GORHAM – The mystery of a Gorham man missing for a month came to a sad end Tuesday when a brother found a body in a treetop behind the man’s Main Street home.
Bernard Herring, 57, was last seen on April 11.
“I found him,” David Herring of Bridgton said late Tuesday afternoon outside his brother’s Gorham apartment where several police cruisers and rescue vehicles were clustered in the driveway.
Gorham Police Chief Ron Shepard and several police officers were at the scene. Lt. Chris Sanborn of the Gorham Police Department confirmed a body had been discovered.
Gorham police on Wednesday said that the body had been identified as that of Herring and evidence suggested that injuries were self-inflicted. Detective Sgt. Dana Thompson said in the report that Herring’s body was discovered suspended 22 feet off the ground in a coniferous tree.
Police said the case is still under investigation, but they are not searching for any suspects, and said in a statement, “We have no reason to believe the public is in any danger.” Gorham police were assisted at the scene by Maine State Police detectives.
Herring’s body was released to the Dolby & Dorr Funeral Home in Gorham, police said.
At the scene on Tuesday, David Herring said his brother was hanging in a pine tree 10 feet behind the door of the man’s apartment. The ladder of a Gorham Fire Department fire truck late Tuesday afternoon stretched over the roof of the home to reach trees in the back yard.
The discovery marked a tragic ending for a man whose mother was murdered when he was a youngster. Family and friends described Herring, a carpenter and handyman, as a good worker and loyal, but also a man who suffered from depression.
Last month, a search was launched after Herring, who had walked away from his home at 464 Main St. following an argument with his girlfriend, was reported missing April 13. A large contingent that included police, firefighters, game wardens, volunteers and cadaver dogs, along with an airplane, combed the vicinity around Herring’s home on April 15 but failed to locate him.
Thompson of Gorham police said areas of the Little River and Presumpscot River had also been searched. On Tuesday, before the body was discovered, Thompson said there was not much more that police could do.
Herring was last seen at 9 p.m. on April 11. He left behind his cell phone, car keys and reading glasses. Herring’s live-in girlfriend, Katherine DiFiore, said Tuesday, just hours before the body was found, that he also left behind a note written with her lipstick on a mirror in the home.
DiFiore said the note read, “I love you so much but goodbye. I love you.”
David Herring had said earlier Tuesday afternoon that he thought his brother had hanged himself.
“He’s been depressed for a long time,” he said.
DiFiore said the state in early March took away Herring’s driver’s license over a past issue with child support. She said the state was after him for child support.
“Money was a stressor,” she said.
DiFiore said she and Herring had lived in the Gorham apartment for two years. She said she’s 100 percent disabled.
“Bernie was my caretaker,” said DiFiore, who plans to move.
Landlord Russell Glidden, who said he had known Herring for about five years, said Tuesday Herring was a good tenant and a hard worker – “a good guy” who had done work for Glidden.
“He always got the job done,” Glidden said.
DiFiore said that while pinning a blanket on a clothesline in her yard on Monday, a trash bag had blown across the yard. She placed it in a blue bin in the yard and weighed it down. On the ground she spotted Herring’s dentures. “I’ve never seen him without them,” she said, “He never took his teeth out.”
It was a short time later when a body was discovered in the treetop.
Edward Herring of Biddeford, a son, said Tuesday he had talked with his father the day he went missing, but his father hadn’t called since. He said his father that day was remodeling a kitchen in a restaurant in Freeport.
“He was happy,” he said.
Later on April 11, Herring went to a Westbrook home to measure a carpentry job. Wanda Traugh, 80, of the Hamlet on Saco Street in Westbrook, said Herring had gone to her home to give her an estimate on a deck.
Traugh said Herring had installed a new roof on her home a year and a half ago. Traugh said Herring arrived at 4:20 p.m. and left at 5:50 p.m.
“I was watching the clock,” she said.
Traugh said he talked about his children and his girlfriend. Traugh said he didn’t appear despondent. “He seemed upbeat,” Traugh said.
A police missing persons report said, “Herring may be despondent and/or intoxicated,” and David Herring agreed his brother did drink. But, Traugh didn’t believe Herring had been drinking when he went to her home.
Traugh said Herring had a clipboard, took measurements and left his business card.
“I never heard another word from him,” she said.
Edward Herring described his father as “loving.”
With help from a friend, Edward Herring distributed 5,000 flyers in an effort to find him.
Darrell Damboise of Falmouth, Herring’s longtime friend, had distributed another 200 posters with a photo and description of his pal.
Damboise and Herring were close friends for 14 years. Damboise said that Herring had been married three times, had four children and believed he had four grandchildren.
“We were really buds,” Damboise said earlier in the day Tuesday.
Damboise described Herring as generous, a hard worker and a caring individual.
Herring’s life was marked by tragedy when he was about 10 years old. His mother, Hattie Eliza Herring, was murdered in Windham in 1965, leaving six children.
The end of the search for Bernard Herring hit hard.
“At least its closure,” Damboise said Wednesday.
“All I want is for him to be happy,” said DiFiore.
The Gorham Fire Department was on the scene Tuesday to recover the body of Bernard Herring from a tree behind his home on Main Street. Herring had been missing since April 11. (Staff photo by Robert LowellSend questions/comments to the editors.
