Cold Case Arrest: The 1984 Murder of Dorothea Burke
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This is Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small town USA. I'm your host, Kristen Seavey. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast.

I'm very excited to share this case with you. It's the culmination of months of effort learning to navigate Maine's convoluted network of newspaper archives, which led us to 12 different institutions who helped us to hunt down old articles. We researched and found 10 different family members connected to the victim and contacted them all. We even went to the courthouse to review the file of an active murder case.

I'm proud to say that the information in this episode is everything that's publicly available. This is the story of the 1984 murder of Dorothea Burke and the 2020 arrest of Kurt Damon Sr.

Saturday, June 23rd, 1984 was a day of celebration. It was Dorothea Burke's 63rd birthday, and she spent the day in the company of her rather large family at her niece's wedding ceremony and reception. When the wedding died down, Dorothea, who went by Dot, continued her own birthday celebration at Priscilla's Bar in Bucksport, a dive spot on Route 1 where she was a familiar face.

Today, Priscilla's is known as Glenn's Place, a well-loved family restaurant. During this time in her life, Dot wanted escape, to be surrounded by laughter and fun people. Her family told me that she'd been through a painful divorce, and in the years following, mended her steadfast and loving spirit by connecting with the community and with her friends, a regular at the dive spots where she fit right in.

Dot didn't drive, so she would have to get a ride to and from the bar on nights out. Her sister, Pearl, whom she was very close with and who she was living with at the time, wasn't a fan of her sister's drinking and social life and wouldn't give Dot a ride, so she would usually get a ride from friends and acquaintances who she met at the bar. Whatever her plans were for getting home that evening didn't pan out. She never made it home.

Three days later, on Tuesday, June 26th, the family reported Dorothea missing, and two days after that, five days after she was last seen alive on Thursday, June 28th, Dorothea's body was discovered by construction workers around 8.45 a.m., lying on the side of the road in the tall grass near the corner of Muskrat Farm and Meadow Road. She had been bludgeoned to death.

Her autopsy revealed that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. She also had a few broken ribs that indicated a crushing of the torso area, but no obvious external damage.

I have a photo of the mobile crime lab at the scene, thanks to Sharon from the Belfast Free Library. She pulled out a dusty 1984 bound volume of the long-running newspaper, The Republican Journal, and located some of the original articles on the case. You can find that photo and more on MurderSheTold.com.

Detective Rex Kelly told the press that authorities were working to pinpoint the time of death and said it appeared as though she'd been killed sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning, very close to the time of her initial disappearance, begging the question...

How long was her body sitting in that ditch before an unlucky construction crew happened upon her? The detective refused to reveal if there were signs of sexual assault or robbery, or speculate on where he believed she'd been killed, whether at the scene or elsewhere. He neither confirmed nor denied if there was a suspect. The investigation was still in its earliest stages.

One of Dot's nieces, Pat, gave an interview to Fox Bangor much later, in 2019, and said that there was a man at the wedding the night Dot went missing who was causing problems at the reception. She said he was, quote, in a fighting mood. The family had their suspicions about this man. She said that the family and the town that loved Dot wanted nothing more than to have justice and closure in her case.

The following month in July, police impounded a vehicle relating to Dot's murder, a 1980 maroon Chevette, but emphasized that the owner wasn't a suspect in the investigation. Though the police did obtain a search warrant, the car's owner, Laura Harriman, voluntarily turned it over. Police never disclosed what, if anything, was found in the car or why it was taken in the first place.

Detective Rex Kelly also told the press that in July they'd completed over 50 interviews in the Blue Hill, Bangor, and Belfast areas, and expected another 150 to be conducted in the weeks to follow.

The Republican Journal also mentioned that the Assistant Attorney General, Tom Goodwin, said a good amount of physical evidence had been collected from Dorothea's body from the autopsy. That evidence was sent out of state to an FBI crime lab in D.C., the University of New Hampshire, and a Toronto crime lab where they had the latest technology in laser fingerprint analysis.

By the end of July of 1984, the reports on the evidence still hadn't been returned, and I couldn't find anything more on it in the newspaper coverage, so I think it's safe to say the reports came back inconclusive. In the early 1980s, many locals in the Bucksport, Belfast area knew Dorothea Burke. For much of her life, she worked at a sardine plant in Belfast, and retired from there shortly before her death.

She had three children, John, Ruthann, and Markita, who were all adults at the time of her death. I spoke with her niece, Anna Fields, a daughter-in-law of Pearl, the sister with whom she was living, and she said that her auntie Dot was just tickled when she received her first social security check. Unfortunately, she only lived long enough to receive one of them.

Dorothea's later life was marked by struggle. She was looking forward to the golden years of her retirement when her long-time relationship with her husband, John Burke, came to an end.

Anna told me a little bit about how it affected her. But she was a great woman and loved her husband so much, and then all of a sudden he had a new woman, and she went all to pieces. But she was starving for attention and to be accepted, where he rejected her and just killed her, you know. She thought she was set for life with him. What a jerk.

Sometime after her divorce, she moved in with her sister, Pearl, and Pearl's husband, Ernest, in Lincolnville, relieving the financial burden of living alone. Plus, she felt safer living with family. She told me that Dot and her sister Pearl were close, and they loved to spend the day together in nearby coastal towns like Rockland and go shopping at local department stores like J.J. Newberry Co. and Ames, a popular chain I remember from my childhood.

She liked to read and watch her programs on TV. Dot played cards and had an active social life outside of family, mixing cribbage, hearts, cold beer, and good company.

Because Johnny, what's Butchie called him, wasn't happy with his mother and her going out with those guys, going to a bar. I don't know if it was just with guys or the guys would come to her after they knew she was in the bar.

She wouldn't wear glasses because she didn't want to see her wrinkles. She was a funny girl. She never hurt anybody. She was just a good lady who liked going out and having fun now and then. I don't know how often because I don't know who her friends were or anything. She didn't have anyone special. I don't know.

Anna said the family was left in the dark a lot over the years, not really having many updates about the murder investigation. For 35 years, little to nothing was printed in the newspapers or published online about Dorothea's case. This wasn't a cold case, it was a dead case, or at least so it seemed. Until 2020.

57-year-old Kurt Damon Sr. was arrested at his home for the murder of Dorothea Burke on the evening of Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020. Police said they hadn't stopped working on this murder case, despite decades passing. This work led investigators back to somebody who'd been in the picture the whole time, culminating in the presentation of their case to a grand jury and an indictment.

Kurt would have been 20 years old in 1980 when Dorothea, who was 63, was murdered. Several witnesses said that Kurt was at the reception that night in June, and that they'd seen him with Dot at some point in the evening.

The following day, September 23rd, 2020, Kurt was arraigned in Waldo County Court on a murder charge for intentionally or knowingly causing the death of Dorothea Burke, or engaging in conduct which manifested a depraved indifference to the value of human life, and which, in fact, caused the death of Dorothea Burke. Kurt pled not guilty.

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That's knix.com promo code TRY15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. That's K-N-I-X dot com. Kurt was denied bail in October on the argument that he was a flight risk and a danger to the community, referencing an incident where Kurt eluded police and another incident with an OUI charge from his past.

Court documents also showed that people who may have had information against Kurt had expressed concern to detectives about coming forward, fearing retaliation from the Damon family if they ultimately needed to testify in court. The Damon family collectively has a lengthy rap sheet.

Kurt Sr. alone has charges for OUI, multiple violations for protective orders from abuse, and aggravated assault. His son, Kurt Jr., also has violations against protective orders. And another son, Tyler, was arrested for trafficking meth and heroin.

Back in 2008, when Kurt was 44, a group of four men armed with clubs confronted Kurt at his home. They knocked him down and started beating him and kicking him. Photographs of Kurt revealed bruises all over his back. His 18-year-old son, Adam, feared for his father's life and stabbed one of the men with a knife and then called an ambulance.

A terrifying day for most, but evidently not that unusual for the Damon family. Newspapers report that the men who came to Kurt's house were all related. They were members of the Pomeroy family. According to members of both families, the Pomeroys and the Damons have been feuding for 25 years.

Kurt's son said, we would fight one day and be friends the next day. But as they got older, he said the fights got worse and we wouldn't be friends the next day.

Kurt's son wasn't charged with assault. According to Assistant District Attorney Eric Walker, his dad was getting the stuffing beat out of him with clubs and iron pipes. And regarding any forthcoming charges against Kurt's son, the prosecutor said, I don't see that happening, being that it was self-defense or coming to the aid of a third party.

However, the four men on the Pomeroy family's side who came to the Damon property were all arrested and charged with elevated assault. Earlier this year, on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 27th, I made the trek down to quaint seaside Belfast to visit Waldo County Superior Court.

I asked the clerk for any court files that were available for public review in the case of the State of Maine v. Curt Damon Sr., and they gave me a folder that contained about 150 pages of documents relating to the case. I sat down in a small booth adjacent to their offices to learn what I could.

I learned that Kurt Damon Sr., who turns 58 in August, applied for a public defender, and his application revealed some information about his life. He lives with his three adult sons and his wife, along with an infant child in Stockton Springs, and his only income is from government support. He reports that the last job he had was in 1989, 32 years ago at a potato factory, when he was 26.

It appears that he pays rent of $300 a month and has a 16-year-old Chevy Cavalier, for which he pays monthly insurance. The state found that he fit within the guidelines for a public defender and he was assigned Jeremy Pratt, a partner at the criminal litigation firm Pratt & Simmons in Camden.

Immediately following Damon's arrest, the state provided to him all of the evidence that they were planning to use at the trial, and it looks overwhelming. 2,307 pages, 2 flash drives, and 10 CDs of data.

These materials, collectively known as discovery, included expert reports, transcripts, grand jury witness testimony, police reports, forensic evidence reports, photographs, and many other types of documents. Discovery, in general, provides a roadmap for the state's case.

The forensic evidence in the case is significant. The state says that they have accrued 191 separate pieces of evidence from their investigation. There are 17 Maine State Police crime lab reports, one Ontario Providence police report, one entomologist report, and multiple FBI reports. The physical evidence includes fibers, hair, and DNA, among other things.

It is not obvious from the public files what the prosecution has that specifically links the murder to Damon, but judging by the defense's objection to the legitimacy of the evidence, I assume that forensics has a key role to play in the trial. The defense reveals that there was a single gray hair located on the victim's body at the crime scene.

By 2020, that single gray hair was joined by six additional hairs, only one of which was suitable for DNA testing. And though it isn't spelled out explicitly, I assume that one hair was tested for mitochondrial DNA and got a match to Damon, which probably puts him in a very small group of people who could have had contact with Dorothea.

Damon's lawyer argues that he had no gray hair at the time of the crime, at just 20 years old. It's not clear to me whether it was the gray hair that was tested or one of the other six. Another bit of evidence revealed through the defense's filings is the evidence of semen and the strong implication of sexual assault.

The defense pointed out that despite an abundant amount of apparent semen, words that I'm assuming were used in the initial police reports, 1984 testing revealed no semen or prostate-specific antigen. In other words, it's not clear that it was semen, and I don't think it produced a DNA profile at all.

Subsequent more modern testing of genital swabs produced a DNA profile that only matched the victim. The majority of the documents available in the court's review file relate to an employee of the Maine State Crime Lab, referred to as Mr. Settlemyer, and the defense's objective of undermining the credibility of the crime lab.

Settlemyer started working at the crime lab in 1984, continued to work there for decades, and made some mistakes over the years. Ultimately, he resigned from the lab, and though the circumstances of his resignation are not revealed, there is the implication of him having made a serious error.

The judge said, the first 150-so pages of his personnel file are pretty unremarkable, and then we get into the material that ended up with Settlemyer's resignation. The defense says in one of its filings, we believe Mr. Settlemyer's personnel records reveal a history of repeated contamination of evidence, improper access of restricted areas of the lab, and untruthfulness.

Furthermore, the defense contended that his quiet resignation was a workaround to avoid having any more disciplinary filings in their records, undermining the lab's credibility, and perhaps even threatening their accreditation as an institution.

Crime labs are subject to extraordinary scrutiny, and their employees are held to a very high standard. Any evidence of impartiality, tampering, or unprofessionalism will be hammered home by defense attorneys in cases around the state for years, if not decades. The defense said that Settlemyer is documented to have handled at least 36 pieces of evidence in this case, and likely many more.

and that many of those pieces did not yield any DNA profile at all. The defense suggests that perhaps the evidence had been mishandled, which then prevented the revelation of alternative suspects.

The court set some deadlines for filings in this case. By March 12, 2021, the defense was supposed to have filed reports from their expert witnesses, and the prosecution had until April 16 to file any supplemental expert reports.

By June 4th, any motions from the defense or the prosecution regarding evidence or expert testimony are to be filed. And in August, there is a hearing date set to settle any motions. The defense asked for a 30-day extension to all deadlines, and it's not clear whether the extension was granted.

So as it stands now, we are nearing the completion of the process where the defense and the prosecution gather their experts and file their reports and motions. This is all in preparation for a trial whose date hasn't been set yet. This case seems similar to Kathleen Flynn's 1986 murder case and Mark Caron's 2019 arrest. It's pretty clear from the court document that there's no shortage of physical evidence available.

Perhaps the advancement of mitochondrial DNA testing gave investigators the tools they needed. Perhaps this is a sign there's more arrests to come. If convicted, Kurt Damon Sr. will probably spend the rest of his life in prison. And a lot of the questions I have about this case will probably be answered in the trial, whenever that is.

One of the questions being the motive. That is seemingly unclear on the surface, but something detectives probably already know. Cases like this are extremely important. There's a list of 74 more victims without justice on the Maine State website, and dozens more who were unlisted.

There is always hope, and there will definitely be an update where the secrets Kurt Damon Sr. has been holding onto for 36 years will be exposed, and justice will hopefully, finally, be served. Before the arrest in Janet Brochu's case this past month, this case was the most recent arrest on the Maine State Unsolved Homicide List.

And based on what I've learned about it, I'm very interested to see what's next. I want to thank you so much for listening. I am so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. Thank you. I will be keeping a close eye on this case. To follow along and for updates, find me on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast and connect with me on the MurderSheTold Facebook page.

My sources for this episode include the Bangor Daily News, the Republican Journal, News Center Maine, Fox Bangor, and court documents for the State v. Kurt Damon Sr. Thank you to Sharon at the Belfast Free Library and to staff at the Waldo County Courthouse for their assistance, and to Dorothea's niece, Anna, for sharing her stories with me. All links for sources and images for this episode can be found on MurderSheTold.com in the show notes.

Special thanks to Byron Willis for his research and writing support and to Delphi Borich. If you loved this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways to support an indie podcast. If you are a friend or a family member of the victim, you're more than welcome to reach out to me at MurderSheToldPod at gmail.com. If you have a story that needs to be told or would like to suggest one, I would love to hear from you.

My only hope is that I've honored your stories in keeping the names of your family and friends alive. I'm Kristen Seavey, and this is Murder, She Told. Thank you for listening. I'm sending my Aunt Tina money directly to her bank account in the Philippines with Western Union. She's the self-proclaimed bingo queen of Manila, and I know better to interrupt her on bingo night, even to pick up cash. Hey!

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