Forever Fourteen: The Murder of Christopher Rines
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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 Zevey. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow me on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. In the late 80s and early 90s, one of the most popular video games in the world was Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for Nintendo NES Home System.

Gen X boys would embody the spirit of Little Mac, the underdog hero fighter through their controller, fighting their way through the ranks to the finale, the Dream Fight, where they would take on the one and only heavyweight champion of the world from the comfort of their living room, Mike Tyson.

With his lightning-fast punches and quick reflexes that resembled his real-life fighting style, Mike Tyson was a difficult opponent, and beating him gave you serious bragging rights amongst your friends. But it was no simple task. You had to memorize the fighting patterns, maybe even write it down, so you wouldn't forget in hopes that today would be the day that you finally beat Mike Tyson.

14-year-old Christopher Rines held those bragging rights, proud that he was one of the only ones amongst his friends who knew the secret to beating the game. And if you got lucky enough, he might just show you how to beat it too. A group of young teen boys huddled in front of the television while Chris showed them the results of his hard work.

I grew up about a 10-minute drive from where Christopher lived. I imagine the tiny town of Pittsfield, Maine in 1991 looked almost exactly the same as it does today. The $3 cheap seats movie theater and Rennie's, a Maine adventure, were staples of the town center.

there wasn't much to do in this small town growing up even for me later in the nineties when i was a kid but the spotlight pavilion roller rink in detroit another tiny town that's sandwiched by newport and pittsfield was the place to be on friday and saturday night

Every weekend there was skating, and every weekend the teens from all the surrounding towns would get dropped off at the roller rink, smuggle in a bottle of booze or two, and try flirting with their crush from the neighboring high school. Spotlight was popular in the late 90s too, and I remember having a birthday party there when rollerblading was all the rage.

Almost everyone I spoke with mentioned that Christopher Rines was a good kid, but that always came with a caveat that he tended to get in trouble. He smoked and failed miserably at hiding it. He would often get into fights, especially at school, and he sometimes drank. But the more I dug, the more I kind of felt like his actions were small cries for help. A good kid who was simply misunderstood.

This is Christopher's mother, Mary Lou Rines. He was a good boy, but he had this tendency to get with these kids that were into things. You know, he wasn't a bad kid, but if there was somebody doing something, he'd be right in the middle of it. I wanted to make a mind, and of course my husband wouldn't. So, I mean, he would stay out. Like, when we'd go to bed, he'd get up and disappear, but he'd be back.

He would stay up on the Atari and play that all night long. I mean, he didn't do bad stuff. He did sneak around smoke, which I don't do that, but his father did. But if you had some kid that was bad or whatever, he always tended to hang with them. And I tried to keep, you know, like he'd think I was being mean to him. I said, no, I'm just trying to keep you from being in trouble. I mean, even when you weren't doing anything, the cops are on his butt all the time.

because they had a curfew back then, but they didn't want him out, you know, after dark. I said, you're always on his case. And I think he kind of retaliated is what he was doing. I mean, even when he weren't doing anything, it was always on his case. I tried my best to keep him. I mean, but when I go to work, you know, when I was working, it's like I get out and go to work. Well, I don't know what he's doing. And they would kick him out of school. Now, if I told you not to smoke,

Or I kick you out of school, what would you do? Wouldn't you go smoke just to get at him? That's what he'd do. I said, why don't you just do the opposite? Go ahead and smoke, but you're still going to be in school. So he did it, and they kicked him out of school. They never told him he wasn't in school until he was out of school for a month. I didn't know he wasn't in school, and you don't think he was going to tell me that.

i also spoke with his older brother gene who declined to be recorded he told me that he and chris were close growing up despite the almost three-year age difference chris was somewhat quiet until you got to know him and he liked to hang out with an older crowd

Like any kid in the 80s, he loved his video games. Chris was a night owl, and he would stay up late playing Pac-Man on Atari, or he would step into the virtual ring as professional wrestling icons Andre the Giant or Hulk Hogan in Nintendo's WWF WrestleMania. And of course, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. Gene said they had about 40 different games.

In the summer, they loved to hang out at their cousin's camp and swim and play baseball. Gene recalled the time he accidentally hit Chris in the mouth with a baseball bat and knocked his teeth out. Not once, but twice. And that Chris, who was only about seven years old, had to be pinned down to fix the stitches on his lip. They would bike and go fishing. The two were always together until their interest in girls got in the way.

Christopher had a habit of sneaking out at night after his parents went to bed. Maybe to smoke cigarettes or hang out with a friend or a girlfriend. But he always came back, and he was never gone for more than one night. Because of this habit, Christopher was on the local police radar. There was a curfew at the time, and any kids out after dark would be penalized.

Christopher was also often truant at school at Pittsfield's Maine Central Institute where he was a freshman. MCI is one of the most beautiful high schools in central Maine. It looks more like a small university campus, with grand brick buildings scattered across the property than a high school. Christopher would often skip school for weeks at a time.

MCI's headmaster, Doug Cummings, told the Waterville Sentinel that, "Chris wasn't a bad kid. School just wasn't a big thing for him. He had a hard time at school." Gene agreed, "And he told me that his freshman year was really hard for him. Chris hated being at school."

According to Cummings, Christopher would always accept responsibility and discipline for his actions. He said, quote,

He took discipline well, and he would never lie about his truancy or make up excuses. He just said he didn't like going to school." His mother, Mary Lou Rines, said that both Christopher and Jean were targets of frequent bullying and would often come home with bruises and bloody noses.

Mary Lou taught Christopher to stand up for himself, which, in turn, would get him into trouble at school when he physically defended himself against somebody who started a fight. I asked Mary Lou about school, and why Chris got picked on so much.

Well, because he's like me. He was stubborn. He didn't take no bull. I went there one time because they was giving him detention. And, well, he's got detention because he hit this kid. I asked him what he did. He says, well, that kid hit me. I told the teacher, I said, Deborah Currie, do you turn around and pay attention? I said, do you think that I'm going to let someone hit me in the head and not hit him back? Well, no. I said, his brother was picked on when he was a kid. He couldn't even come home from school. He would be a bloody mess.

So when Chris grew up, I said, someone picks on you, you pick back. I said, don't stand there and take it. And that's why. And it's like, no, these kids, they pick on them and then they beat them up and stuff. No. So that's why he stood up for himself. He couldn't get home without them beating him up, tearing his clothes up. I just had him pick up for himself because these kids, they beat him up.

Perhaps the combination of having a difficulty with learning and not feeling supported by teachers and staff, and being frequently bullied made Chris feel like MCI wasn't a safe environment, and made him conclude that skipping was the best option. According to the Waterville Sentinel, attempts to aid him in his education were made without success. He was last seen at school on Wednesday, April 10th, though he wasn't actually attending class.

Assistant Headmaster Ed Hackett saw him hanging around the campus that afternoon, despite being marked absent that day. He told him he needed to leave the premises if he wasn't going to be in class, and Chris complied. That was the last time he was ever on the MCI property. He didn't show up for the rest of the week. On Friday, April 12, 1991, Christopher never came home.

He left to go hang out with friends, sporting his new pony high-top sneakers and jeans black jacket. Gene declined to go and opted to hang out with his girlfriend instead. It was the last time he ever saw his brother alive. If he could turn back time, Gene said he would have gone with Christopher. By midnight, when he hadn't returned home, his father, Fred Rines, called up the Pittsfield police to keep an eye out for him. But they hadn't seen Chris either.

The following afternoon, the pieces of the puzzle started coming together, but the biggest piece that was still missing was Christopher himself. His first destination that Friday night was the Spotlight Roller Rink in Detroit, and by the time Christopher got there, he was pretty intoxicated. His mother told me that an older girl at the Pittsfield House of Pizza gave him a bottle of alcohol. Christopher was only 14.

And he had Jean's jacket on. It had a hole in it because a girl bought him booze. Why in my mind, why would anybody do that to a 14-year-old kid? But she bought him booze, and that's what he put it in.

Witnesses at the roller rink said that they saw an extremely intoxicated Chris, and that according to his friends, he was so drunk they loaded him into the bed of a pickup truck that subsequently dropped him off at the gravel pit near C.M. Almy, a local business in town where there was a small gathering of teens.

I went to this gravel pit. Still today, little mountains of gravel form a rough perimeter around a central clearing with tall trees on three sides. It feels like the perfect scene for a confrontation. Something at a fight club.

The pit connects to a forested pathway that weaves through the woods for about a quarter mile and dumps out into the parking lot of C.M. Almy. The forest path follows the Sebastakook River, inland about 150 feet. You can find my photos of the locations at MurderSheTold.com.

When at the gravel pit, Chris got into an argument with a friend who was trying to stop him from going off to pick a fight with an older boy. To my understanding, this "older boy" is a key part of this story, but his friend lost the argument, and a plastered Chris took off walking down the path and heading towards the downtown area along the river.

On Monday, April 15th, Fred and Mary Lou Rines officially reported their 14-year-old son missing. Christopher hadn't disappeared for this length of time before, and there were no problems at home that could have caused his disappearance. Despite this, his case was treated as a teenage runaway. There was no indication of foul play. Gene said that after a week of no sign of his brother, he knew that something bad had happened.

Missing posters went up all around town looking for the teen, and the Bangor Daily News began printing his photo. The rumors started pouring in. Sightings that sent the family on wild goose chases, bogus and prank phone calls to the police, calls saying that people knew where Chris was and that he was okay, calls saying that a group of boys threw him into the river.

and rumors that Chris ran away and was telling people that he didn't want to go home. By April 26th, two weeks after he was last seen, the state police were brought in.

Detective Timothy Colbert told the Bangor Daily News, quote, We have to treat this as the worst possible outcome to cover our bases from the beginning. We're doing follow-up interviews and trying to run down every rumor. We've had a lot of speculation and innuendo, and I'd like nothing better than to try to find that kid alive. But until I do, I have to keep probing at this case. End quote.

Assisting in the search was a canine unit in a plane to do an aerial search to survey the gravel pit and bodies of water nearby. Searches on foot seemed to yield nothing at the key locations that Christopher had been placed. But then they got the break they needed. Chris's jacket, the one he borrowed from his older brother, had been found at the shoreline of Mill Pond just behind a mobile home park.

mill pond is smack in the middle of downtown pittsfield and decently sized about a quarter mile across and quiet it's fed by the nearby rushing water of the sebastakook river but its only connection is through two small holes that allow the fast-moving river water to fill the quiet basin

On May 2, 1991, three weeks after Christopher Rines went missing, a team of six state police divers took to Mill Pond, and around 12.15 p.m., Christopher's body was located.

He was found about 25 feet from the shore where his jacket was found, under six feet of the ice-cold 43-degree pond water. Today, this location is now Fendler Park. They were going to take him to Augusta. I said, oh, no, you ain't, not until I see him. And a state cop there was going to take him. I said, no, you ain't. So the town cops, they come got me, and I saw him. I said, you're not cutting him open before I see him.

And they all, just I had my ex-brother-in-law, the two cops, my husband, and they stood there watching to make sure I wasn't going to do anything. And I combed his hair at the funeral place. They wouldn't even let my mother see him. The official cause of death was drowning, but the police wouldn't release any more information regarding the autopsy or toxicology report.

At first, it wasn't even labeled suspicious to the public, simply that it was still under investigation. But how exactly did 14-year-old Christopher Rines get into the pond? Did he accidentally fall into the water? Or did something more sinister happen? This was a question that would haunt his father, Fred Rines, until his death in 2010.

Mary Lou said the stress of the initial search and investigation was so hard she lost her appetite to the point of losing 14 pounds. In the years following, she had a mild stroke that took feeling out of her left side. The rumors that started during the initial missing persons investigation didn't stop once the body was found, and judging by the Facebook comments on some of the posts about Chris, they still haven't stopped.

The one that came up the most frequent was that Chris was tied to something that weighed him down and tossed over the bridge. I asked Mary Lou about this. They went and said that he was tied, his hands were tied and weighted down. No, he wasn't. I was right there when they, you know, took him out. And as I said, the state cop didn't want me to see him. She wasn't keeping me from seeing him, I can tell you.

And, I mean, we went all the way to Augusta. They said, there ain't no way in heck you're going to cut my kid open. But they did. They had a lot of rumors. This case is officially labeled an unsolved homicide by the Maine State Police, which means that there's some information they're withholding that makes them sure this death wasn't an accident or suicide. When I took a trip to Pittsfield to walk the shore of Mill Pond, the notion that he was pitched off a bridge was immediately dispelled.

The shore behind the park where the mobile home community once stood is not too steep. It's overgrown with gnarled trees and brush, and a small, muddy embankment leads into the water. It's not exactly something you could just fall into. So how could Chris have ended up drowned in this exact spot? I tried to learn what generally happens to a cadaver in a cold body of water, and I found out that they will sink initially.

The human body is very similar to the density of water, and once the air in your lungs is expelled, or replaced with water, the body sinks to the bottom. As the bacteria from the gut start to take over the body, gases are expelled and the body begins to expand, which will eventually cause the body to rise to the surface. Chris had been underwater for 20 days, almost 3 weeks.

This is typically enough time for a body to rise to the surface, but due to the cold waters of Mill Pond, the decomp process had been slow to a crawl. Due to the fact that the waters of the Mill Pond were quite still, it doesn't seem like his body would have traveled too far from where it entered. It seems like he died fairly close to the spot where he was found, or at least nearby. So what happened?

The weather on the day of his disappearance was cold and without precipitation. The high was 46 degrees and was likely about 38 degrees by the time it was 10 p.m. The temperature of the pond is low enough to give a shock to the system. Why would he be in a cold pond on a chilly night in April, just recently thawed from the long Maine winter? Perhaps it was the work of the older boy who Chris went to confront after leaving the gravel pit.

Though investigators won't confirm or deny, the Banker Daily News mentioned that there were reports that Chris was struck in the head by somebody, possibly with a bottle, who then pushed him into the pond during an altercation.

But this boy hasn't been named as a person of interest or a suspect by the police. And despite his name coming up frequently in different sources, I'm going to call him John for the sake of this story. A lot of the kids, they were older than him. He always tended, and Gene did, tended to hang to kids that were older than them. And I think that D*** was older than him. The cops tried to talk to him once, and his father, he's dead now, too bad. He wouldn't allow them to talk to D***.

And he's in, as far as I know, he's in Pittsfield somewhere. But his own relations, they've talked to me and they said they know what he did. It ain't like they're denying it. I mean, they know. He won't even look me in the eye. He would stare at the ground. I mean, he was just a really bad kid. I don't know about his life because I didn't know him before, you know, what happened. But John keeps coming up in this story. And it seems that he sometimes does it to himself.

Gene mentioned he's heard that when John gets drinking, he gets talking. And Gene's not the only one who's heard things. I mean, he was at skating. And these people, I mean, he come out and said, well, I'm surprised they ain't got me on a murder charge. I mean, he was the one that said it himself. And then he never stared me in the face. I saw him in the buds one time and his face was staring right at the floor. He never looked me in the eye. Never.

Gene told me that he thought Chris and John were friends, and that the fight was supposedly about protecting a girl. So our underdog fighter stepped into the punch-out ring to fight one of the older and bigger fighters. And unfortunately, he lost the match. But no matter what rumors are spread, in the end, you have a 14-year-old boy whose life was cut short. A kid whose death remains unsolved.

The photo that accompanied his story in the newspaper is the last photo that was ever taken of Chris. Mary Lou said that photo captured exactly who Christopher was, with his cool kid jacket that was probably borrowed from his brother and sly half-grin.

The curls of an early 90s haircut at the back of his neck that look more brown than sandy blonde because of the black and white photocopy. This photocopy of the original photo with its creases and character is one of the only photos left of him. That's the last photo that was taken of him. And a guy, he used to do photos of the kids when they were doing sports. And that picture is the last photo that was ever taken of him.

Throughout the years, Christopher's headstone was vandalized several times. Who would do that to a murdered child's grave is beyond me. But despite the setbacks, this case seems like it could be solved. All they need is one person to come forward with more information. Gene said that there was a guy who reached out to him on Facebook who seemed like he had information he wanted to tell, but something stopped him, and he chickened out and blocked Gene instead.

Come forward and say the truth and let it rest. Get it over with. It's not fair for him to get away with it. But I mean, he didn't even have a chance to live. 14 years old.

I spoke with a former lead detective on Chris's case, Detective Timothy Colbert, who is now retired, and he provided me with this statement. As we come to the 30th anniversary of Christopher Rines' untimely death, I would like the family to know that we did everything we could and followed every lead we had at the time to find answers. Unfortunately, we did not have enough information for a final determination, and

and rightly so, we cannot speculate. I would ask the public, if you saw something, say something. Let the police close out this case for the sake of the family." Chris's life was cut short in an act of violence, but his legacy lives on. His funeral was held at the Shorey Nichols Funeral Home in downtown Pittsfield, just a couple of blocks from where his body was pulled from the pond.

Hundreds of people attended the service. The small room in the back of the funeral home where the service was conducted couldn't hope to hold all the visitors. It was standing room only, and there was a line out the door.

In the wake of his death, many people came together to celebrate his life and remember him. MCI senior Becky Howe, who was and still is close to Chris' family, led the charge soliciting donations from student organizations like the Student Council and the Key Club, as well as the local community through the MCI Parents Association. She helped to put on a fundraising bake sale and ultimately raised about $250.

At MCI, a blue spruce tree was planted and a granite marker was placed by the tennis courts. I tried to find the memorial on school campus during my visit, but I wasn't able to locate it. I read in a comment online that it may have been moved during a renovation project at the school. I hope that it's been preserved.

Christmas of 1991, the year of his death, was a tough one for the family. They left a wreath at his grave and his aunt Sheila Walker wrote and published a remembrance in the local paper on behalf of the family. "It's been eight long months since we saw your smiling face. The good Lord took you away with no warning.

You are so young and so full of life. You are always with us. Never a day goes by without a loving thought of you. You will always be with us in our hearts forever. We love and miss you, mom, dad, brother, and family.

Next week, April 12, 2021, marks the 30th anniversary of the murder of Christopher Rines. The 30th anniversary since Jean last saw his brother and Mary Lou last saw her son. Christopher would be 45 this year and would most likely have a family of his own, but instead, he is forever 14 years old, stuck in 1991.

Next week, that black-and-white photocopied portrait of him will be recycled on the Maine State Police Facebook page and will garner comments of, I wish they could solve it, and everyone knows who did it. But until the people who know something divulge their secrets, this case may never be solved, and a murdered child will never get the justice he deserves.

If you or somebody you know knows anything about the murder of Christopher Rines, I urge you to come forward and submit a tip through the link in the show notes. Or if you'd feel more comfortable, contact me directly at murdershetoldpod at gmail.com. 30 years is too long to go without justice. This case can be solved. We just need people who know something to come forward and do the right thing.

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. As a thank you, I'm doing a little giveaway. For more details, sign up for the mailing list on MurderSheTold.com. I'll be sending out an email soon. Signing up for the mailing list is also how you get an invite to join the Murder She Told secret Facebook group to connect with listeners, vote on upcoming episodes like this one, and more.

My sources for this episode include the Bangor Daily News and Waterville Sentinel. Special thanks to Mary Lou Rines and Jean Rines for sharing their personal stories with me. And to Becky Howe Warger and Detective Timothy Colbert for their contribution to this episode. Additional thanks to Byron Willis for his research and writing support, and to Brad Fitch and Pauline Parkhurst. Murder, She Told is co-produced by AKA Studio Productions.

All links for sources and images for this episode can be found on MurderSheTold.com linked in the show notes. You can also connect with me on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. 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 are 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 and keeping the names of your family and friends alive. Murder, She Told will be back next week with another episode. Thank you for listening.

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