The Deadly Web of Maine Serial Killer James Hicks, Part One
42:07 Share

This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself? Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start? Talkspace. Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need.

With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule, wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner, or just need a little extra one-on-one support, Talkspace is here for you.

Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers, and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance? No problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code SPACE80 when you go to Talkspace.com. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. ♪♪

You're listening to Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small town USA. I'm your host, Kristen Seavey. Thank you so much for tuning into the first episode. I'm so excited to finally share Murder, She Told with you. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime story at MurderSheTold.com and follow on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast.

Tom Weber wrote in the Bangor Daily News: "Could any of us truly recognize the face of a killer? Is there a way to peer into his eyes and glimpse his murderous nature? Could we ever hope to detect the source of his violent impulses? The hostile rage, perhaps, or the twisted psyche that makes one person so dangerously different from the rest of us? If we knew what to look for, could we actually see evil in someone's eyes?"

The story I have for you today hits close to home. Super close. This story has never been told on a podcast before, the most sensational trial in the history of Maine, and a story that spans across two states and over two decades. It's the story of three innocent women who got caught in a deadly web they couldn't escape, and a killer who, if it weren't for his own actions, might have gotten away with his crimes.

This is the wild saga of the serial killer you've probably never heard of, James Rodney Hicks.

It's October 16th, 1982, in my hometown of Newport, Maine. But this is before my time. Gerilyn Tibbetts-Towers is a 34-year-old single mom raising three kids on her own. Her sister-in-law describes her as the kind of person who would pay the balance of your groceries if you came up short at the store, even if she didn't know you. I'm picturing her in line at Bud's Shop and Save, the local grocery store from my childhood that's now a Hannaford. But her daughter Tammy casts her in a much different light.

I'm going to do something that I've never done before when telling a crime story. This is normally the part where I would talk about what a great mom she was and how she would do anything for her kids. I actually had something written about her devotion as a mother based on the news articles I found and the Oxygen show I watched.

But I understand that people are more complex than one person's perspective, and I had the chance to speak with Gerilyn's daughter Tammy, and she told me hers. She told me the complete opposite about what I originally believed about her mom. The networks didn't include her account because it wasn't a pretty picture, and instead told a version to viewers that wasn't true. I believe Tammy's life story, and I've chosen to omit the pleasantries I normally would have included here. And although this makes it harder to understand Gerilyn, it doesn't mean she deserves justice any less.

- Gerilyn kept an empty mayo jar full of spare change in the kitchen, and this particular night called for a little fun to use it. So Gerilyn, Gerilyn's father, and two of her kids, including 13-year-old Tammy, hopped in a car and headed over to Pittsfield, the next town over, to the local bowling alley to spend the evening on the town. After a little family fun, Gerilyn was in the car on the way home from the bowling alley, and although the kids needed to get to bed,

Gerilyn wasn't ready to call it a night. She asked to be dropped off at a local bar. She planned to call her father to take her home later that evening after having a couple of drinks. The Gateway Lounge is only a three-minute drive away, but Gerilyn never called. "I happen to know the Gateway Lounge, or at least where it used to be. I know that the way home from Pittsfield takes you right through the triangle in the center of town, which is exactly where the Gateway was located.

Coincidentally, Gerilyn lived just a stone's throw away from my childhood home, on a tiny street with just a few houses, the street I grew up on. Gerilyn lived in a cottage next door to her parents' house, and I remember playing with my cousin where the cottage used to stand. Around 1am, a car pulls into the yard before turning off its engine. Believing Gerilyn most likely got a ride home from somebody to save him a trip, he assumes that she's safe and goes to bed.

But the next morning, Gerilyn's mother, June Tibbetts, calls her son, Vance, in a panic. Gerilyn still wasn't home, which was super unlike her. She did have a history of leaving for a few days, but she always told her family where she was and when to expect her back. But maybe she went home with somebody and forgot to call this time.

June informs the Newport police, and they reassure her that Gerilyn will probably turn up soon. But when Gerilyn still isn't home a few days later, local police chief Jim Ricker goes out to ask a few questions, starting with the bar where she was last seen. I spoke on the phone with Jim Ricker, who is now the town manager of Newport, about working on this case. At the time of this story, he was the Newport police chief. I asked him how he got involved with this case.

Well, it was the early 80s, of course. I'd only been working here, I don't know, a year or so, I guess, in Newport. And it was a missing person case. It was a Jarlon Towers was reported as a missing person. Last seen at the Gateway Lounge here in Newport, where her father had dropped her off the prior evening.

And if my memory serves me correctly, during the initial investigation, the dad, who is now deceased, thought that his daughter had come home because he'd heard a vehicle or something in the yard in the early morning hours. So he thought she'd come home and then in the morning realized that she had not come.

And then later on, they filed a missing persons with the police department and an investigation ensued. The Gateway Lounge building still exists, only now it's called China Way, and it has been ever since I can remember. It's a bright red, sort of gaudy building that looks like it's pulled straight out of the 80s and hasn't changed on the outside minus the sign.

smack in the middle of a busy triangle intersection. I spoke with Carolyn and Linda, whose parents owned the Gateway back then, and Carolyn dug through old family albums and shared with me photos of the Gateway from the early 1980s, exactly when this story takes place. I'll share those and other key photos from this story on MurderSheTold.com and on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast.

The bartender, who was working the night of October 16th, Judy McBeth, said she remembered seeing Gerilyn there, and she wasn't alone. She was approached by a man who flattered her and brought her drinks all night. They seemed to be laughing and having a great time. Around 1 a.m., they left together. But Judy swore that Gerilyn never got in the car with him. Ricker questioned Judy about this mystery man's identity, but she said, quote, I can't remember names, but I can always remember faces, end quote. We got information from a...

An employee at the Gateway Lounge that knew her and told us that she was last seen in the company of a gentleman who was wearing a steel chainsaw hat. A week later, Judy reported to work and sitting in the same spot wearing an almost identical outfit as the night she last saw him was the mystery man who left with Gerilyn. Except this time he was alone.

His name was James Hicks, and despite admitting to being at the bar the night Gerilyn disappeared, he said he didn't know any more than that, even when questioned by police. He was there alone, and he left alone. It wasn't until Judy started getting harassing phone calls at work, with the person on the other line breathing heavily or hanging up, that police decided to pay James Hicks a second visit. One call even threatened to know where Judy lived and that she needed to keep her big mouth shut.

Linda, who worked with Judy at the time, told me that Judy had to drive by the Hicks house on her way home every night after work, and that made her nervous. So Chief Ricker paid him a visit in Carmel, where he lived with his girlfriend Linda Marquis. As Ricker questioned him about his time at the Gateway the night of Gerilyn's disappearance, Hicks' behavior became increasingly strange and erotic. Myself and another officer had gone to the Hicks residence and

This is what's really ironic. It's one of those times when, as a law enforcement officer, you are really talking to an individual only because you think they may be a witness.

And it was during that conversation that he quickly became a primary suspect. We were invited in. I can remember talking, explaining who I was and so forth and why I was there and asking him if he would be comfortable answering a few questions. And, yeah, he would. And, well, he started to come completely unnoticed.

I guess, for lack of a better term. But he was very, very nervous. At one point, he got a glass of water and poured it over his own head, trying to drink it. That's how nervous he was. Then he started accusing me of thinking that he murdered his first wife.

Now, I had never heard of James Hicks, and I had certainly never knew that he had been married or that his first wife may be a missing person as well before that interview. So when he opened that door, started talking about me accusing him of killing his first wife, I started asking questions about it. But you need to understand that there was no indication that

We had no prior knowledge that he had had a wife and that she was indeed missing. So when I started focusing on his statement, his live-in girlfriend at the time came out and basically asked us to leave the house.

She no longer wanted him to talk to us, and we had to leave. And, you know, and I'm putting it much more mildly than the request was actually voiced. But nonetheless, we were asked to leave, and we had to leave.

And there was nothing that he had said that would really lend itself to an arrest. There was not enough probable cause or anything in what he had said. Basically, he was just making wild accusations towards me. So that's how that first interview went. And from that moment on, Jimmy Hicks was the subject of investigations for many years to follow.

This interaction struck a chord with Ricker. People don't just blurt out accusations about murder. And suddenly, somebody who wasn't on the police radar at all before this incident was put under a magnifying glass.

If he would have just been, yeah, geez, I took her out, bought her a beer or whatever, because we started the interview. I asked him to come out in the car, and then he wanted... You could tell he was getting very nervous in the car, so he wanted to go in the house, and we went in the house, and that's where it concluded. But if he had just been very cool, calm, and collected, yeah, okay, you're the last guy seen with her. Where did you take her? That type of thing. And...

But certainly that is not how that interview went. Basically, James Hicks at that moment in time made himself a primary suspect.

So he starts to investigate, and what he finds is more than just a little peculiar. Not having much to go by, except that James was married to a Jenny Sear, Ricker starts out with the original search engine, the phone book. I came back to my office. Of course, now I'm very, very excited, very convinced. So I just got a phone book, and I started looking for her family in...

in this area because I never knew any of these people. So I found the Sear family and I called by happenchance and said, you know, are you so-and-so related to Jennifer? And this lady starts crying on the phone.

And I said, can I come talk to you? And she says, yes. Well, when I got to that house, it was like a family reunion. There must have been 10 or so people there, different relatives and so forth. And some of them crying, some of them not. So I got the lady calmed down. I think her name was Myra. And she says, nobody has ever believed me.

I said, well, what do you mean nobody's believed me? She said, I know James Hicks killed my daughter, but nobody would believe me. He told the police that she ran off with a trucker and left her kids. She would not do that. She would leave him, but she would never leave those kids.

James Hicks was born at a farmhouse in Aetna, Maine on April 17, 1951 and was raised by his single mother. His father abandoned the family when he was young, leaving her struggling to raise seven children on her own. Aetna is a super tiny rural farming town next to Newport. The surrounding towns are so small, they're clustered together and all the kids go to one central school, Nokomis Regional High, where my whole family graduated from. However, James Hicks actually went to Herman High School.

and I couldn't seem to find the reason why he didn't go to Nokomis, but other family members did. I did find his senior yearbook, though. The 1970 Herman microphone. And there he is, 18 years old with a handsome gap-toothed smile and perfectly styled vintage hair.

He was a star cross-country runner, something he's most remembered for in school. I spoke with former varsity running teammate Rick, who said he remembered Jimmy as being soft-spoken and quite the athlete. He remembered the cigarettes he used to smoke and the cowboy hat he liked to wear. He said he gave Jimmy a run for his money on the track, but that Jimmy was an athlete and set the school course record his senior year. That moment at the regional and state meet earned him a shout-out in the senior highlights as a memorable moment from the year, saying, Thanks, Jim Hicks.

He's not the only one in that yearbook from this story. Jenny Sears is there, too, posing for a group portrait with her sophomore classmates. She looks sad in comparison to the other teenage girls sitting around her. She's 16 in the photo and most likely pregnant, though she doesn't look it. A former classmate named Daniel Pelletier remembers the day Hicks pointed out young Jenny.

a painfully shy and quiet ninth grader, saying, quote, I'm going to marry that girl, end quote. Daniel said James was a very determined person when he wanted something. Just before his senior year in 1969, his brother, Sheldon Hicks, was killed along with three other soldiers in Vietnam when their truck ran over a landmine. His sister, Lori, who went to high school with my aunt and who was eight when her brother died, later told the Bangor Daily News, quote, I was very close to Sheldon and it affected me.

"I don't know how it affected Jimmy. He was always so quiet. He would never show his true feelings." But others say his brother's death did affect him, but that the depth of his anger and sadness were only shown behind closed doors. Bangor Daily News staff writer Jeff Tuttle later described him as being, "by many accounts a quiet teenager with few friends, but with the unmistakable ability to charm certain women."

For others who knew him, however, his privacy masked the personality of a jealous, manipulative, selfish, and frightening man." And that charm on women worked. He married Jenny Sear when she was just 16 years old and pregnant with her first child. High school sweethearts, or so it would appear. But I can't help but think of that yearbook photo and wonder if her expression was a reflection of how she felt on the inside.

She dropped out of school in 1971 and married James against her family's wishes. They suggested that she had an abortion and tried sending her to a convent school. But eventually, the family came to terms, and the couple moved in with her parents for a while with their newborn son before moving to the TNN trailer park in Carmel. Carmel, by the way, is a five-minute drive from Aetna, where his mother's farmhouse stood.

Their relationship was rocky and marred by infidelity on James' part and financial struggle. At one point around 1974, they filed for divorce. But after discovering Jenny was pregnant again, they decided to give the marriage another shot. But three years later, everything would change. On July 19, 1977, James frantically called the local police department and told them that his 23-year-old wife was missing. So Jennifer...

went missing five years before I came back to Maine. So in talking to them, I said, well, tell me about the investigation. Who did you call? So forth and so on. Well, I found out that they had reported this to the sheriff's office, Penobscot County Sheriff's Department. Well, there wasn't a record of it. Nobody ever filed a report.

And I kept asking for these reports, and they kept assuring me that they were going to work with me on this, but there was no report. Never was a report filed. Never was a missing persons issued.

They went, some deputy went and interviewed James Hicks, and he convinced the deputy that his wife ran off with a truck driver. And we'd go into these long descriptions about, you know, he had suspected it was going on, this type of thing. So in a way, that case was closed. The Sear family were absolutely genuine, telling me that nothing ever happened, because nothing ever happened.

The Sear family put out a missing persons ad in the paper describing Jenny as 5'7 with Farrah Fawcett-style dark blonde hair. But the police didn't believe she was missing at all. And unless there was concrete evidence to make the investigators think foul play, police would often move this type of missing persons case to the back burner. Denise Clark, Jenny's sister, later recalled what an arrogant bully Hicks was when he was younger. She said he was controlling and abusive towards Jenny.

An anonymous source I spoke with who knew Jenny in high school confirmed that as well. However, his abuse wasn't limited to his wife. If you're particularly sensitive to animal abuse, I suggest skipping ahead 30 seconds. Denise recounted the time that Hicks bragged to her that he had just given away his dog to a new owner and then ran the dog over with his car as he drove away.

Denise also remembered a time that Hicks didn't like something she said. She told the Bangor Daily News, quote, I didn't see him kill my cat, but he made sure to tell me every detail. That's the kind of person he was. He told me how he tied a wire around its neck, hooked it to the back of the car, and drove up and down the road, end quote. Sadly, Denise found the cat exactly the way he told her it would be. As a huge animal lover myself, I found that detail to be particularly disturbing.

In the weeks following Ricker's strange encounter with James Hicks and through talking with Jenny's family and friends who all had the same story, Ricker realized he might not be dealing with one missing persons case, but rather two homicides. Jenny knew she needed to get out of her situation, but she disappeared the day after she told James she was planning to leave him. And despite the lack of a long-term romantic connection on one case, Ricker believes that

and the five-year-old missing persons case of Jenny Sear is quietly reopened. Main State Police Detective Dick Reichel is called in to assist on the case. He starts his search for clues by knocking on doors at the TNN trailer park where James and Jenny lived, hoping to strike a nerve with somebody who might remember them. And he does. A neighbor, Trudy Levenseller, who was afraid to speak up while Hicks lived doors down, told the detectives the night that Jenny disappeared, she heard fighting coming from the trailer, banging, and then silence.

Shortly after, she remembered hearing what sounded like wood being chopped in the back of his trailer, an odd activity to do late at night.

The police allegedly approached her in 1977 when initially questioning the disappearance, but Hicks was with Trudy at the time, and she was too afraid to say anything. This was the first time that anyone had ever asked her about it since then. Trudy would later become a witness for the prosecution. Trudy also mentioned a live-in babysitter named Susan Matley who might know exactly what happened. So police tracked her down in Massachusetts, where she'd been living and hiding ever since.

Susan Matley was 15 years old when she came to live with James and Jenny Hicks. She was a foster child, and Jenny had made an arrangement with her caseworker to have Susan live with them, and essentially act as a babysitter for their two young children. Susan told Oxygen's Buried in the Backyard that Jenny was like a second mother to her, and she was a wonderful person. Susan told a similar story as Trudy, that she was afraid for her safety, and that's why she never spoke up against Hicks, and gave them a detailed account of the last day she saw Jenny.

Susan's verbal testimony gave police enough circumstantial evidence to indict James Hicks on a murder charge in the disappearance of Jenny, and on October 5th, 1983, he was arrested without bail, and prosecution had found its star witness. There was only one major issue surrounding this case. There was no body, no blood, and no physical evidence.

which means that the state had the extremely difficult task of not only proving that Jenny Hicks was dead, but that James had caused her death by an intentional and knowing act. This is the first murder case to go to trial without a body in the state of Maine. The defense, however, was eager to point out that Jenny was alive and could walk through the courtroom door at any time.

In March 1984, the trial begins, and 22-year-old Susan had to face her fears in front of a courtroom full of people and testify against a man she was still afraid of.

Hicks's defense attorney, J. Hillary Billings, stated, "...the fundamental point of this case is simply whether you will be able to find it in yourselves to convict someone of murder if you don't even know if a death has occurred. There is no solid evidence that a death occurred." Prosecution opened up with neighbors from the TNN trailer park who recalled the week of Jenny's disappearance. Trudy spoke of the fight she heard and the wood chopping, and another neighbor recalled hearing fighting and cries from a female voice saying, "...stop, Jimmy, you're hurting me, you're killing me."

Other witnesses also included friends and family of Jenny to testify for her character and her commitment to her children and her family. She was a loving mother and responsible employee, and to go six years without contact is more than unusual for her. But the state's first key witness was Jenny's sister, Denise Clark, who I spoke of earlier. Denise was not afraid to be vocal for her vitriol for James Hicks.

She said that her sister was upset at the time of her disappearance and that her marriage was on the rocks. Jenny confided in Denise that either she or her husband were going to be moving out the following week. The last time Denise saw her sister was the day before she disappeared. Defense claimed that Jenny was unsatisfied with her life in general and with her marriage, and that her relationship with Hicks produced two unwanted pregnancies. J. Hillary Billings, Hicks' lawyer, said that he'd been living with his current girlfriend, Linda Marquis, since Jenny abandoned him and their two children.

Since then, he'd had two other children with Linda and had taken in her two other kids from a previous marriage. James Hicks was a family man, they argued. Linda sat in the courtroom listening along with other members of the Hicks family to support that. Jenny's mother, Myra Sear, however, argued differently. Tom Weber reported in the Bangor Daily News that Myra was visibly shaken after a lengthy cross-examination on the witness stand.

Hicks reportedly told Myra three days after he claimed her daughter was missing that Jenny's car was seen in Newport, and that Jenny said she didn't want to speak with him and asked for her clothes back before leaving town. But she said, quote, Newport's a small town, and I walked all around, and I never once ran into my daughter, end quote. Myra also testified that in October of 1978 in Mattawaska, where she was living at the time, that she ran into Hicks on the street and inquired again about Jenny, who

who he'd previously said was living in Florida. Myra told him that she looked into the claim about Jenny's whereabouts and her daughter wasn't living in Florida. He then changed the story and said that she was in New Hampshire living with a boyfriend. Myra then said, quote, end quote.

Hicks allegedly replied saying, you'll never prove that. Myra later admitted when questioned by Billings about that incident that she never actually went to Florida to look for Jenny. Quote, I know I've lost my daughter, she said in response to his questions. I'm not out for revenge. I just want to know where my daughter's body is, end quote. When asked why she hadn't informed the police about this interaction with Hicks claiming to see Jenny, she responded, quote, the police didn't do anything from the beginning, end quote.

But the whole trial was hinging on Susan Matley's testimony and deeper details on what exactly may have happened that night. Two days before Jenny's disappearance, Susan was in the kitchen cooking and Hicks came up behind her and grabbed her and pressed himself into her body. When it was clear that he was trying to force her to have sex with him, she fought back and he retaliated by burning her with a cigarette and putting it out on her chest. She still had the scar to show for it.

The morning of July 18, 1977, after James had left for work, Susan told Jenny about the incident, and Jenny decided that it had to be now. She was going to tell James that she was finally leaving him. She asked Susan to go out for the evening so that she could talk to him. So Susan gave the couple space and went out on a date, returning home around 4 a.m.

She expected to see the house quiet when she returned home since it was so late, but she definitely didn't expect the unsettling scene she walked into when opening the door to the Hicks trailer.

She testified that she saw James sitting in silence and staring at static on the television screen, glittering with black and white dots. And next to him on a love seat was Jenny. Only something wasn't right. She was laying there in such a peculiar way, it was hard for Susan to believe she was sleeping. Her body was partially off the couch with her head on a wooden armrest. She was scrunched up as if she hadn't put herself there. Her

Her hair was completely covering her face so that none of her features could be seen, and it was so long that it touched the floor. Her arms flailed in crazy positions, one of them over her head pointing down. "Jenny Hicks looked dead," said Susan. James simply said she was sleeping and told Susan to go back to bed, so she did.

But she couldn't sleep very well and later she heard what sounded like slippers scuffing and dragging across the floor and the door to the trailer closing. And then the next day, Jenny was gone. But strangely enough, her purse, complete with IDs and credit cards, and her glasses sat on the kitchen table. He said she just took off with a lover. But there were two things that Susan knew Jenny would never ever leave town without: her children and her glasses.

Jenny had terrible eyesight and couldn't go anywhere without them. Susan also testified that she was approached by State Detective Reichel the year before to answer a few questions, but Susan said, quote, "Jimmy was there and he told me not to give any information," end quote. Star Hicks, James' sister, was also with them and allegedly warned her not to speak with the detective. She told Susan not to mention that Jenny had left her glasses behind because it might leave the wrong impression. Denise Clark and other witnesses also testified to Jenny's poor vision.

saying that her glasses were a safety net for her and that the only time she removed them was for a photo or when she was sleeping. Hicks said that the glasses on the counter were an older pair with an insufficient prescription and claimed that Jenny had returned to the trailer that day to get some belongings because when he came home from work that night, the glasses and the purse were gone and the light was left on.

On day three, a friend of Jenny's named Linda Dunifer took the stand and claimed that in 1977, she received a telephone call from somebody claiming to be Jenny Hicks one week after she'd been missing. She said that the caller explained that she was all right, and she wanted somebody to tell her husband to bring her clothes to her. When asked where she was, the caller responded, quote, Jimmy knows where I am, end quote. Prosecution asked if Linda believed she was speaking with Jenny, and Linda stated, quote,

She then said that she called a mutual friend and told her of the interaction on the phone, but didn't relay the information to James Hicks.

A former schoolmate and friend of the Hicks, Wayne Elston, testified that over the years, James gave different whereabouts for Jenny that ranged from Newport to Augusta, New Hampshire, and Florida, and told the courtroom strange stories about Hicks trying to convince him that he'd spotted Jenny around town. One time, they even chased a car up the street Hicks said was her, though Wayne couldn't confirm that.

Did James really see Jenny that day, or was this just another example of a sociopath trying to convince those close to him that Jenny was alive and well? As the prosecution started to wind down on their case, the defense was only beginning to heat up, and the trial was about to get even more unusual. Next up on the stand to testify was none other than accused murderer himself, James Hicks.

He testified that he and Jenny argued the night before she disappeared, and that during that argument, she told him she felt tied down to the marriage. He said that she threatened to leave him, saying, quote, She said she was going to stick me with the kids so I couldn't go out partying anymore. Jenny and I were both having problems. She fooled around and I fooled around, end quote. Cross-examination dived into the marital history between the two, and Hicks revealed infidelity, frequent arguments, unplanned pregnancies, and plans for divorce.

On July 18th, 1977, Jenny told James that she knew he'd been making advances at Susan and that she would no longer tolerate his behavior. They broke out into an argument, eventually moving the conversation to a three-hour car ride before coming home shortly after midnight and retiring to separate bedrooms. A very different account than the story of a dead Jenny on the couch. He said that when he left work at 4.30 a.m., that Jenny was lying in bed. Prosecution argued that he came unhinged when Jenny asked for a divorce,

and killed her right there in the living room. So here we are, at the end of the most sensational murder trial in Maine State history. The first trial to be held without a body and based purely on circumstantial evidence. Mr. Ricker told me that the real evidence in the case was Susan Matley. The jury found her very credible, and deliberation took the jury nine hours to come to a conclusion.

They found James Hicks guilty of acting with reckless intent in causing his wife's death and convicted him with fourth-degree murder in the connection of the 1977 disappearance of Jenny Hicks. For those of you wondering what fourth-degree murder is, it's now called manslaughter, and it holds a maximum sentence of 10 years, with options for parole at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston. Throughout the entire trial, Hicks maintained a calm but smug presence, and hearing the verdict of guilty didn't change that composure.

His family, including his girlfriend, Linda Marquis, sat at the back of the courtroom in stunned silence. They later huddled together through tears. Quote, I'm not guilty, but someday it will be proven. I'll accept what the court gives me. End quote.

He loved an audience, I think. He loved an audience, and the guy was quite an actor. I mean, he goes to prison. He's a model prisoner, but he knows how to work a system. He knows how to survive in a jail. He quickly adapts to his surroundings. But in court, you're right. He was a little cocky in court.

For the conviction of fourth-degree murder, two critical elements must be proven to the satisfaction of the court: that a death has occurred, and that there was criminal agency involved in that death. So how do you prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a death had in fact occurred without any form of physical evidence or indication of death whatsoever? This conviction was the first of its kind in the state of Maine, though it wasn't the last.

Jenny's body hadn't been recovered, and that lack of physical evidence cast the lengthy 10-day trial into an unusual light among members of the legal community. J. Hillary Billings stated in a Bangor Daily News article from December 1984 that his client might be the only person in the history of the American justice system to be convicted of a homicide without the evidence of a corpse, confession, evidence of a murder act, or eyewitness accounts to the slaying.

When speaking about the risks involved with convicting somebody of murder over circumstantial evidence in its purest form, District Attorney William Stokes told the Bangor Daily News, quote, That's why we have a standard beyond a reasonable doubt. If we had to prove everything to a certainty, we would never convict anyone in that situation. If the law said we had to have a body in each case, it would be people, those who are clever when disposing of a body, who could commit the perfect crime, end quote.

In August of 1984, Hicks made headlines again from behind bars over a peculiar and sticky situation. He and Linda Marquis had applied for a marriage license from the town office in Carmel, but the license was denied. As far as they were concerned,

James and Jenny Hicks were still married, despite the fact that he'd been convicted of murdering her six months earlier. They had never gotten a divorce, and the state refused to acknowledge that Jenny was deceased on paper. Though divorce was legally possible, it was financially impossible for the Hicks at the moment.

But the alternative would require him to sign a statement acknowledging Jenny's death, and that was something he refused to do. Hicks argued that the state must believe his wife is dead, saying, quote, "Otherwise, they wouldn't have found me guilty of murder. The state, not me, says she's deceased. Therefore, the state should be the ones issuing the appropriate documents from their convictions or set me free."

End quote. It was a catch-22. The state hadn't legally declared Jenny dead despite the fact that they'd built a successful case around that belief. And they said they wouldn't visit the idea until after the appeal of his fourth-degree murder conviction, leaving everyone in a stalemate situation until the case was resolved. As part of Hicks' appeal process, he was eligible for bail, and that was reduced in half to $15,000 on an argument from his defense attorney.

J. Hillary Billings stated that Hicks did not represent a threat to himself or the community and that there was a strong likelihood of success in his appeal. And with that, on the afternoon of December 19, 1984, James Hicks walked out of the state prison and into the arms of his fiancée, exclaiming, It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The appeals hearing was pushed back to July 1985, and during those seven and a half months, Hicks was out of prison a semi-free man. But when that time came, the court unanimously voted to uphold the manslaughter conviction, agreeing that prosecution had presented enough evidence despite the lack of a body. Hicks would now have to leave his family and report to authorities to finish out the remainder of his 10-year sentence.

All the while, Linda Marquis stood by her fiancé, proclaiming his innocence and waiting for the day that the state would grant them a marriage license.

Linda, who was now taking care of six children, her two with James, his two with Jenny, and her two from a previous marriage, said she preferred that a waiver be issued from the state allowing the marriage instead of a death certificate because she knew that Jenny wasn't dead and she felt that he'd be exonerated someday. "She'll be found. I'm certain she'll be found. You just get a good feeling about something and you know it's going to happen. I feel it's going to happen. I know he's innocent. When the law wants to get someone, they do it, and they don't care how.

and they won't admit they're wrong, end quote. Two weeks later, a death certificate for Jenny Hicks was issued to the town clerk in Carmel, and one month after that, on August 23rd, 1985, Linda and James marry at a quiet prison ceremony with a few friends and family members by their side at the main state prison in Thomaston, a moment Linda had waited seven years for. But unlike most couples who honeymoon and celebrate after their wedding,

Linda spent her wedding night alone in the company of her six children. John Hubbard from the Bangor Daily News described the prison wedding as somber, with a little over an hour for the ceremony and a cake. The most time the couple would be allowed to even see each other was five hours a week. Unsurprisingly, the marriage didn't last long, and in December 1987, a little over two years after that wedding, a divorce was granted for Linda Hicks. She was also awarded sole custody of the children.

He had a girlfriend, and this was between Jennifer and before Gerilyn. He had a girlfriend. They lived right here in Newport in the trailer park, Gilman's Trailer Park. And she gave me a statement that she always thought he was a little weird because he always wanted to keep the mattress that had bloodstains all over it.

Despite the fact that James Hicks was now in prison, he was only convicted of one murder, the murder of his wife, a case that was accidentally discovered when police were looking into the unrelated disappearance of Gerilyn Towers. Gerilyn, however, was still considered a missing person on paper.

So the heat in her investigation was turned up while James Hicks served the remainder of his sentence. But nothing was popping up in their searches, and information was starting to run dry. According to every account I've read, James Hicks was a model prisoner. He was polite, and he kept to himself, but not everyone was a fan of Hicks. Gerilyn's brother, Vance Tibbetts, was also serving a sentence for attempted murder at Thomaston, and he had it out for Hicks.

I tried reaching out to Vance for his account on the story, but his wife Ida told me he passed away last summer. Vance tried making his life a living hell as much as he could get away with. He told Oxygen he confronted Hicks one day and asked outright if he'd killed his sister. Hicks denied it, of course, and he said he didn't have anything to do with it. Vance said he wanted to kill him right then and there and that the life sentence for murder would have been worth it.

Hicks was one lucky bird that he chose to leave him alone. Vance ended up getting transferred not long after Hicks arrived, and Hicks quietly continued his sentence at Thomaston. But in July of 1990, after serving only seven years of that 10-year sentence, James Hicks is released on good behavior, a convicted felon, but a free man.

Back in Aetna, to no surprise at all, Hicks didn't have a lot of fans. He got a job as a maintenance worker at the Twin City Motor Inn on Wilson Street in Brewer, a motel that no longer exists today. Hicks was trying to stay off the radar and seemingly leading a normal life, but police hadn't forgotten just exactly who had moved back into town, and they kept tabs on him. While working at the Twin City Motor Inn, Hicks meets a woman named Lynn Ouellette, and the two start dating. Lynn has no idea about her new boyfriend's criminal past.

In the spring of 1996, State Detective Joe Zamboni, who is still working on the disappearance of Gerilyn Towers from 1982 with Jim Ricker, brings Hicks into the office for something completely unrelated to his known charges.

and Hicks brings Lynn with him to the station. At this point, Zamboni didn't even realize that James Hicks had a new girlfriend, and he wondered how much she actually knew. Sensing Lynn could be in danger, he tries to subtly warn her and starts asking questions about Jerilyn, making sure it was understood that Jerilyn was missing and that James Hicks was the last person to be seen with her.

And a few days later, on May 26, 1996, a frantic James Hicks calls up Detective Zamboni. His girlfriend, Lynn Ouellette, was missing. ♪

I want to thank you so much for listening. Part two is available right now. Be sure to subscribe and follow Murder, She Told on Instagram at Murder, She Told Podcast for key photos from this episode and more. If you loved this episode, please consider sharing Murder, She Told with a friend or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. If you are a friend or family member of the victim or anyone connected to this story, you are more than welcome to reach out to me at Murder, She Told Pod 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. A very special thanks to former police chief Jim Ricker for talking with me for this episode and Tammy for trusting me with her story. Thank you to the former friends, neighbors, and sources including Linda, Carolyn, Rick, and Brandon who helped make this possible.

Additional thanks to Herman High School alumni and the residents of the town of Newport. Murder, She Told is co-produced by AKA Studio Productions. All links for sources can be found in the show notes and on MurderSheTold.com. My only hope is that I've honored your stories in keeping the names of your loved ones alive. Thank you for listening.

Have you made the switch to NYX? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from NYX. That's K-N-I-X. Period panties from NYX are like no other, making them the number one leak-proof underwear brand in North America. They're comfy, stylish, and absorbent, perfect for period protection from your lightest to your heaviest days. They

They look, feel, and machine wash just like regular underwear, but feature incognito protection that has you covered. You can shop sizes from extra small to 4XL. Choose from all kinds of colors, prints, and different styles, from bikinis to boy shorts, thongs to high-rise. You've got to try NYX. See why millions are ditching disposable, wasteful period products and have switched to NYX.

Go to knix.com and get 15% off with promo code TRY15. That's knix.com, promo code TRY15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. That's knix.com.