CANTON, Maine — Maine State Police on Sunday returned to a home on Route 108 for a fourth day, searching for the remains of Kimberly Moreau of Jay, who disappeared in 1986.
During a press conference Sunday, Sgt. Mark Holmquist of the Major Crimes Unit told WCSH-6 that members of the evidence response team and scientists from the University of Maine were back on property owned by Brian Enman, examining ground cleared Saturday.
Police were specifically searching for human remains, according to WGME. They planned to return to the scene Monday morning.
Enman was one of the last people to see the 17-year-old Moreau alive before she was reported missing the night of May 10, 1986.
But Holmquist said Enman is neither a suspect nor a “person of interest” in the disappearance.
“Nope,” he said Sunday, in response to a direct question asked by a reporter. “He’s always been someone we’ve tried to maintain a good relationship with, trying to keep open lines of communication. Any time you have someone in the case who was the last person to see the person you’re looking for, obviously that’s a person you want to approach from time to time to see if anything has come up.”
Enman told the Sun Journal Friday that police are ” grasping at straws” and denied Moreau’s body was buried on the property, which he bought in 2000.
The evidence-response team was using forensic equipment to map fewer than five sites identified by cadaver-trained police dogs in previous days, Holmquist said, while scientists would examine water tables and other aspects of the geology of the area.
“It’ll be a team effort with those folks,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll make some progress today.”
Also at the scene Sunday is Dr. Ed David of the state medical examiner’s office, who Holmquist said “brings a lot of experience in these types of searches.”
“We are optimistic but we’re trying to keep expectations on an even keel,” he said. “This isn’t the first search that we’ve done in this case and we hope that it’s the last, but we are prepared if it isn’t to continue on the investigation. It’s still a very difficult search.”
Holmquist said “substantial” information led them to apply for and receive a search warrant, but declined to be more specific.
He described Enman as “cordial” and “cooperative.”