Murder on I-95: What Happened to Pamela Webb?
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You're listening to 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 me on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. What happens when a routine highway drive, one that's been driven many times, turns into a mother's worst nightmare? What if the kindness of a helpful stranger is actually something more nefarious?

What if you never make it to your destination? This is a Maine cold case with many theories but no actual suspects. This is the story of a road trip that ended with a homicide that still has yet to be solved. This is the story of the disappearance and murder of Pamela J. Webb.

On Saturday, July 1st, 1989, 32-year-old Pamela Webb was rushing to get ready for the rest of her long weekend. It was almost the 4th of July, and she had plans to spend her extra time with her new boyfriend, Josh Cloud.

She and Josh were long distance, but Pamela didn't mind. They met when Josh came up to Augusta from the Massachusetts location of the Digital Equipment Corps, where they both worked. He was smitten with her, and the two had plans to visit his homeland in the West later that year so he could introduce her to his Native American heritage.

Pamela was a little behind schedule and had just left her sister's house in Winthrop, Maine, staying long enough to put her nieces and nephews to bed before setting out on the three-hour trip to see Josh. But it was worth it. Family was everything to her, so they had a cookout for the holiday early so Pamela could be there. Pam was described by her mother as, quote, open and quiet. She didn't have many secrets, end quote. She lived in a mobile home that she'd recently purchased, something her niece Angela told me that she was very proud to have done on her own.

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with Angela, who was 11 at the time of her disappearance, while developing this episode. Angela affectionately called Pamela her 90 and remembered spending a lot of her childhood with her aunt. She said that her mother had her at a young age and Pamela was happy to help her sister out, taking Angela on the weekends to give her mom a break.

Angela called her 90 her fantasy coach, and they would have tea parties and dress up and go on playful adventures. She also taught her to sing, which is something that Pamela absolutely loved to do and, according to Angela, was really good at. She was active at her church in Augusta, and faith was a big part of her life. Angela remembered going to church with her, singing Amy Grant songs in her blue Chevy pickup truck.

Pamela was a huge animal lover. She had a dog, Thumper, a beagle-basset hound mix, and a cat named Hakuna, which is no relation to the Lion King because this is five years before it was released. She also had an affinity for Native American culture.

Angela's last memory of her 90 was when she tucked the 11-year-old girl into bed after she and her younger siblings had gotten into a fight at the family gathering. Before leaving, she told her, quote, Don't fight with your brothers and sister. Someday, you will regret those words that come out in anger. I love you. Sweet dreams. End quote.

After leaving her home around 9 p.m., according to a receipt found in her truck, she passed through the Augusta Turnpike toll booth at 9.52 p.m. Around 2 a.m., after receiving multiple phone calls about an abandoned 1981 blue Chevy C10 pickup truck, police arrive on the scene to investigate. The following morning, around 10 a.m., after Pamela failed to show up at her destination, her boyfriend Josh reported her missing.

Pamela was short, just 5'1 with a petite build. She had wavy, long brown hair that was often styled in a French braid and soft brown eyes. And on that Saturday afternoon before her disappearance, she had on a classic 1980s outfit. A denim miniskirt, new white sneakers with pink accents, and a light sweater.

To this day, police are still trying to determine exactly what happened between the hours of 9.52 p.m. Saturday night and 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Any witnesses who may have seen Pamela in her vehicle were imperative to the timeline of the investigation. And despite dozens of phone calls about seeing the vehicle itself, nobody came forward saying they saw Pamela that night.

Inside the cab of the truck sat Pamela's Beagle Mix pup, Thumper, patiently waiting for her return. Her purse, with all of its contents and money still inside, her Bible, the Augusta toll booth ticket, and other personal items. No sign of a struggle was present inside the vehicle, and because of this, robbery was assumed to not be a motive. Nothing inside the truck seemed to be disturbed. Outside, however, was a different story.

Her truck was parked in the breakdown lane with the emergency lights flashing. It had a flat tire. At the back of the truck, there were two large pools of human blood that had soaked into the concrete. It was clear that there had been some kind of altercation or struggle nearby. The flat tire was still in place at the wheel with the spare tire perched up against the bumper, ready to replace it.

Was Pamela abducted while attempting to change a flat tire? There were no tools found at the scene. Were they taken to hide any potential evidence? Maine State Trooper Randy Nichols, who was at the crime scene, said, quote, We have no specific evidence to call it anything other than suspicious, end quote. Though to me, everything about this situation screams foul play.

Sunday afternoon, an extensive search began, starting with a 23-mile stretch along the highway from Biddeford to York. About 75 people, including volunteers, state police, game wardens, canine units, and special search teams from the Brunswick Naval Air Station combed the sides of the main turnpike.

During the search, according to Stephen McCausland, a spokesperson for the Maine State Police, Pamela's dog, Thumper, spent most of the day inside the Biddeford toll booth, getting head scratches and treats from the workers like a good boy before being returned to her family.

But the search for Pamela was unsuccessful, and police left knowing nothing more than they did after the initial crime scene investigation. They rallied for the help of the public, urging anyone who even thought they maybe saw something that night to please come forward.

On July 18th, a group of construction workers in Franconia, New Hampshire, pulled off the road to take a break and stop for a drink. The Northeast was in the middle of a heat wave, not unusual for mid-July, but if you're from New England, you probably know at least one person who complains about the humidity the second the weather goes over 70 degrees. According to Wonderground.com, it was in the mid-80s that day, and the week averaged around that.

Immediately, the men knew something wasn't right as they were hit with an unusually powerful odor the second they stepped out of the vehicle coming from the woods nearby. An unmistakable kind of smell that haunts you for the rest of your life. The smell of death. They didn't have to go far to discover what was causing it because laying in the woods just off the road was a badly decomposed body.

Manchester police took the body to the medical examiner's office and notified Henry Ryan, the Maine State Chief Medical Examiner, with a description of the clothing found on the scene. Clothing that matched what Pam was said to be wearing the night of July 1st. McCausland said that, at first, the New Hampshire police said that there was no way the body could be Pam, stating that the decomposition was far too advanced to match the two-and-a-half-week-old missing persons case. But dental records said otherwise.

They had a positive match. Pamela Webb had been found. Dr. Roger Fossum, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner who took lead on the case, was unable to determine a cause of death.

The heatwave had advanced the state of decomp too far to determine key factors like how she died. Police didn't describe the crime scene, but did mention that animals had most likely gotten to her body. The medical examiner's only determination was that she died from "unspecified homicide of a violent nature" and that the date of her death was most likely July 1st, the night she left for Mason.

Franconia is a three and a half hour drive from where Pamela's truck was found in Biddeford. So, what happened to her? New Hampshire is known for its gorgeous white mountains, the highest point being Mount Washington. I spent time hiking there this past October, and I actually hiked Franconia Ridge Loop off Mount Lafayette, which is very close to where Pamela was found. I still have a bruised toe as a souvenir.

It's remote, but in a very different way than I would describe a rustic county of Maine. You're surrounded by looming mountains. There's no cell phone service, at least in today's world, and little pockets of tiny towns are scattered throughout. It's beautiful. When I was there, I couldn't help but think about Pamela and wonder who brought her there and why. There's a juxtaposition in my mind of the beauty of nature and the discovery of ugly death.

Franconia is on the northwestern side of New Hampshire, just a few miles from its most famous feature, the Man in the Mountain. You have to go around the National Forest to get there. Her original destination of Mason was almost two and a half hours south, close to the border of Massachusetts. What was she doing up in Franconia?

Pam's mother, Virginia Webb, told newspapers confidently that her daughter didn't have any connections with Franconia, saying, quote, She was going to Mason. As far as I know, she'd never even been to Franconia, end quote. Stephen McCausland urged the public in his quest for tips, saying, quote, Literally hundreds of cars passed that truck while it was there. Somebody might have seen something and thought nothing of it, but now it may have been more than it appeared, end quote.

The key call they hoped to get was from somebody who actually saw Pamela during that crucial period of time to help them pinpoint and narrow down a still fuzzy timeline. There may have been heavier than usual traffic too, because according to Angela, the Allman brothers had played a local concert that night. How could nobody remember seeing Pamela, or even another vehicle parked alongside her truck?

Meanwhile, back in Maine, Pamela's family was preparing to say goodbye. This is a day that Pamela's niece Angela remembers vividly.

About 500 people attended her funeral, standing room only, at the biggest church in Winthrop. The reverend spoke of her kindness that was well known to regular churchgoers, saying, quote, End quote.

Angela mentioned remembering seeing Josh, Pamela's boyfriend, at the funeral and how sad he was. Because their relationship was fairly new, he wasn't quite familiar with the family yet. She wished that she'd gotten to know him more and said that the last she'd heard, he'd gone back to his Native tribe in Oklahoma. One of my sources told Josh's story of healing and talked of his search for answers and solace through connecting with the Native American community in the Midwest.

The quest for answers into Pamela's murder was ramping up, and not even one month after her body was discovered, a potential suspect fell into the lap of the investigation. Some of the stories I'm about to tell you contain descriptions of sexual assault, so please listen with care. The first name that came to mind who police wanted to question was a trucker named Randolph Jakobitz.

Jakobitz was no stranger to run-ins with the law. At 17 years old, he was charged with counts like burglary and grand larceny after stealing a state-owned car, credit cards, and cash in the state of Pennsylvania. He'd also recently been arrested for the brutal kidnapping and rape of a woman in Vermont. In a quote from The Double Helix and The Law of Evidence, author David H.K. wrote, quote, On June 13, 1989,

A young woman from Burlington, Vermont was driving south on vacation. She stopped at a rest area along Interstate 91 in Westminster to make a phone call and to use the restroom. On her way out of the restroom, she was grabbed from behind, thrown to the floor, and handcuffed. Her mouth was stuffed with paper towels, and her head was covered by a pillowcase. She was forced in the back of a tractor trailer, which traveled for about a half an hour.

A man entered the back of the trailer and proceeded to brutally and repeatedly assault her. After driving for another four hours, he left her on the side of the highway in the Bronx, New York. End quote.

She survived, and DNA swabs were taken at the hospital that were later linked to Jacobitz. She was also able to pick him out of a police lineup, which, can I just say how incredibly terrifying that must be. This woman is so brave. I can't imagine having to point out such a monster of a human from a lineup like that.

After his arrest for the assault, Jakobitz also became an apparent suspect in the May 12, 1989 rape of a Maine woman after a necklace he was wearing matched the description of a necklace seen by the Maine woman. After the attack, he left the woman on the side of the road.

The fact that there was a possibility Jakobitz was in Maine around the time of Pamela's disappearance, as well as the fact that he took his Burlington victim over state lines on a four-hour drive and dumped her on the side of the road, made police want to talk to him about Pamela Webb.

But after retaining a receipt from a truck repair from Champlain, New York, and a US Canada custom slip indicating that he had re-entered New York at 6:30 p.m. after a delivery in Quebec on July 1st, 1989, police realized it would have been impossible to make it up to Maine in time to cross paths with Pamela, and Randolph Jakubits was ruled out as a suspect. However, despite not being Pamela's killer,

Police also looked into him as a possible suspect for a string of nine-plus unsolved New England murders in another case they were working on. One theory is that Pam is a victim of the Connecticut Valley River Killer, a still unidentified serial killer from the 1970s and 80s between the Vermont and New Hampshire borders. The Connecticut River itself runs between Vermont and New Hampshire and goes down through Connecticut State.

The killings associated with a valley killer happened mostly around the areas between the borders of Vermont and New Hampshire. On the New Hampshire Department of Justice cold case website, there are 137 cold cases from 1966 to present. Pamela Webb is listed for both Maine and New Hampshire. I clicked on a lot of female names on that list, and a good amount of them were found in wooded areas like PAM, which might not mean anything since New Hampshire is mostly trees.

There are at least seven murders connected with a valley killer, with a strong possibility of more.

Police noticed similarities between the killing styles and dump sites in two of the cases and re-examined older unsolved cases, concluding that they were the work of one person. In cases where a cause of death could be determined, the victims had died of multiple stab wounds, often to the abdomen and neck. Here are two cases that are confirmed to be the Valley Killer that have striking similarities to Pamela Webb.

In 1987, 38-year-old Barbara Agnew disappeared on her way home from a ski trip. On January 10th, a snowplow driver noticed her abandoned vehicle at the I-91 northbound rest area in Hartford, Vermont. The door was cracked and blood was found on the steering wheel.

Her body was eventually found two and a half months later on March 28th alongside a road in Heartland, Vermont, about 16 minutes from where her vehicle was found. She'd been stabbed to death, and nobody knows why she stopped at the rest stop that night, as she was only about 10 minutes away from her home.

In August 1988, 22-year-old Jane Borowski, who was seven months pregnant, was returning home from the county fair when she stopped at a closed convenience store to purchase a soda from a vending machine just off Route 9 South in Keene, New Hampshire. While sitting in her car, she noticed that a Jeep had pulled in and parked nearby. Through the rearview mirror, she noticed the driver approaching her window.

"Do you know if the payphone is working?" he asked. The man was lingering with a rather frenetic and uneasy energy. He was making Jane nervous. "I'm not sure, I didn't check," she said, hoping he would thank her and just walk away. But he didn't.

And before she could hit the lock on her door, he opened it and grabbed her. Before she even realized what was happening, the man pulled her out of the car at knife point. During the struggle, she asked why he was doing this to her. "Because you beat up my girlfriend," he replied through grunts. She denied it, fighting back, harder this time. And he asked her a really strange question: "Isn't this a Massachusetts car?"

Jane pointed at her New Hampshire plates, thinking he would leave her alone. Instead, he proceeded to stab her 27 times before leaving her for dead and driving away. But Jane was still alive, and she somehow managed to get back in her car and drive to a friend's house for help. While she was driving, she realized that the jeep of the man who attacked her was right in front of her on the road.

After Jane miraculously made it to her friend's house, the attacker did a U-turn and passed by the house, watching as her friends rushed to her aid before speeding off into the night. Fortunately, both Jane and her baby survived the attack. Jane was able to provide a detailed description to the authorities for a composite sketch as well as a vehicle description and the first three license plate numbers.

But the leads eventually went cold, and Jane is the last confirmed victim of the Connecticut River Valley Killer.

There are no official ties between Pamela and the Valley Killer, and the distance between the areas of Jane's attack and Pamela's vehicle are pretty significant - 144 miles to be exact. So it seems that although the similarities are striking, this puzzle piece might not fit the way we want it to. Although it's not impossible, and it is worth noting that there are only two major roads between the locations, one of them being the only interstate that runs through the area.

Shortly after Pamela's disappearance, there was an incident in Cornish, New Hampshire that police thought may be related. From what I can determine about the incident, a young woman, whose identity remained anonymous, was driving at night in an undetermined location in Cornish when a man in a pickup truck pulled up alongside her, signaling to get her attention and telling her that she had a bad rear tire.

He then forced her to pull off the road and stop. She locked herself in her vehicle and refused to come out. But the man was determined and tugged and kicked at the driver's door, yelling at her to get out of the car. He didn't leave until a second motorist came by and told him to move because he was blocking the road. This witness also stated that there was nothing wrong with the woman's tire. Pamela Webb's tire, however, was a different story.

Steve McCausland said that, quote, police are investigating every report, but have found nothing solid yet, end quote. No further connections were made between the Cornish woman and Pamela Webb's case, though the similarities are curious.

In 2004, the FBI released the Serial Highway Killings Initiative with a detailed map of over 500 unsolved cases of homicide, mostly of women, whose bodies were found along the highway or common routes taken by long-haul truckers. Angela told me that her grandfather, Pamela's father, reached out to his truckers' union to see if anyone had heard any talk around town that could possibly be connected with Pam.

The New Bedford Highway Killer is one of New England's more well-known cases, an unidentified killer with about 9 to 11 victims who was active between 1988 and 1989 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. While there is no connection to this killer and Pamela, police did look into another trucker for any relation, James Robert Cruz Jr.,

In 1993, James Robert Cruz Jr. was convicted by a Pennsylvania jury of murdering 17-year-old Mainer Dawn Birnbaum, who ran away from the infamous Elon School in Poland, Maine, and was abducted by Cruz on his route. Her body was eventually found at a rest stop in Pennsylvania. Steve McCausland stressed that investigators have no evidence linking Cruz to the Webb case, as her cause of death has yet to be determined.

He said, quote, I wouldn't label him as a possible suspect. We've come up with nothing so far, but that doesn't mean we'll stop trying, end quote.

Internet sleuths have also tried to connect Pam with yet another trucker, John Wayne Boyer, known as the Long Haul Territory Killer. He is currently serving time for the murder of a North Carolina sex worker in 1999 and possibly has some connections with other murdered women. A blog about Boyer has Pamela listed under the "Cases for Review" tab and includes maps of possible routes taken by Boyer as well as a pinpoint map to show where each possible victim was found.

But from looking at the routes Boyer was known to have taken, it seems like a majority of them were in the South, Southeast, and Midwest areas, and he didn't come up to New England much. I think based on that probability, he's not our guy. However, all of the blogs that I've mentioned in this episode will be available on MurderSheTold.com and linked in the show notes.

Around 11.30 p.m. on the night of July 1, 1989, Maine State Trooper Jeffrey Haas was patrolling the highway near Biddeford when he noticed Pamela's truck parked in the breakdown lane. However, he didn't stop to investigate until 2 a.m.

According to the Press Herald, for three months until he became a suspect in the case, he told officials that the first time he noticed the truck was between 2 and 3 a.m. When it slipped to his supervisor that he'd actually seen the truck two and a half hours earlier than initially stated, Haas was fired for lying and falsifying a state police report.

Pamela's parents filed a court claim that, quote, "If Haz had checked on the vehicle the first time he saw it, he may have been able to prevent their daughter's murder," end quote. An arbitrator who upheld Haz's dismissal wrote that Haz's lie may have compromised the investigation.

In May of 1999, the civil case went to the Maine Supreme Court in Portland, but the court unanimously ruled to block the lawsuit, preventing the Webs from suing Jeffrey Haas for failing to prevent Pamela's death. Furthermore, the family wasn't allowed to see police reports and documents from the time, as this was still an open murder investigation. According to the Press Herald, Justice Howard Dana stated, quote,

Although there is some uncertainty in the evidence as to the time that Haas first discovered Pamela Webb's disabled truck, any conclusion that Haas passed the vehicle when Pamela was present and that his stopping would have prevented her abduction would be based on pure speculation. Failing to stop and investigate a disabled truck is not a crime. It is a violation of state police procedure for which Haas was subject to and received discipline, end quote.

After his removal of state trooper status, Jeffrey Haas became a sergeant with the Gardner Police Department. He told the Press-Herald, quote,

End quote.

Internet sleuths have also made some possible connections between Pam and the most famous disappearance in the Northeast, the disappearances of Amora Murray and Breonna Maitland.

Maura Murray went missing the night of February 9th, 2004, after she crashed her car on Route 112 in Woodsville, New Hampshire. Breonna Maitland went missing a month later, on March 19th, 2004, in Burlington, Vermont. If you're a true crime fan, you're probably familiar with Maura Murray's story, which is a huge rabbit hole on its own. And none of these angles, at least to my knowledge, have ever been officially investigated.

From what I've seen, the only major connection between Maura Murray and Pamela Webb is the fact that their cars were found without them on the side of the road, and that Pamela's body was found in New Hampshire, as was Maura's car. Maura's body, if she's dead, has never been found. Anything else I found was a little more coincidental and bordered on conspiracy, like the fact that Pamela's father passed away on the same day that Maura went missing. But it's an interesting theory to explore if you like falling down rabbit holes.

To this day, police are still waiting for that call that will crack this case. A memory of seeing a blue Chevy pickup truck on the side of the highway in Biddeford. Something overheard from a former long-haul trucker. Somebody who spills a clue while drinking at the local dive bar. Anything that will get them closer to answers. Pamela left a lasting legacy on Maine and the family and friends who knew her. Angela even named her daughter in Pamela's honor.

Though Pamela was not a member of AAA, in response to her death, the company made some changes to make safety their top priority when responding to a broken down vehicle.

This included advising their customers to stay in the vehicle with the doors locked and the hood up until somebody with proper identification comes along, and advising people not to get out for plainclothes police officers or people who flash a badge, reminding them that they can always call for help or backup, or slowly drive, if they're able to, to a safe place before engaging with somebody.

This is one of those frustrating cases that has zero answers and probably won't until somebody pipes up with something new. But part of the Murder, She Told mission is to keep talking about these people and their stories in hopes that maybe someday somebody listening might submit the exact clue police need that splits this case wide open and brings a cold-blooded killer who is still living among us to justice.

♪

My sources for this episode include articles from local newspaper archives including The Sun Journal, Associated Press, The Telegraph, The Press Herald, and Bangor Daily News. Other sources include New Hampshire Unsolved Blog, New Hampshire and Maine Official Websites, Valley Killer Wikipedia, and WordPress blogs for the Long Haul Territory Trucker and Maura Murray. If you have any information on Pamela Webb's case, you can submit an anonymous tip to the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit website.

A very special thanks to Angela for sharing her memories with me and to Eric Collins of The Armchair Detective for sharing his research. Murder, She Told is co-produced by AKA Studio Productions. All links for sources can be found in the episode link in the show notes and on MurderSheTold.com. And a special thanks to you for listening. I am so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. Be sure to subscribe and follow Murder, She Told on Instagram at Murder, She Told Podcast for key photos from the episode and more.

If you loved this episode, please consider sharing Murder, She Told with a friend and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. If you are a friend or family member of the victims or anyone connected to this story, 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 in keeping the names of your family and friends alive. Murder, She Told will be back next week with another crime story from Maine. Thank you for listening.

What's up, guys? I'm New York Lottery host and podcaster Kylie MacDonald. I can't complain. My life is good. I have a good job, good friends, good family, and I'm 25. But honestly, right now when I look at the future, I see nothing but a giant question mark. But that's okay because you know what? I love what I do and there's no other career path I would rather go down, no matter how windy the road is.

Then I realized there are a lot of people who are in the same boat as me in every field. People who are forging their own paths and creating their livelihoods based on what they want in life. Those are the people I want to talk to, learn from, and celebrate.

every Tuesday we do just that on chapter 20 something we talk to people in every career field you can imagine about their stories ambitions and missions it's a good time always leaves me inspired and I think it'll do the same for you check out chapter 20 something with me Kylie McDonald wherever you get your podcast and be sure to let me know what you think bye

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