AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s cold case squad to investigate homicides will not receive startup funds from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s office in Washington, D.C.
The Maine attorney general’s office this spring applied for a U.S. Department of Justice grant that would have provided startup funds to pay for investigative work on the state’s 120 unsolved murder cases, according to Dan Rafter, communications director for Michaud’s congressional office.
The justice department awarded $4.7 million in grants to 25 agencies to assist in solving cold cases with DNA, according to information provided by Michaud’s office. The grants ranged from a low of $30,671 to Clearwater’s cold case team in Florida to a high of $270,000 to the Salt Lake City Police Department in Utah.
A bill to create a special cold case homicide unit within the attorney general’s office was passed by the Legislature earlier this year, but it was not funded by the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, according to a previously published report.
To fully fund the measure would have cost the state $500,000 in the first year and $424,000 in the second. Those funds would have paid for two Maine State Police detectives and a forensic chemist.
If the squad is to become reality, it will have to be funded in a future budget cycle or apply for grants.
Rep. Stephen Stanley, D-Medway, introduced the cold case bill to help the family of Joyce McLain, a 16-year-old high school sophomore from East Millinocket who disappeared while jogging Aug. 8, 1980. Her body was discovered two days later, and her death was ruled a homicide. No one has been charged in the case.
“We’re very disappointed,” Patrick Day, a native of East Millinocket, a classmate of McLain’s and who organized support for the bill, said Wednesday. “We’re disappointed the state put all its eggs in one basket [in seeking federal funds]. This is a state issue. The state should be funding it for the Maine families who have been waiting for justice.”