Maine State Police on Tuesday said they conducted at least one additional search recently that was not disclosed to the public previously in hopes of uncovering evidence that will explain the disappearance of Kimberly Moreau nearly 30 years ago.
Police last month spent four days searching a property in Canton owned by Brian Enman, a series of searches that authorities publicized and were closely monitored by media. Detective Sgt. Mark Holmquist of the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit said at the time that the search would continue at a later date but that it would not include Enman’s 5-acre lot off Route 108.
Steve McCausland said Tuesday that a subsequent search was conducted late last month in nearby Jay, where Moreau grew up. That search, unlike the search of Enman’s property, was not announced to the public.
“This was in addition to those efforts,” McCausland said. “We went back without announcing it to anyone and did some follow-up work.”
McCausland would not say what authorities were looking for nor what they discovered during the Jay search. He also would not say whether anything uncovered during any of the searches thus far has helped advance the investigation.
“Those are investigative details I don’t want to get into,” McCausland said. “It was for anything that could give us a clue where Kim is.”
Moreau was 17 when she disappeared on May 10, 1986. She had argued with her boyfriend and canceled her plan to attend the Jay High School junior prom with him. Instead, the Jay teenager went out with a female friend and met a pair of 25-year-old acquaintances, one of whom was Enman, police said. She was last seen getting into a white Pontiac Trans Am with at least one of the two men at 11 p.m.
Moreau’s mother, Patricia Moreau, told the Morning Sentinel in a July 1986 interview that her daughter “said she was going out for a ride and would be back within an hour.” The teenager never returned home and was declared legally dead in 1993. Her remains have never been found.
Police have not classified the case as a homicide, but have said they suspect foul play.
Enman told investigators that he dropped Moreau off a half-mile from her home at the girl’s request. Police have never named Enman as a suspect in her disappearance and declined to say what led them to last month’s search of his property.
Enman, now 54, told the Kennebec Journal last month that he had nothing to do with Moreau’s disappearance. Police, during that extensive search, turned up soil on the property to let gases from any potential human remains escape so police dogs could pick up the scent.
McCausland said Tuesday that police anticipate conducting additional searches, but he was unsure when those might occur. The investigation has been active since Moreau’s disappearance in 1986.
“Our searches will continue,” he said.
Craig Crosby — 621-5642
Twitter: @CraigCrosby4
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