The Double Arson Murders of Lorna Brackett & Vincent White
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This is Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small-town USA. I'm your host, Kristen Seavey. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. When I drove to the address at 7 Reservoir Street, I was struck by how familiar it was.

In fact, just last week I'd driven past Reservoir Street without even realizing it. It's nondescript and small. Only three houses on it before it dead ends, the end being number seven. But it's not the same house. At least, I don't think it is. A new family lives there now. I wonder if they know the story they're sitting on.

Parts of Waterville feel like they're plucked right out of the late 80s. This is one of those parts, on the outskirts of town. You'll find once-beautiful old buildings in need of repair, remnants of small-town variety stores, and agency liquor grocery shops that, at one point in time, also offered video rentals. Plastic light-up store signs persist that were most likely new in 1988.

Seven Reservoir is just past a Dairy Queen, one of the oldest in the country that's been there since the 1950s.

Less than a mile up the road from 7 Reservoir stands the American Lodge, a rundown motel and extended stay that once included the USA Lounge, a dive bar that no longer exists. I was surprised at how close it was, actually. I imagine it a no-frills bar where the beer was cheap, the dartboards were falling apart, and half the pool balls were missing, but the company was great, and everyone knew each other.

It was the local hang. This is also the last place 25-year-old Lorna Eva Labibrakit and 46-year-old Maynard Vincent White were last seen alive in 1991. I reached out to Kathy, a friend of Lorna's, to see if she'd be interested in helping me tell her story. Almost immediately, I got an emphatic response back from her. Yes, she would love to help, anything for her friend.

Despite the fact that she hadn't seen her friend for almost 30 years, she still cares.

Kathy met Lorna when both of them lived in Oakland, a small town 15 minutes from Waterville. She told me of their walks down Main Street. Kathy with her stroller soothing her colicky newborn and Lorna with her toddlers, Maureen and Tyler. She would often come to Main Street to meet Lorna for a walk. Kathy said she was such a loving mom, caring, hardworking, a sweetheart all around.

She tried so hard to make a good life for her kids. Kathy worked dispatch for the Oakland Police Department when she met Lorna. Small town, Kathy said. Lorna was friendly with everyone and was known around town. She lived in an apartment building on Main Street that was owned by her dad, and she helped to maintain it. She was always willing to help. Kathy recalled that she volunteered to paint the police department when they moved into their new home on Main Street.

It was a chilly night a week and a half before Thanksgiving, November 17th, 1991. Waterville police responded to a noise complaint which isn't typical for a small town Sunday night in Maine. The complaint said that there seemed to be fireworks or gunshots mixed with loud voices coming from the house next door. At 3:17 a.m., police arrived at 7 Reservoir Street where a two and a half story home sat at the end of a short dead end street.

but the house was quiet. Whatever commotion had caused the neighbors to call seemed to have died down, so they left and headed back to the station. A little over two hours later, police once again found themselves on Reservoir Street, but this time, the same two-and-a-half-story home was on fire. An explosion had sent it up into flames almost instantly.

After firefighters were able to contain the fire around 6:00 a.m., two bodies were found, charred beyond recognition, on the first floor. Right off the bat, something about this fire didn't seem right. By the time first responders arrived on the scene at 5:43 a.m., a mere four minutes after the call was placed, the house was already consumed by fire.

Waterville Police Chief Darrell Fournier said it had a tremendous head start in that short amount of time. Steve McCausland, the spokesperson for Maine's Department of Public Safety, said the fire was so intense when firefighters arrived that the electrical wire had melted off the building and was arcing.

Because of the suspicious nature of the fire, police took it seriously right away. They obtained a search warrant and brought in a team that consisted of six Maine State detectives, four fire marshals office investigators, and technicians and electricians from the state crime lab. Dogs were also brought in to help pinpoint places of interest as detectives sifted through debris and took samples to test for accelerants and flammables.

The first victim to be identified was Lorna Labby Brackett, age 25. After a short delay, the second victim was identified as Maynard Vincent White, age 46, who was the owner of the torched home. At the time of the original press release, Lorna was the only victim that was identified. The Bangor Daily News described Lorna as, quote, an unemployed convenience store clerk, end quote.

It's said that she was, quote, last employed at the Waterville drive-thru, but had been unemployed for weeks, end quote. This is mentioned several times in the article, also adding that she was living at a Reservoir Street house that had been destroyed in the fire and that she was divorced, her two children residing with their father, Terry Brackett, in Randolph, a town 45 minutes away from Waterville.

The Waterville Sentinel, however, painted a more complete portrait of Lorna and asked her friends and family about her. Lorna grew up in Oakland and graduated from Messolonsky High School. She excelled at field hockey. She was remembered as spunky and energetic.

They described her as a hard worker and said that she loved to ride horses and snowski, but her father said her real passion in life was helping people who were down on their luck. Lorna was forever trying to reach out and help others, despite having a rough go behind closed doors. Kathy told me that she'd sometimes sport bruises on her face she wouldn't talk about, and there were rumors of abuse.

Personally, I was frustrated by the lack of information in the reports I found on both Vince and Lorna. However, I did find Lorna's name in the court news section from 1985 when she was 19. She'd gotten a speeding ticket. And according to the Sentinel, she'd also gotten an OUI and had been charged with unspecified criminal mischief at some point too. I was told that Lorna was a good person who made some bad decisions.

Kathy said that Lorna was full of life and a little bit unpredictable in the best way. According to Kathy, one night Lorna had a little too much to drink and while sitting on her front porch on Main Street, she decided that she couldn't stand the crabapple tree in front of the old People's Heritage Bank building. It's blocking the clock on the building. I can't even see what time it is. So what did she do? Full of liquid confidence, not that she needed it, she

She cut the tree down. And that was Lorna. Lorna's tree has since grown back. The autopsy revealed the medical examiner determined both victims had died from smoke inhalation and that there was no sign of violent trauma prior to or contributing to their deaths. However, this is far from cut and dried, and it definitely wasn't accidental.

I spoke with an anonymous source who told me that she'd heard all the doors and windows were blocked from the outside of the house, intentionally locking them in so they couldn't escape, and that Vincent was found on top of Lorna by the front door as he tried to protect her. She said that she can't recall if this was from the news or from word around town. I didn't read anything about that in the articles I found, so I can't verify if this is anything more than town gossip.

The following day, Steve McCausland confirmed the fatal fires had been deliberately set. Lab analysis of the debris recovered from the site determined that, just like they suspected, an accelerant was present, causing them to officially reclassify the deaths as homicide from arson.

The second victim, Vincent White, was initially described by neighbors as divorced and in his 60s and self-employed as a carpenter. I find it peculiar how inaccurate their description of his age was. They were off by about 20 years. He was only 46 years old. The Waterville Sentinel reported that Maynard Vincent White grew up in the Belfast area and graduated from Crosby High School.

He was one of ten children. Throughout his life, he worked as a general contractor and had two children with his wife, who he was divorced from at the time of the fire. In 1971, he had a general contracting business in the Waterville area. Vincent was close to his mother and was shaken by her death just three weeks before his own.

One of Vincent's brothers, Steve, said that he was quiet and shy, and that he had a heart of gold. Quote, Vince was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. If he had five bucks, he would give you four of it. Vince used to ride around in snowstorms with his truck, pulling people out of the ditch. That's the kind of guy he was. End quote.

He was a private man who liked to hunt and fish, and he was over the moon for his granddaughter. Like Lorna, Vincent loved helping people and always offered up his home if somebody needed a place to stay.

My anonymous source told me that she'd met Vincent back in the mid-80s, when she was young and her husband at the time worked for him. She described him as a kind man who enjoyed motorcycle trips with his friends. He was a dog lover, and he had a dog named Shoe that he adored. And if she remembers correctly, he was a black belt in karate.

She said that she'd heard around town of his involvement with cocaine and didn't know for sure, but mentioned that he did have a few enemies. According to the Waterville Sentinel, Vincent was charged with an OUI that passed July of 1991 after being stopped on College Ave.

He was also charged with possession of marijuana, possession of cocaine, and possession of drug paraphernalia, and he was scheduled to appear in court in January of 1992.

The Sentinel reported that records at Waterville District Court showed that less than two weeks before the fire, Vincent was denied his request for a jury trial to hear the drug charges against him. In addition to these charges, he was also subject to an ongoing investigation for possible trafficking involvement. The BIDE, or Bureau of Intergovernmental Drug Enforcement, had been monitoring Vincent for quite some time.

At the time, Waterville was having a problem with drug trafficking of cocaine and marijuana. And from what I gather, Vincent may have been working with the BIDE in favor of reducing his sentence in a trial that hadn't happened yet.

I tried to learn more about Vincent and Lorna's life from their surviving families, but they declined to talk with me. I was able to connect with Maureen, Lorna's daughter. She gave me a few photos of her mother, including a sweet one when Lorna was about 22, and Maureen was a chubby-cheeked happy baby who had just eaten something yummy. However, she was so young when her mother died, she couldn't remember much.

You can see the photos she shared of Lorna's life at MurderSheTold.com. Because of BIDE's involvement with Vincent prior to November 1991, they joined the police investigation, helping them with interviewing neighbors, friends, and family. A friend of Kathy's who knew Vince said that everyone was into coke at the time, but I'm not sure who Vince was dealing with.

Steve McCausland said, At this time, we have no idea whether drugs had anything to do with the fire or with the deaths. We have not made that connection. But we are interviewing anyone and everyone with connections to the couple.

Speaking of couple, it's not clear what Lorna and Vincent's relationship was. Several newspapers reported that she'd been living there for some time, but nothing I read confirmed anything romantic. He was about 20 years older than Lorna, though, and my source referred to him as a handsome older man. Kathy mentioned that in that time frame leading up to the fire, that Lorna wasn't around as much, so they hadn't seen each other as often.

Investigators worked through the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, conducting 150 to 200 interviews seeking information and leads from both the drug scene and the bar scene in the area. Vince and Lorna frequented several bars in the area, including the USA Lounge up the street, the last place they were seen alive. Knowing this, investigators hit up the bar scene to talk to people who knew them.

trying to find anyone who may have had information they might not realize could help connect them with the killer. Police were also looking into the loud noises that were reported around 3:30 a.m., about two hours before the house went up into flames. But they couldn't find any evidence to confirm or deny what the neighbors were thinking, that it was fireworks or gunshots.

They thought it was possible that it came from pranksters in the nearby cemetery, but Kathy thinks that there may have been a party at the house that night. Witnesses said that they left the USA Lounge around 11 p.m., but maybe the party continued at home. By early December, two weeks after the fire, Steve McCausland stated, "'We have leads and we've made progress, but there is still an incredible amount of work to do.'"

In January of 1992, the Bangor Daily News published an article titled Fatal Fire Linked to Cocaine Trafficking in Central Maine that confirmed that Vincent was indeed under investigation by BIDE at the time of the fire, and their investigation had begun in October.

An anonymous source close to Lorna said that the fire was definitely related to the drug business, and that Lorna was a confidential informant working with BIDE and the police department, and that the fire was set by a hired arsonist to silence them forever. Lorna and Vincent were both targets.

Vince's supplier was the man suspected of ordering the killing, and my source believes that he is currently in jail for cocaine charges. At that time, since the fire, according to McCausland, over 19 people had been arrested for cocaine and marijuana trafficking charges, with more on the horizon.

No further information was revealed about Vince's involvement with the ring, but police also theorized that the fire may have been set to silence Vince by people who were involved with the drug trade, fearing that he was cooperating with police and BIDE. Most of the arrests that had been made so far were all in the Waterville area. McCausland said that no arrests for the murders had been made, but

but promised that progress had been made, though he didn't specify what that progress entailed. News of Vincent's drug charges upset his family, and Vincent's brother, Steve White, spoke to the Sentinel in response.

He said that he was unaware of the drug charges against his brother and denied that Vince was involved with the drug trade, saying, Vince wasn't down with that kind of stuff. It's ridiculous what they are saying. Vince is dead. He can't defend himself. Why don't they give him a break?

Later that month, on January 29th, BIDE supervisor Ken McMaster confirmed that there had been an arrest in the cocaine trafficking that had been suspected to be connected with Vincent White. The continued investigation had resulted in about 20 more arrests in the crackdown on cocaine in Waterville, but authorities were no closer to finding Lorna and Vincent's killer.

The last article I found came from the Bangor Daily News in March of 1993, and it stated that detectives had turned up boxes of evidence and interviewed more than 400 people in regards to the case, but they still didn't have answers. The case remained a mystery.

According to Detective Gerard "Red" Therrien, who was lead on the case, his team still had about 300 people left to interview. He said, "We have two people with different lifestyles, different friends and different backgrounds. Putting all the information together has been difficult." Steve McCausland added that this case has been difficult because of the bar scene they were into and the drugs.

Every interview mushrooms into two or three more interviews. And that is the last public update on this case from 28 years ago. Nothing else comes up online. Although I don't have confirmation from the police that Lorna was a confidential informant, I find it plausible.

If that's true, then she was a pawn in a much larger battle being waged between police and organized crime. And though her death was a senseless tragedy, perhaps it wasn't for nothing. There were 39 arrests made in connection with drugs and drug trafficking in the months that followed. Perhaps her death was the catalyst that allowed police to get essential information and to act. Perhaps it saved others' lives.

She was risking so much, putting herself in dangerous situations, not only to help herself, but also to help the police, and by extension, the public. And I can't help but feel that the police and the drug enforcement agencies involved had a duty to protect Lorna and keep her safe.

or at the very least, to bring the people responsible for her death to justice. If you have any information or know anybody who might concerning the arson murders of Lorna Brackett and Vincent White from 1991 in Waterville, Maine, please call the Maine State Unsolved Homicide Unit at 207-624-7143 or use the tip line linked in the show notes.

I want to thank you so much for listening. I am so grateful you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. Thank you.

My sources for this episode include articles from the Bangor Daily News and the Waterville Sentinel. A very special thanks to Kathy for sharing her personal stories with me, my anonymous sources, and to Maureen for the photos. 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. Special thanks to Byron Willis for his research and writing support.

Murder, She Told is co-produced by AKA Studio Productions.

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 in keeping the names of your family and friends alive.

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