. 

Det. Cotton was later advised that a physician wanted Valerie’s body to be taken to the medical examiner for a post-mortem examination. The doctor may have been Valerie’s primary care provider at the time, but there’s no context in the case file and I haven’t been able to track the doctor down. 

As funeral home personnel prepared to transport Valerie’s body for autopsy, Det. Cotton inspected her for any sign of trauma or injury. He found none. 

Cause & Manner of Death Determination

Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Marguerite DeWitt performed the autopsy on the morning of November 7th.

Valerie’s lungs showed pulmonary edema – fluid in the lungs. She had lung inflammation due to aspirated material, inflammation of her liver without a clearly identifiable cause, and scar tissue and other signs of possible long term stress on her heart. The only external injury listed in the autopsy report was a 1.3 centimeter dull red, round contusion on the back of her left wrist. 

In summary, there were no signs of significant trauma to Valerie’s body that could explain how this otherwise healthy woman died, but when the toxicology report returned a few weeks later, that’s when the answers were finally made clear. 

Valerie’s blood samples were tested for dozens of substances. Screenings for opiates, cocaine, benzodiazepines, weed, barbiturates, alcohol, and a few others all came back negative with none detected. However, the tox screen detected elevated levels of two other substances: Sertraline and Pseudoephedrine. 

Sertraline is the same medication that Detective Cotton found in Valerie’s home. Pseudoephedrine, as you may know, is a common ingredient in over-the-counter nasal decongestants and is intended to treat symptoms of colds and allergies.

The Sertraline test found 150 nanograms per milliliter in Valerie’s blood sample. Pseudoephedrine levels were found to be 910 nanograms per milliliter. AKA, a lot of both substances outside the typical therapeutic dose.

With that, the medical examiner ruled that Valerie died as the result of accidentally taking excess prescription medication, causing combined Sertraline and Pseudoephedrine toxicity. Case closed.

That may have been the official ruling, but a closed case wasn’t closure for those who knew and loved Valerie.

Ian shared, “ There were not one, not two, but a plethora of people who suspected there might be foul play, that this was not an accident.”

The original investigation – at least according to the limited case file documents that still exist from that original investigation – did not uncover any evidence of foul play in Valerie’s death. The Medical Examiner ruled Valerie’s death an accident and it has never been investigated as anything else. There is no crime according to the official findings of the investigation. 

However, Valerie’s loved ones have long questioned if the ruling in her death was the whole truth, and it’s not hard to see why some people have their suspicions. No doubt, there were crimes committed against Valerie unrelated to her death, but is it possible her death was the result of foul play and not the accident investigators ruled it to be?

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