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This is Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small town USA. I'm Kristen Sevey. You can connect with the show at murdershetold.com or on Instagram at murdershetoldpodcast. Caroline was staring vacantly at the posters in the lobby of the hair salon when her stylist called her over.
She grabbed her purse and started to walk to the chair when something caught her eye. Amidst the models with towering dues, teased and frozen with Aquanet hairspray, one stood out. She was in disbelief. She had been searching for her daughter for nearly a year, and here she was, in an artist's sketch, looking back at her from the wall of her hair salon.
She called the stylist over and explained that she recognized Susan on the poster and plied her for details on the poster's origin. They were able to connect Caroline with the artist who drew the hair models, and he explained that he had encountered Susan on public transportation in Connecticut. With the help of a private investigator, Caroline tracked down her 15-year-old daughter and later said of their reunion, "'She was very angry, but I just hugged and kissed her until she started laughing.'"
The relief she felt unleashed a flood of emotion that washed over her daughter and reminded her of the unconditional love that bound them. Though she declined to be recorded, we spoke with Caroline for several hours about Susan's life, and she related this incredible story to us.
Susan was a precocious and beautiful blue-eyed child with wispy, dirty blonde hair. She grew up in Pine Point, though her address was technically Scarborough, a coastal community in southern Maine, sandwiched between Old Orchard Beach and Portland. She was born in 1969, and
and spent her childhood at the end of Snow Road, a pretty residential street just a one-mile walk from Pine Point Beach. She had horses. Her home's property had a riding stable, and her mom got her an English riding outfit complete with a cute riding cap. Her gear was beautiful, once owned by a former governor's daughter. She took lessons every week with a local teacher and had ponies at her home stable, and that was where she often spent her time.
She competed in walk, trot, and canter, and at 10 years old, won second place at a competition, earning a cherry red ribbon that she would keep until the end of her short life.
Susan was the youngest of three children, five years younger than her sister Ginger and nine years younger than Bobby, who was the oldest. She went to local schools, Blue Point Primary, the Dunstan School, and the Wentworth School. Her parents, Silas and Caroline, after 18 years of marriage, divorced in 1977 when she was eight. And though she lived primarily with her mother after that, her dad wasn't far. His new home was right next door.
She was an active child, never spending too much time in front of the television. When Susan was little, Caroline sewed matching outfits and perhaps planted a seed for crafting that would later blossom in Susan.
Susan loved to go shopping, to AC Moore, a craft supply store in South Portland, to flea markets, and to flower shows. Caroline taught her how to crochet and knit, and she still has some of the Christmas ornaments that Susan created. She got her ears pierced and even convinced Caroline to do the same. Her mom asked, does it hurt? And she assured her it did not. Caroline was in for a surprise.
Susan's interest in boys started young. Caroline later recalled after falling in love in eighth grade, she went to summer school in order to be eligible for high school, and it was there that she fell in love with a boy and got her first bouquet of flowers. This taste of love ignited a passion for romance that would follow her through her short, bright life.
Caroline thought that her daughter might benefit from the structure of an all-girls Catholic school, and so she enrolled her in Catherine Macaulay High School in Portland, where she began ninth grade. Susan hated it and begged her mom to let her return to public school. So after one brief semester, she returned to Scarborough High.
In the summer between her freshman and sophomore years, she hung out with older friends and met another boy, who she fell in love with. She stopped riding horses, she quit school, and she ran away to Connecticut with Jerry Hutchins, who was seven years her senior. He was 22, and she was 15.
The widely circulated photo of Susan looks like a woman in her 20s, but she's actually only 14 in the image. Her hair is done in a classic 80s style. She's wearing earrings and a thin gold chain necklace. She's wearing very natural-looking makeup, but the whole appearance gives the illusion of someone much older. For eight months, she didn't call or write to her family, and she lived with Jerry and his sister. She found some work with a moving company packing houses and apartments.
They didn't have a car and instead used public transportation. In a letter to her friend Kyra Hume, she was ecstatic to share some big news. She was engaged. But things were difficult. Living on her own as a minor posed numerous legal difficulties, and she said that the cops were ruining her life. She even confessed that her fiancé had been arrested.
But she was young and in love. She wrote about a brief separation from her beau. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet and I'm already going to pieces. I can't handle life anymore.
She confessed that she thought of her boyfriend when she heard Steve Perry's song She's Mine on the radio. The refrain is, She's mine, all mine. Don't show your face here no more. She's mine, all mine. It's a rock ballad from 1984 and it's about jealousy, possessiveness, intimidation, and fending off rivals.
After her mom retrieved her from Connecticut, she was home for a couple of weeks, but was moping around. Caroline said she wasn't the little kid she was when she left, so Caroline gave her daughter the option of returning to Jerry in Connecticut, and Susan took her up on it. She returned to New Haven and stayed for two months before returning home again. Shortly after that, the relationship fizzled, and the marriage was never meant to be.
Back at home, Caroline taught her daughter how to drive a stick shift and helped Susan pass her driving test. Her stepmother, Dorothy, told us she was super proud of that. She returned to Scarborough High for a time, but eventually dropped out. She was drinking a lot. She had a new boyfriend, Bob Hunt, who was 19, three years older than her. For Susan's 17th birthday, she and Caroline went on a cruise to Nova Scotia, Canada.
It was around this time that Susan went to a hospital in Westbrook and stayed for a week to detox. She wanted to clean up her life, so she started going to Alcoholics Anonymous and counseling.
When Susan turned 19 in 1988, she met John Hanna. He was working on the beach between Pine Point and Old Orchard at Seascape Condominiums as a maintenance man. Susan was working at Scarborough Downs, the large historic racetrack not far from her home. The horses felt like a familiar reminder of her simpler youth. There was a restaurant in the building, and that's where she worked as a server.
John and Susan fell in love, and things moved quickly. They were engaged within months and set a summer marriage date, July 1st, 1989. Susan overlooked John's recent run-in with the law. He had been busted for trafficking marijuana on Old Orchard Beach. The judge had given him a year of probation with mandatory substance abuse counseling.
Caroline recalled that Susan ordered a book, How to Plan Your Own Wedding, and she followed it step by step. Susan idolized Princess Diana. From the time that she was a young girl, she would devour any article written about her. If they were at a grocery store and a gossip rag had a photo of Princess Di, she had to have it. Silas later said that he tried to talk his daughter out of marrying because she was young and had expressed a renewed interest in education.
On her wedding day, Susan wore a gown that was inspired by the one worn by Princess Diana. But instead of the ivory that Diana wore, her dress was a shiny, pure white. The sleeves were full length, lacy and embroidered. The train was nearly as long as Diana's, and the shoulders were just as puffed. She was so thin that Caroline recalled that the seamstress told Susan she couldn't take the dress in anymore.
Susan and John got married at the church she grew up at, Blue Point Congregational. Susan was 19 and John was 25, and their life together coincided with a fresh start that Susan envisioned for herself. In the wedding photos, she looks beautiful and happy.
In the honeymoon that followed, they took a trip to Nova Scotia on the ferry and got a fancy room at the Ocean Walk Hotel on East Grand Avenue between Pine Point and Old Orchard. It was given to them by their friend Mike, who managed there.
Susan and John both worked for the Ocean Walk that summer. John worked maintenance, and Susan was the head of the chambermaids, responsible for room turnover. It was 1989, and they lived in a summer party town and partook in the lifestyle, going out bar hopping and listening to music. John and Susan lived in a seasonal beach cabin after the wedding and got a couple of pets, Tommy, their cat, and Cujo, a large black St. Bernard mutt that was named after Stephen King's famous dog.
They got him from one of John's friends who ran the dog pound at Old Orchard. Susan was trying to get her life on track. She began attending meetings of the Scarborough Chapter of the Eastern Star, a sister organization of the Masons for women only, which was overseen by her father, Silas, who was a master Mason. She was the baby of the bunch, her father said with pride.
He was very happy that Susan had taken an interest. She liked the tradition, the friendships, and the chance to dress up. But more importantly, she and her father knew that they shared something special.
As the warm season ended, Susan and John moved to a motel on West Grand Avenue, where Susan cooked her first Thanksgiving. They had some hard times. They couldn't find work over the winter because of the strong seasonality of the town. The cold weather drove the tourists away, and it went into hibernation. They had to give up the motel and moved again to John's mother's cabin.
Caroline visited them in January and found them shivering. They had no heat, and it was freezing cold. She insisted that they come live with her back in Susan's childhood home on Snow Road.
Being home reduced the financial strain on the young couple and allowed Susan to refocus on her education. She studied for the GED through a Scarborough Adult Education program and passed the test in June of 1990, achieving her high school equivalency. It was presented to her at an informal graduation ceremony, and she was considering her college options. Susan was very proud of her diploma.
It was around this time that John and Susan began fighting, and they sought counsel from Reverend Earl Dunham Bergman, the minister at Blue Point Congregational. They went to him regularly to try and sort their differences and improve their marriage.
Over the winter of 1991 to 1992, John and Susan had been living with Caroline for about two years when things came to a head. Caroline had helped clean out her aunt's house after her death and had taken some things to store in the attic. She went to Florida on a long weekend trip, and while she was gone, John and her own son, Bobby, fleeced the house of many valuables and pawned them.
Caroline said,
We spoke to Dorothy Cummings, Susan's stepmom, and she recalled seeing Susan walking down Snow Road going out for the evening with John in tow. The two of them were hollering and screaming at one another, drawing looks from curious neighbors. John wanted her to stay home, but Susan had made up her mind to go out.
In late February, Susan finally kicked John out. Caroline said that Susan was fed up with the cocaine trafficking and cocaine use, but that Susan kept her out of it. John went to live with his mother. She had a house in nearby Stone Village. Though they were still married, Susan wanted space, but John wouldn't leave her alone.
Caroline recalled that John was following her everywhere and blowing up her phone. He was jealous, and he tried to intimidate Susan to control her. John broke into the house when it was empty and cut up a bunch of Susan's shoes. Later, he ran his mouth to a reporter, lovingly saying, quote, she used to walk down the street decked out like a friggin' whore.
When he broke in, he also destroyed some of her clothes and an album of their wedding, scratching out her face in photos with scissors. Susan was furious and she called the police. Bob Hunt, a friend of Susan's, later said, "I was with her at the house when she told the police that John was dealing cocaine and she gave up his friends from Massachusetts. This all happened after he broke into her house."
On March 5, 1992, John came to the house when Susan was home and insisted on taking their dog, Cujo. Susan wasn't letting him in, so John pushed the door in and shoved her. He took the dog and left, so Susan, the next day, went to court and filed a restraining order. In her application, after recapping the previous incidents at home, she wrote, "'He has kept me isolated from my friends. He doesn't allow me to do anything.'"
He's even made threats to me such as, you are going to get raped and I'm going to hurt you. I fear for my safety.
John was served the same day with a summons to appear in Portland District Court on March 27th for a hearing. He asked the court to move out the date because he wanted custody of Cujo and didn't want to wait. The court agreed, and the new date was set for March 18th. A judge heard arguments from them and granted the protection from abuse order that Susan petitioned for.
The judge gave custody of Cujo to Susan and allowed John to return to the house with an officer present to get his personal tools, possessions, and bed.
A mutual friend of theirs, Tammy, later said, They didn't trust each other, didn't like certain friends, didn't have enough money, and didn't have their own place. Both Sue and John hadn't had easy, normal lives. They'd argued in the weeks they were separated because they still loved each other in their own way, but they didn't know how to let go and separate on friendly terms.
John came by the house a few times to gather all of his things. One time, he happened to find a phone number written down. It just said Peter and then seven digits. He was incensed and tore it up into a bunch of little pieces. Caroline was involved with a singles network. She was in charge of refreshments and had cooked and baked for a Saturday night dance.
Portland had a dance hall and they had a live country-western band lined up. She was nervous about leaving Susan home alone on a Saturday night and insisted that she come with her. Susan joked that it was an event for old people but enjoyed the line dancing despite herself. That's when she met Peter Bump, who struck up a conversation and gave her his number. Caroline recalled that Susan said, "'He's a nice guy, but he's too old for me and too young for you.'"
On April 8th, Susan signed an affidavit that was required by the court in her divorce filing. Despite friends saying she'd tried hard to make the marriage work, she came to realize it wasn't going to. She represented herself and asked the court to divide her and Jonathan's income and assets, which amounted to almost nothing. She also asked the court for alimony from John.
Judge Jane Bradley waived the filing and mediation fees of $170 because she had no income, no savings, no real estate, and no car. The next weekend, which was Easter weekend, Susan babysat her niece, Jasmine, on Saturday morning and then went with her mom to visit her grandmother, Priscilla, at a nursing home in Biddeford, just south of Scarborough. They stopped at a grocery store, picked up some food and makeup, and headed back to the house.
Caroline popped a chicken into the oven and was preparing some potatoes when Susan told her that she was going to go and take a walk on the beach and would be back in time for dinner. It was about 3 p.m. on April 18, 1992, and that was the last time that Caroline ever saw her daughter alive. Police, reporters, friends, and family later tried to piece together what happened the rest of the evening, but there were conflicting accounts and haziness that obscured the truth.
Caroline believes that Susan met a friend at the beach who had a motorcycle and got a ride to South Portland on the back of his bike. After the 25-minute ride north, they arrived at a bar called the Doctor's Lounge on Westbrook Street, where they drank beer and shot some pool.
It had a reputation for being a little rough around the edges and a hotspot for bikers to congregate. After a short time, she believes that they drove 30 minutes south, past Pine Point to Old Orchard Beach, where Susan was spotted at the Whaler. It was a dive known as a hangout for locals, and Susan knew the bartender.
Some acquaintances were quoted in newspapers as having seen her there at 10 p.m. A friend of her father's, Danny Greeno, was there, and she asked him for a ride home, but he said he was in no condition to drive. She was last seen by employees of the Whaler at 1.20 a.m., and that's when Susan started walking the three-and-a-half miles home.
John Cummings, Susan's uncle, had a motel room at the La Rochelle Motor Lodge just a block or two from the bar, and he was in his room. He later told police and reporters that he looked through his window and saw Susan outside of his room talking to a man he didn't recognize before returning to watch television. He described the man as medium-billed and thin. And that's it. Susan was never seen or heard from again.
The next day was Easter Sunday, and her stepmom, Silas' new wife, Dorothy Cummings, returned home that morning to discover that her dog, Taffy, was very anxious and eager to get out. Susan had agreed to take care of Taffy while they were out of town, but she could tell that Susan hadn't been by to take care of her, which struck her as odd. Susan missed church services and the visit that she had planned to see her grandmother.
At first, police and friends thought it was possible that Susan decided to take a spontaneous trip. After all, she had ran away to Connecticut as a teenager, and neither called nor wrote for months. But Caroline knew this time was different. She took nothing with her, except a purse containing less than $30. Caroline believed that if Susan were planning to run away, she would have taken the makeup on her bureau and some clothes.
Susan had plans for the future. She had drawn up a plan for a flower and vegetable garden on graph paper for her and her mother's home. She dreamt of a walkway into the woods to a brook lined with flowers. She had ordered seeds and seedlings from a company. She wanted orchids, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and green peppers.
A friend later told the press that Susan had taken control of her life. She had changed a lot and mellowed out, trying to take on some responsibility. She was planning to take some college classes, and the University of Southern Maine was offering her one for free that she intended to take in the fall. Her new friend, Peter, called several times throughout the day to check on her, but he only got Caroline, who was calling around and searching for Susan.
On Monday, she missed an important date with the Eastern Star. She had been voted in to hold the position of electa in the organization, and it was the day of her ceremony to be installed as an officer. At that point, there was no question in the mind of any of those who loved her. Something had happened to Susan.
Caroline remembered a call that she got from John. She recalled that he was frantic and hyper on the phone. He said, I didn't have anything to do with Susan's disappearance. But Caroline hadn't yet reported her missing. When she hung up the phone, she called the Scarborough Police Department. They sent a detective to the house and they took a report. Though Susan was now officially a missing person, foul play was suspected.
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All eyes turned toward John Hanna, and he provided an account of his Saturday evening. He said that about 7 p.m., he and three friends went to Aqua Lounge in York for their casino night, where they played blackjack all evening until about midnight. The four then went to The Dugout, a bar in Old Orchard Beach, until closing time, around 1.10 a.m., at which point John returned home on Lake Avenue.
His roommates, Kenny and Candy, were home, and he saw them briefly while they were on their way to a party. When they returned home, John said that Kenny woke him up. He sat and chatted with him for a few minutes before heading to bed. Caroline realized that she couldn't care for Cujo, so she asked John if he could take care of him.
It wasn't until May 14th that a missing person notice was posted in the local newspaper called the Sun-Times. It said that Susan was last seen wearing jeans, black boots, and a gray maroon windbreaker carrying a black purse. She's 5'1", 85 pounds, has brown hair and blue eyes, and is 22 years old. By this point, the detective working on the case was Eugene O'Neill with the Scarborough PD.
John recalled that the police were ever-present in his orbit. He said they would come by, trying to be his friend. He said that Eugene told him, I don't think you did it, John. In early July, John went to the Scarborough police station to answer what he thought were routine questions and was surprised when they searched his car and trunk. He said, They took my car, searched it for blood, and asked me, Where's the friggin' body, John? He said he'd never hit a girl in his life.
In an interview with Tim Gillis, a Sun Times reporter, he said, They suggested that maybe I would hit a girl with how much Susan hurt me. I've chewed all my nails right down. They've put me through mental anguish. She has no life insurance. I'm a young guy. Why wreck my life? And wouldn't I be the top suspect? I'm not that dumb of a guy. They're making me sound like the devil in disguise, but I was doing the best I could for my wife.
I've got a great alibi. I don't know why they're calling it a murder.
John claimed that he didn't learn of Susan's disappearance until a few days later when Silas came to ask him if he knew anything about Susan on Monday. But that didn't ring true with Susan's family and friends, who heard that John was talking about her disappearance on Sunday. He also claimed that the last time he had any contact with Susan was five weeks prior to her disappearance, but the hearing on the restraining order was only four weeks prior.
and subsequent to that, he came over a few times to collect things from the house. Caroline said that he also contacted Susan several times in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, trying to make amends. And Dorothy Cummings, Susan's stepmother, said that he would hang out at Blue Point Variety and the Blue Point Congregational Church, hoping to encounter Susan.
Something that came out of the interviews conducted for the Sun-Times article was that Susan would sometimes become violent when she drank, and an anonymous source says that they recalled on more than one occasion seeing Susan slap John. In the same newspaper on the same day as the follow-up article on Susan, an op-ed was published by, quote, Friends of John and Sue. It read, in part,
A lot of people have their suspicions as to what might have happened, but they have their doubts. Nobody in this world is perfect. John is innocent until proven guilty, and time will tell what happened to Sue or where she is.
John told the Sun-Times that he had suggested a lie detector test and sat for one in late July with the Maine State Police at their Gray Barracks. During that test, he was asked several times about his involvement with her disappearance. Though they didn't show him the complete results, they told him that he had failed. They even read him his rights. On the way home, the officer said that the next time they saw him, it was going to be with a murder charge.
Police approached John's roommates, Kenny and Candy, several times and told them, if John goes down, you're going down with him. John believed that they were trying to drive a wedge between them to undermine his alibi. John claimed that he was trying to secure a lawyer to stop the police from harassing him and said that someone is going to get sued very shortly. By mid-August, John was no longer living with Kenny and Candy.
On August 19th, Susan would have turned 23 years old. In a news article that was published the next day, Caroline reflected on Susan's life. I felt from the very beginning that something bad happened to Susan. We went through this before when she was a teenager, and she fully understood the pain she caused me. In a card that Susan gave her for Mother's Day in 1991, she said,
She wrote, In September, another tragedy happened in Caroline's family. Priscilla, Susan's grandmother whom she loved dearly, passed away, and she died not knowing what happened to Susan.
For the next year, there were no more published articles about Susan's investigation or disappearance. In the meantime, her friend Peter took some initiative to work on her case. He said he spent hundreds of dollars on phone calls trying to piece together information. He had a number of photo prints made and he posted them in bars, stores, and restaurants. He conducted thorough searches of the woods and along railroad tracks, grasping for clues. He said,
If I had the money, I put out a $25,000 reward, and I think people would talk. I want the answer.
In 1993, on her next birthday, another round of articles came out. Local detective Eugene O'Neill speculated on the possibility that she was alive, but had chosen to vanish. If you really want to disappear, you could change your identity. But usually, it's the criminal element that would do that. I don't think Susan would have the knowledge or the desire. She was getting her life together here.
Reporters caught up with John again, who was living in Old Orchard Beach with his mom on Lake Avenue. He told Kim Strohsnyder with the Portland Press-Herald that Susan's request for a restraining order was, quote, a bunch of lies. He said, all I wanted out of our marriage was my dog.
Caroline told the Herald that she had kept Susan's room exactly as it was for a year, but now she had a friend living with her and had to make room for them. She wasn't sure what to do with some of Susan's stuff. She reflected on the void that Susan had left. The not knowing is terrible. I'm missing part of me. I feel my heart's been ripped right out.
Shortly after the Portland Press-Herald published an article that was entitled, Hope Fades for Missing Woman, the state police made an announcement that they were increasing the manpower devoted to her case.
On Wednesday, October 6th, a large RV called a mobile command center from the Maine State Police pulled up and parked on the pier at Camp Ellis, which is just south of Old Orchard Beach. They had boats in the water and a team of divers taking turns going under. They worked all day, from 8.30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and news organizations got word of the big search. Reporters turned up Thursday for day two.
Police from Scarborough, Saco, Old Orchard Beach, and the Maine DEA joined as well. The target of their search was about a mile from the pier, halfway between Ram and Stage Islands. They positioned three boats out where the water was 20 to 35 feet deep. One team manned a small submarine-type vehicle that allowed the divers to ride the bottom. At first, they were using hand shovels, working on the bottom of the ocean, but the work was slow going.
They located a dredging contractor not far from the site. The compressor was linked by a flexible red hose to a section of PVC pipe fitted with handles for gripping. After they loaded the apparatus onto one of the boats, the divers used the device to vacuum sand from the ocean, speeding up their work dramatically. Spectators were gawking from the shore.
At 1.45 p.m., a diver breached the surface and handed a round object covered with seaweed to the boat team, who loaded it into tan evidence bags. They brought it ashore and took it to the mobile command post. The police would neither confirm nor deny that the search was related to Susan's case, but the presence of particular officers and the timing of the search led reporters to their own conclusions.
Furthermore, they asked John Hanna to come to the pier for questioning again. He spent about 15 minutes inside the mobile command center, and he later told reporters that the detectives kept repeating themselves. We want the story. Tell us the truth, John. Where is she? John's mom, Frances, said to the press, he's told his story. I know my son is innocent. He wouldn't hurt anyone or anything.
John later went on Channel 6 to offer his own $2,000 reward. On Saturday, November 13, 1993, Jeff Libby was traipsing through the woods at the base of Libby Mountain in Limington. It was a remote area just off a logging road a quarter mile from Route 117. The
the perfect spot for hunting season. Under the crunch of fallen leaves, Jeff stumbled on what appeared to be a black boot. Upon closer inspection, he realized there was a skeletal foot still inside the boot. Jeff continued his day of hunting, and the next day, on November 14th, called the Maine State Police in Gray, who immediately responded to the scene.
According to Stephen Holtz of the Maine State Police, the skeleton was mostly intact, only a few bones were discovered away from the rest.
It wasn't initially clear whether it belonged to a man or a woman, but police garnered clues from the clothing found at the scene, clothing that most likely belonged to a woman. They had found a pair of black boots and women's jewelry. Through dental records, police matched the skeleton to Susan Hanna, and Caroline confirmed the ring and necklace found at the scene belonged to her daughter. Susan had finally been found.
It had been a year and a half since she went missing, and police said the condition of her remains indicated that she died around the same time, April 18, 1992. But a detective later said that too much time had elapsed for police and experts to determine whether Susan was killed in the woods or killed in another place and left there. During that time, the person or people involved may have had time to put their stories together and arrange their alibis.
Leamington is super remote and about 45 minutes away from where she was last seen in Old Orchard Beach. Whether she was killed there or not, somebody drove her to Libby Mountain. Law enforcement began a search of the area with the assistance of a canine team from the medical examiner's office. This lasted a few days.
By Thursday the 18th, the news hit the press. The remains discovered were officially identified as Susan Hanna. Investigators attempted to quietly send Maine State Detective Clifford Howard and Scarborough Detective Eugene O'Neill to Hollywood, Florida, to surprise interview John for a fifth time, who had moved there for work. John caught wind of their travels when a local news station leaked the investigative plans. Steve McCausland, spokesperson for the police, said,
We were headed down, and I suspect he knew we were coming. In hindsight, it made no difference. The burden of planning Susan's funeral fell on Caroline's shoulders, and her church stepped up to help out with the planning. I was a basket case, she told a reporter.
Around 200 mourners gathered at the Blue Point Congregational Church in Scarborough for Susan's funeral on Sunday, November 21st. Caroline decided to have her cremated and placed her remains in an urn shaped like an angel. That afternoon, the small church was bursting at the seams and additional chairs had to be brought in to accommodate the crowd. Police were amongst the crowd, undercover, and
and other law enforcement were quietly perched across the street, videotaping the people who were coming and going and writing down the license plates of their cars. According to the Biddeford Journal-Tribune, John was in Florida at the time working on an asphalt paving crew. Neither his friends nor his family attended. Peter Bump spoke at her funeral. I will never forget her laughter and her cute bubbly smile.
Sue, to me, was a special person, one of those people who are rare to come along in life. The minister, Earl Dunham Bergman, knew Susan and had a couple of stories. He had asked her to consider teaching Sunday school. He also recalled that she would, quote, prance into his office to say hello. He referred to a sheet of typing paper on which Susan had practiced her keyboarding skills. In addition to the names of her family and friends and her address, she had typed the Lord's Prayer.
He said, I would look at this and say this is a very religious girl. This is a girl with a sense of humor. This is a girl who loves her family. The sheet of paper he held read, I know how to type. Ha ha ha. Thank God for small miracles. And the reverend said, this is how I remember Susan, as a small miracle.
In a church fellowship hall, Susan's family had displayed photographs of her. A red ribbon she won at the horse show, photos of her at a modeling competition, a yellow baseball cap that was part of her uniform when she was a girl, and some greeting cards that she'd authored, including a Christmas card Susan had sent to her dog Cujo. Susan's ashes were buried in a double plot at Scarborough Cemetery.
Someday, her mother will be buried with her, and both of their names are engraved on the light gray granite headstone. Mourners laid red roses in front of a picture of Susan.
After the funeral, reporters went to the bars where Susan was last seen and asked around about her and what happened that fateful Saturday night, but they were left with more questions than answers. It was later revealed that the search of the ocean floor didn't result in any meaningful leads to the case, but the police still keep Susan's case open, and though little has happened visible to the public since her death, Susan's name still appears on the current version of the main unsolved homicide list.
Despite the fact that 30 years have passed, memories of friends and family of Susan are still fresh. Dorothy recalled the impact to her father, Silas. Life went on, but her father had a real hard time. He thought from the beginning that something had happened, but I believe that she had just taken off. He didn't do anything. He stopped going to work. He stayed home all the time. I realized that he was just waiting for the phone to ring.
Peter Bump recalled Susan's love for animals and nature. Susan would talk to him about how birds would land on her shoulder in the garden, unafraid. Dorothy remembered how much Susan loved feeding the birds. The outdoors beckoned to Susan, and she was rarely found in front of a TV.
Everyone we spoke to said that Susan would flit in and out of their homes and their lives with such joy. She was bubbly and sweet and gave love with all her heart. Dorothy said she would always come diddy-bopping into their home on Snow Road. Her sister Ginger said that no matter how bad things were, she always remembered Susan's smile. Tammy said that she always had a smile on her face. It was a pretty smile, one that you don't forget.
In looking at old photos of Susan, you can tell that she has a lot of practice at smiling. So much so that her eyes would often be squeezed shut, and her smile was endearing. Ginger said that everybody just loved her. A beautiful person all the way around, inside and out. And she wanted to be loved by a romantic partner from a young age.
Dorothy quipped, "'Susie had a lot of boyfriends. I can't imagine Susan not dating someone. But she was also decisive and willful, and when she was done with a relationship, she was done. Everyone remembered her as on-the-go, always moving, a free spirit.'"
But Susan had some regrets. Caroline recalled that the private Catholic school she went to in ninth grade was quite a change to her and she resisted. Susan always said to her afterwards, "I should have stayed." Perhaps Susan recognized in herself the need for structure. Kyra said, "I don't know how somebody could do what they did to her. I just hope the truth comes out." And Caroline said, "Maybe an arrest will never be made."
That's crossed my mind. But even if an arrest is never made, I feel God's punishment will be there. Caroline and Susan used to walk the beach together. It's something that Caroline still cherishes. She reflected, "...in the summertime, it was the sun and the warmth and the easiness of the water. In other times, it was just the peacefulness." I hope that Caroline is able to walk that familiar beach today and talk with her daughter and find those moments of peace.
If you have any information about the murder of Susan Hanna, I urge you to call the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit South at 207-657-5710 or leave a tip at the link in the show notes. ♪
I want to thank you so much for listening. I am so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. Thank you. If you would like to support the show, there's a link in the show notes with options. Another way to support is telling a friend, sharing on social media, or leaving a review.
A very special thanks to Caroline Chamberlain for trusting us with her daughter's story, and to Kyra Hume, Ginger Cummings, and Dorothy Cummings for sharing their memories. Additional thanks to Renee Fournier for her support. A detailed list of sources and photos can be found at MurderSheTold.com. This episode was co-written and researched by Byron Willis.
If you have a story that needs to be told or a correction, I would love to hear from you. My only hope is that I've kept the memories of your loved ones alive. I'm Kristen Sevey, and this is Murder, She Told. Thank you for listening. I'm sending my Aunt Tina money directly to her bank account in the Philippines with Western Union. She's the self-proclaimed bingo queen of Manila, and I know better to interrupt her on bingo night, even to pick up cash. Hey!
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