The Life and Death of Amy Lynn Drake
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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 Sevey. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow me on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. It's a hot July day in 2006, and you're bored, but you're with your friends, so boredom is short-lived.

These are the days when summer seemed endless and adventure seemed limitless. An invincible shot of youth when innocence and curiosity began to have their dance. This story ends with a murder, but it's not about that. This story deserves to be told in a way that you can't get from reading a summary. A girl who is so much more than the last few months of her life. This is a portrait of nostalgia and youth in small-town America.

And a friendship that feels like the memories happened just yesterday. And a life that was taken much too soon. When you take away the murder and the drugs and the drama, you have a teenage girl. A girl whose verve for life and adventure still lives on. Flowing through the very people whose lives she left an impression on.

A girl whose family and friends deserve answers and closure. This is more than just the cold case of Amy Lynn Drake. This is friendship and legacy, and the memories that live on in the wake of an absence.

transitional time for me when i met a me i was going into seventh grade middle school going to you know uh... different kind of schooling with classes and things so i met her in this transitional period in my life and uh... we were had the same home room together in seventh grade meeting all the people and i was kinda like this weird kid i was like a pretty chubby kid and everything you know and trying to fit in and figure out my way in this world

And she only lived a mile away from me, it turned out, you know? And I'd never seen her before. Like, she had just moved, and there was a house. I'm like, I've driven by that house a bunch of times. I can't believe you live so close to me. So in seventh grade, I would go and...

We would borderline, like, play, you know? You know, I remember we would, like, draw on our walls and play board games and watch movies. And she was a really unique kind of person. And I got a really special relationship with her compared to a lot of other people because, like, I was her biggest fan. I really liked Amy a lot.

Amy Lynn Drake was 18 years old when she went missing in Skowhegan, Maine in September of 2006. By all accords, she was a typical teenager from that time. This was a time before social media and smartphones, and in a town like Skowhegan, there's not much to do. I spoke with Jason Dickerson, one of Amy's close friends from middle school. I asked him what Amy was like back then.

She was like an alpha girl. Like, you know, like she was really, you know, she was like hard-headed, you know. She liked to lead and she was good at making decisions and she was goal-orientated, you know. She really was like, you know, she would walk on people, you know. Like she had an entourage because she was always making decisions and people had to, you know, she got me doing things that I never, oh, you don't go to the eighth grade dance? And she would get me, I would see her at the fair and she would drag me around places and get me to meet people and things.

As he spoke about Amy and their adventures, I instantly got pulled back to my time growing up in the 2000s. I was younger than them, but we still had a similar experience of coming of age in a small town before Instagram and TikTok trends took up teenage mental real estate. These were the days when you would try to act like an adult before you could even drive, when there would be nothing to do but walk around town with your friends and find other people to hang out with.

But the Fountain of Youth gives almost everyone in the spring of their life a false sense of invincibility.

So she was an alpha girl, so she would attract these alpha men, right? And I'm just there like this chubby, tweety kid, even at sometimes with a mullet, like really just like it took me a while to grow into who I am. But she would tell these alpha men, no, he is cool and you would treat him all right. So the next thing I know is like there's this guy that I'm hanging out with who's got these tattoos all over him. He's like, all right, you're cool. You're with me. And I'm just there to hang out because she's my friend.

Girls give guys clues and we're supposed to figure things out, you know, and I didn't really figure that out. You know, I was young and silly. I like video games, you know what I mean? And personal pan pizzas and stuff.

As I listened to Jason's stories about his friendship with Amy, I got such a vivid sense of who she was as a person. I pictured a group of misfits sharing a cigarette when they weren't supposed to be, and the moment they got in trouble one summer and almost burned down the camp while trying to cook eggs, and the late nights chatting on the phone about school and life.

It really was...

You know, and she got robbed of such an awesome life. Robbed. She was robbed of an awesome life. I was so immersed in Jason's stories that for a moment, I almost forgot this one doesn't have a happy ending. There were periods when after eighth grade and we went into high school, she started like she didn't go to school anymore, you know, and like she just drifted. You know, she didn't live a mile down the road anymore. The well that was there dried up. So they had to like they had to move.

Amy's mother, Norma Drake, had no idea that September 20th, 2006 would be the last day she would ever see her daughter.

Amy spent a lot of time at the home of her boyfriend, Jason Forbis, who lived on South Factory Street in Skowhegan, so it wasn't unusual for Norma not to see her daughter every day, but she always at least heard from her by phone. Norma was concerned that Amy didn't have a change of clothes with her and left her purse at home. So after four days without so much as a call from Amy and no word on where she was, Norma reported her missing. That last day I saw her...

She woke up, she was happy to see me, and we spoke for a short amount of time before the Jason Forbus guy shows up. That was the only time I've ever met him, and all he ever did, but the whole time I was there was tell me all these stories about how he always gets in trouble. And then she left, you know, with Forbus, and I didn't, it wasn't even like a proper goodbye or anything. A couple months later, and she was, she was gone.

Two months later, in late November, a man was out hunting with his six-year-old son when they discovered a body in the woods of Norwich Walk, just two miles from the Skowhegan town line. A week later, the body was identified as Amy Lynn Drake. Police released little to no information regarding the investigation.

To this day, it's still not publicly known how Amy died or what the medical examiner wrote down for autopsy details. There's barely any information available on Amy. They haven't even officially named any suspects or persons of interest, though seven months after her death, police did search three locations with warrants, though they kept a tight lip on what they found, if anything.

Maine State Police Lieutenant Gary Wright later said in 2009 to the Press Herald, "As with these open homicides, there is certain information that we have to keep close to the vest. Manner of death is always an issue that we sometimes withhold as we feel that kind of information can make or break a case. And what we don't want to do is put information out that could take away the possibility of narrowing down our focus on individuals."

There were a lot of things that she was going through that were consistent with symptoms of someone who does heroin. And unfortunately, I've seen that. There have been things in my family where some loved ones had struggles. And I know the lifestyle and the people that it turns them into. They're not the people you knew. You know, they're not the same people when they become addicts like that.

I'm not going to gloss over the fact that Amy had fallen into an addiction. It's part of her story and I would be doing her a disservice by not including it. But I want to make it clear that drugs were not who Amy was, and that shouldn't have any impact on her need for justice or having her story told in a more complex and compassionate light than just a highlight reel of the last few moments of her life.

Being a recovering addict could have been part of her story too. Maybe she would have been a mentor for a young teen today who fell into the trap of drugs and needed the support that only somebody like her who gets it could give. But we'll never know. She was never given the opportunity to get sober.

She really could have been anything she wanted to be, and she was just used and discarded over and over and over. I don't know, I guess with heroin it makes you feel nothing. What they say, I don't know. I don't know what that's like, but they say it's like drowning in comfort, and then they do that until they go to sleep and never wake up, you know, and that was the end of her story.

Maybe, you know? Sometimes I think about it like that because, you know, you see a lot of, like, really terrible things in Hollywood, you know, and I would rather think that, you know, like, maybe she went to sleep and never woke up. Maybe she made it out easy, you know, as compared to some people. I would hate to think that she had something where it was, like, suffering and panic. I don't know. Nobody knows. And it stinks. Norma Drake remembered Amy as a happy child before the drug use started taking its toll.

Another friend of Amy's, Tracy Turner, told the Morning Sentinel that she and Amy had lost touch after Amy got mixed up with the wrong crowd and descended into a life of drugs. She remembered seeing the marks on her arms.

The more Amy drifted away from the spunky girl Jason knew in middle school, the more erratic her behavior became, infused with violence and emulating people she was dating and the friends she was hanging out with. She wasn't the same. She was getting in trouble a lot, and she stopped going to school altogether.

She got in trouble one time for – she fought one of her boyfriends in the driveway of his mom's house and knocked him out, like hit him and knocked him out. And he fell face first into a puddle, and she's kicking him when he's down, but he was asleep. She knocked him out, and she was like, oh, my gosh, I've got to roll him over or he's going to drown in this puddle, right?

So she rolls over, and she got in trouble for that. Like, they called the cops on her and everything, and she was in big trouble. And she told me that story, and I was like, oh, my gosh, Amy, stop. Calm down. To me, it's like looking at some female berserker, like Lagatha from Vikings. You know what I mean? Like a cat, you know, like the cat. Like, oh, you're a cute kitty, except you bite and you scratch and you hurt.

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In 2006, Forbis was 31 when he was dating Amy. She was only 18 and still in high school. One of the things that, you know, bugs me about Amy's story is that she was a young girl being used by older men, you know, like that you're in eighth grade and he's in high school, you know, and they have cars and stuff. She just, she had just such a bum rap all the time. She, she was crazy.

controlling another people's business a lot. You know, she tried to change, especially with like the men that she was with, she would try to change them for the better and they would never like her for it, you know, like if they want to be their own men. But like, you know, she was always right in a way, but she just was such a spitfire. You know, she liked having enemies more than she liked having friends.

Jason Forbus has an alarming criminal record that dates back to 1995 when he was arrested for theft. Shortly after, in 1997, he was sentenced to two years in prison for a string of Solon area burglaries and assault.

In September 2006, just before Amy's disappearance, he pleaded guilty to domestic violence and assault. Amy told police in July that Forbis had punched her in the head, broken her nose, thrown her to the floor, and threatened to kill her if she reported him. Forbis was convicted and sentenced to a six-month jail term, but was given a stay that would allow him to remain free until October 9th. Amy went missing around September 20th.

Court documents show that Forbus had contact with Amy after his arrest, which was a direct violation of his bail conditions. Since her disappearance, he has accrued quite the checkered criminal rap sheet, adding a variety pack of charges and court appearances to the list, including drug trafficking, OEY, trafficking prison contraband, criminal threatening, and more.

After a court date in March 2007, almost immediately after being released for serving time for Amy's assault, he was arrested again for drug possession charges. At his hearing, the justice said to him, quote, I am not impressed with your record, Mr. Forbus, end quote, and set his bail at $500 cash. Looking at his record, it seems that Jason Forbus hasn't seen much of the world outside of a jail cell. In

In 2010, he was arrested and convicted to two and a half years in jail on felony drug trafficking charges after selling morphine to main Drug Enforcement Agency officials in Waterville and again in Skowhegan. Not long after he was released, in 2014, he was sentenced to four years on charges of criminal operating under the influence with unlawful use of a license, as well as drug possession.

If you're wondering where to find Jason Forbis, jail is probably a safe bet. But Forbis has never officially been named as a suspect in Amy's case. And though some theorize he knows more than he lets on or points a finger at him for being involved in her death, nothing has ever been proven. Everybody's got their own theory. This one's mine, is that she...

was high on heroin and she overdosed. And the people that she was with were too scared to take her to the hospital. So they took her somewhere and made it, tried to look like something. And they're stupid. So they probably made it look bad. She couldn't have done whatever they tried to make it look like. This is a homicide, not a suicide. And they never found anything out. They never figured anything out. Whoever it was got away with it.

And there's no telling who, because the number one person that everybody says it is, as far as I've known for the details, that they're like, nope, he was not even capable of being in a place or time to do all this stuff or whatever. I have no idea. Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

Reverend Mark Tanner told the Press Herald, "I remember sitting in that living room, talking to her mom and realizing the sadness that came through her entire body when she talked about her daughter and losing her, and why somebody would do that to her. She wondered what she was going to do and how she was going to be able to move on dealing with this tragedy in her life."

but her legacy lives on. She has, she's about to be a grandmother. Her daughter, I speak to her and I tell, I tell her daughter some stories about like, you know, things that her mom did. Like her mom had her name picked out years before she ever had, had her, you know, she would,

go to these dances and like give her daughter's like name as it was her own name like a fake name and get in trouble for it and stuff I think it's really awesome that you know that her daughter Torrance is still here that's the that's I think that's like one of the coolest things in the whole story of all of this is

I was thinking how cool it would be someday for like, if like, it was like an all-girl band or something that they come out with and they would name their band Amy Drake after her just to get a crowd of people chanting her name. I think she would think that that was so radical because she was a radical girl.

Amy Lynn Drake has been gone for 14 years. Her daughter, Torrance, was only two at the time of her disappearance. Jason mentioned her dad, Mike, who stepped up to provide Torrance with a loving home to thrive in, and her grandmother, Norma, who filled in for her daughter's absence. They're the MVPs of this story, he said. But nothing can fill the void that's left from the loss of a mother.

Torrance lives vicariously through the photographs and nostalgia left over from better days, stitching together a story of who her mother was through the eyes of the friends and the loved ones who knew her best.

Investigators say this is an open and active case.

Detective Chris Tremblay, who was the original investigator assigned to the case, remains the primary detective and said there has been some new leads in the recent past. He continues to be hopeful that closure will come to the family. But until then,

the family and friends of Amy Drake wait for the day they'll finally have answers and wonder about the girl she could have been. There were things where, like, you know, I wish I'd made her my girl at some times, you know, like thinking maybe she would still be around. But, you know, those things aren't real. You know, she's gone. I don't know if I'll ever see her again. I don't know how all that stuff works out, but...

She was spectacular. I miss her. I miss her a lot. Amy is lucky to have a friend like Jason. Somebody who still talks about her 14 years later with such vivid joy that it's hard to remember that she's no longer here. But she's gone. A vivacious life cut short at only 18 years old. And a stark reminder that tomorrow is never promised.

If you or somebody you know is struggling with an addiction, it's not too late to get help. Maybe that could have been what saved Amy's life. Call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Hotline toll-free at 1-800-662-HELP or visit FindTreatment.gov for additional resources. If you have any information on Amy Drake's case, you can submit an anonymous tip to the Maine Cold Case Unit website linked in the show notes.

My sources for this episode include articles from local newspaper archives including The Sun Journal, Associated Press, The Press Herald, The Morning Sentinel, and The Bangor Daily News. A very special thanks to Jason for sharing his personal stories with me for this episode.

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

Be sure to subscribe and follow Murder, She Told on Instagram @murdershetoldpodcast for key photos from this 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 victim or anyone connected to this story, you are more than welcome to reach out to me. 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.