The Son of Adam

 

Good Morning, MMers. We've got a Deep Dive for you today that will take us through one of Maine's most grizzly events. Many of our readers will remember the Son of Adam killing spree that gripped the state from 1996 to 1997. Here's a quick recap for those of you who need a refresher.

On July 2, 1996, at 11:30 PM, man walked up to Amy Camire while she was smoking a cigarette outside of a bar in Portland. He fired a single round of .38 Special into the back of Amy's head, then ran off into the night. There were only a few witnesses, and none of them got a good look at the shooter. Amy Camire was pronounced dead at the scene.

Several of the police sketches of the Son of Adam suspect

That kicked off a series of murders, all of them happening either late at night or in the early hours of the morning, with most happening between midnight and 2 AM. On August 15, 1996, Paul St. Cyr and his girlfriend, Christine Bouchard were shot in the head while sitting in St. Cyr's car. Bouchard was killed instantly. St. Cyr was taken to Maine Medical Center where he died on August 16th due to his injuries. Again, there were few witnesses and no positive identification could be made.

The killer struck again on August 30th, killing two young women, Jennifer Lachance and Lily Whitten, as they walked home from a party. A sixth victim, 24 year old, Kimberly Malley, was shot a month later while she sat in her car, after leaving a bar at midnight. Police believe she was smoking before she drove home. She was shot once in the neck and a second time in the head. This time the police found a letter from the killer left at the scene, placed in the victim's lap. It read:

YOU THINK YOU UNDERSTAND ME, BUT YOU DO NOT. I AM THE DARKNESS. I AM THE TOOTHY GRIN IN THE NIGHT. I AM THE ORIGINAL SON OF ADAM. YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT ME. I KILL BECAUSE I HAVE TO. BECAUSE I CARE. THE WHORES AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES MEAN NOTHING. ONLY THE BLOOD. ONLY THE SAKRIFICE [sic] MATTER. WHEN OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN DEATH COMMANDS, I MUST OBEY.

YOU CAANOT FIND ME. YOU CANNOT SEE ME. I AM THE BEAST WITH A THOUSAND FACES. I AM THE MORNNG STAR FADING AWAY. WHEN I LOOK AT MY WINDOW AND I SEE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE OF THIS WORLD, I AM SICK. I WILL REMAKE THE WORLD IN MY IMAGE. BLOOD AND CHAOS.

THE SCREAMS ARE THE LULLABY TO MY MOTHERS EARS. MOTHER MARY. MOTHER LILITH. MOTHER MAY I. SHE DANCES AND SWAYS TO THE MUSIC I MAKE. IF I MAKE HER SMILE SHE WILL LET ME OUT TO PLAY. 

I AM NOT DONE. I AM ONLY BEGINNING. DO NOT STOP ME. PORTLAND IS MY INSTRUMENT AND I AM THE COMPOSER. THE SYMPHONY IS NIGH. MOTHER WILL SING AND I WILL KNOW HER GRACE. 

I AM WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

I AM WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

SINSEERLY[sic],

MR. DEATH DEALER

Over the next three months, two more women, Beverley Lyons and Annemarie Wilcox were killed, bringing the total dead up to eight. All of the victims were shot with the same .38 Special. Police released several sketches of the shooter but differences in these sketches became apparent and speculation began that there might be multiple shooters.

On December 11, 1996 Portland Press Herald reporter Sam Wentworth received a letter from the so-called Son of Adam killer. Portions of it are printed below:

HELLO SAM!

I AM THE SON OF ADAM BUT I AM NO CAIN. HERE AMONG THE DIRT AND THE FILTH I WATCH. AND WAIT. AND DREAM...

...I KILLED THEM. KILLED THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE HARLOTS. BECAUSE THEY WERE WRONG. I WILL KILL AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN...

...IF YOU TRY TO STOP ME, TRY TO FIND ME I WILL KILL YOU. KILL YOU ALL AND DANCE ON YOUR CORPSE. I WILL DRIN YOUR BLOOD AND EAT YOUR FLESH.  SO GIVE UP NOW. BEFORE ITS TOO LATE FOR YOUR. FOR YOUR MOTHER. YOUR FATHER. YOU SON. YOUR DAUGHTER. YOUR WIFE.

-SON OF ADAM

The Son of Adam didn't attack again until March 12, 1997. By that time, paranoia and run rampant in the streets of Portland and the surrounding Maine communities. Many young women feared they would be the next victim. On March 12, the Son of Adam shot Stephenie Berger as she sat in her car outside her boyfriend's house. She had just dropped him off after a night out when the killer approached the car and fired a single shot. The bullet struck her in the top of the head, but surprisingly, Berger survived. 

Matthew Locke, the Son of Adam killer

Three more victims - Allison Roberts, Jessica Humphrey, and her boyfriend Marcus Woods - lost their lives in following months.

Eventually, on June 27, 1997, after almost a year of fear and violence, police identified 26-year old Matthew Locke as the Son of Adam killer. They arrested Locke as he exited his apartment on the afternoon of the 17th.  Locke was quoted as saying, "You found me. You found me. I'm Son of Adam," as the police surrounded him. Locke's arrest ended a year of terror and brought an end to the bloodiest crime  spree in Maine's history.

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If it had ended there, that alone would have made a fairly horrific tale. Locke was found guilty of 11 counts of murder and sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences. For a long time, people believed the story of the Son of Adam killer was finally over.

That all changed in 2003 when journalist Sam Wentworth, the same reporter who had received one of the Son of Adam's letters, received a second letter from Locke. This one indicated that Locke would be interested in speaking with Wentworth, on the record about his crimes.

Wentworth agreed and set up an interview. Locke indicated during their talk that he had not acted alone during the killings. In fact, Locke claimed there had been at least three people who had actually pulled the trigger. Locke claimed that he had shot Camire, Malley, and Jessica Humphrey and Marcus Woods. When pressed, Locke wouldn't provide any names. He claimed he was worried about the safety of his family. 

Locke told Sam Wentworth that he had been part of a group that had met in Deering Oaks and had told him where it was they had met. Wentworth went to that area, an old pumping station, and found that it was covered with graffiti, much of it Satanic in nature. This led him to believe that Locke may have been involved with a Satanic cult and that perhaps they were the accomplices in the Son of Adam crimes.

Two months later, Locke mailed detective Chris Dawson, one of the men responsible for his arrest, a copy of the book, The Secret Lore of Magic, a book on Satanism, black magic, and the occult. On page 162, Locke had written in the margins, "SUN NOT SON." On page 197 he drew the symbol for an atom.

This led Dawson to discover something called the Church of the Atomic Sun. The Church, or CAS as it was sometimes referred, was a group who were dedicated to mastering the secrets of the occult. They believed that the Apocalypse was coming and that after it would come a new age on enlightenment. They believed that the Apocalypse was going to be an all out war between all the people of Earth and that only the strong and pure would survive the nuclear holocaust that would ensue. The cult was founded some time in the early Nineties by a man named Randall Perry. Born in 1970, Perry started his group by bringing together several other young people who were interested in the occult. They would meet in part of Deering Oaks Park late at night. They would drink wine, smoke marijuana, and practice black magic rituals. By 1994, Matthew Locke had joined CAS. Dawson was able to corroborate this with several members of CAS who had since reformed their ways. Many of them were unwilling to speak on the record about their involvement in the group.

One who did, however, was Bryce Harriman. Harriman had been a senior in high school during 1996 and claimed he would often go to the park to hear Randall Perry preach to his group. "It was all fun," he told Dawson in 2004. "At first, I mean. We'd get together, drink, get high. Perry would talk about magic and ripping back the veil of the world. We all had code names, either based on like old serial killers or Satanic stuff, you know? You know, the kind of stuff that an angsty teenager would find cool."

Of interest, was that he claimed Matthew Locke used the code name Berkowitz, the name of the Son of Sam killer, an obvious inspiration for Son of Adam. In addition, Harriman claimed that Randall Perry used the codename Cain, the Biblical first son of Adam.

He said he stopped attending CAS meetings when Perry and another man he didn't know, brought a dog to the park. He said that together, several members of CAS - most he didn't know by name - but including Perry and Matthew Locke sacrificed the dog, painting Satanic symbols with on the walls and floor of the pump house. This was a month before the first Son of Adam killing.

Bryce Harriman, 2003

Harriman also told Dawson that the Church of the Atomic Sun's purpose was to bring about the Apocalypse. They would play the part of Satan, who in their mind was a counterculture figure meant to represent the struggle against the oppressive society that had created such tension. They believed they could usher in the new era by instigating random acts of violence. This, they believed, would trigger a war between the races, which would eventually lead to the Last War, a nuclear war that would destroy the world and prepare it for those who would come next.

Harriman positively identified Locke as being a member of CAS.

In September of 2003, Randall Perry, now living in Vermont, was arrested and brought back to Maine.  Dawson was shocked to see that Perry resembled one of the early police sketches of Son of Adam. Perry was charged with murder. Before his trial, Perry was found dead in his jail cell of an apparent suicide. He was found hanging by a bed sheet.

Randall Perry

At this time Wentworth redoubled his efforts to get Locke to talk more. In the wake of Perry's death, Locke admitted to being a part of the Church of the Atomic Sun and that Randall Perry had committed at least two of the murders. Locke admitted to being there, watching. He claimed there was still at least two other shooters, one man and one woman, though he would not name them out of fear.

In February of 2004, Bryce Harriman was found dead in his apartment in Auburn of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. A symbol had been carved on his chest that some believe had a Satanic connection. Some believe the symbol is a backwards P and a lowercase b, the atomic symbol for lead, as in a bullet. Others believe it is an S for Satan, or perhaps even Son of Adam. There was some suspicion that Harriman's death was actually a homicide, though no evidence of this was ever presented to the public.

Sam Wentworth, the journalist who had first received a letter from Son of Adam, became convinced that Matthew Locke had been part of a Satanic cult that had orchestrated the killings. He believed that Randall Perry to be one of the shooters and that there were others out there who knew the identity of the others. 

With new evidence, the District Attorney re-opened the Son of Adam case, but no new convictions ever came from it. The belief was that Perry had radicalized Locke and together they had perpetuated their crimes in order to sew chaos and terror.

Here's an excerpt from Wentworth's book, Adam Raised a Cain: The Year of Terror in Portland: "Son of Adam. the Church of the Atomic Sun. It wasn't hard to see the connection. Adam. Atom. Son. Sun.  The police were happy with Perry's conviction and his death wrapped everything up nicely. Still, I couldn't forget the fear I had seen in Matthew Locke's eyes when he refused to speak of the other members. I remembered Bryce Harriman who had done nothing but name names of a ten year old Satanic cult and was now dead. There was more to this still uncovered. I was sure of it."

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Wentworth would dedicate the next fifteen years of his life to uncovering what he claimed was the true story behind Son of Adam. Many dismissed him as losing his own grip on reality, going deeper and deeper down rabbit holes. Even Chris Dawson, one of the key architects in exposing the conspiracy killings, couldn't keep up with Wentworth.

"Sam was going places I just don't think the evidence pointed. He was looking for an answer, you understand? He wanted this grand Satanic cult story. He tried to drag in killings in other states, in other times, claiming they were all related. It was interesting stuff if you were looking for a story, but the evidence just didn't hold up under much scrutiny."

Wentworth was convinced there was someone else involved in the Church of the Atomic Sun. From the people he spoke with who knew Locke and Perry - none of whom would go on the record - Wentworth believed that it wasn't Randall Perry that was the head of CAS. He thought there was someone else, some shadow figure that had pulled all the strings.

According to his notes, Wentworth poured over every piece of evidence he could get his hands on. He remembered a line from the Son of Adam's first letter, mentioning Mother Mary, a reference many believed to be the Virgin Mother Mary, Jesus' mother, though some believed could be a reference to The Beatles' song, "Let it Be," of which Matthew Locke considered himself a super fan. Wentworth thought there might be more to it than just that.

Digging into both killer's pasts, Wentworth discovered that Perry had an aunt, coincidentally enough, named Mary Adams. Mary, a single mother, had one son, a year older than Randall Perry: Daniel Hunter.

Daniel Hunter had little digital footprint for Wentworth to follow. There was a report of an arrest in 2001 for shoplifting, but that was all he could find. Still, it felt a little too close to home to just dismiss. Hunter was the literal son of Adams, his mother maiden name which she retook after separating from Hunter's father, John. Wentworth became convinced that Hunter was the other man who had brought the dog to Deering Oaks for the sacrifice with his cousin, that he might be the mastermind behind the Son of Adam killing spree. 

Daniel Hunter had dropped off the grid entirely. Mary Adams, his mother, had died in 2000 after a battle with breast cancer. Wentworth was able to track down Hunter's father, Brian Hunter. Brian was a banker, now living in Ohio. He hadn't any contact with his son since Daniel had been twenty. 

"Things didn't end too well with me and his mom," Brian Hunter said in an interview with Wentworth in 2007. "I didn't see Dan too much after that. Maybe once a month at first, then less and less. I'd get a card from him on Christmas, send him one on his birthday, that kind of stuff. When I moved to Ohio, that was really the end of it."

Brian Hunter went on to say, "Dan was always a smart boy. Really good with people. Charismatic. People seemed to gravitate towards him. He was a good writer, too! He wanted to make comic books, I remember that. I still have some he did with his cousin back when they were kids. Randall? Hmm, Randy was a good kid, too. Quieter than Dan. Dan was the leader and Randy the follower, you know?"

Wentworth believed that it was Daniel Hunter who had been the mastermind of the Church of the Atomic Sun. Perhaps Harriman had misremembered, or all of the secret code names had been to distract everyone from the real leader. Either way, Wentworth believed that it was Hunter who had been behind all of the killings.

This was only reinforced when Brian Hunter sent him a scanned image of one of the comic books that Daniel Hunter and Randall Perry had made when they were eleven years old. It was a super hero story, a Superman-style hero, who used the power of nuclear energy to fight evil. The name of the comic?  ATOMIC SON.

Atomic Son comic by Hunter & Perry

That was all that Wentworth needed. It was the final piece of proof in his mind about the truth CAs. Daniel Hunter and Randall Perry had created the Church of the Atomic Sun to radicalize disenfranchised youth in order to caused death. He believed that Hunter, or some associate had found a way to silence Harriman when he started talking too much, and perhaps he had even killed his own cousin in jail. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to reopen the investigation again. The Maine State Police insisted that Locke and Perry had been the only two working together. They considered the Son of Adam case closed.

Sam Wentworth passed away in 2019 from lung cancer. He went to his grave believing that the true evil had somehow escaped justice. There were dark forces at work, he believed, and that true evil still lurked somewhere in the shadows. Many accused him of pushing a narrative that he wanted, as opposed to going where the evidence led him, but Wentworth never strayed.

Matthew Locke remains in custody in the Maine State Prison. In 2002 he was stabbed by an inmate in the neck, but he survived. He refuses to speak with journalists. He has released several videos, claiming he has reformed, renounced Satan, and is an avowed atheist. He will be up for parole in the year 2136, long after his death.

Daniel Hunter, if he is still alive, remains at large. His whereabouts are unknown. To this date no evidence has connected Daniel Hunter to the Son of Adam killings.  

Recently discovered picture of Daniel Hunter from his high school yearbook
and the police sketch from the St. Cyr/Bouchard shooting.

This might be one of the more bizarre cases in Maine's history: a serial killer, a Satanic cult dead set on bringing about the end times, and maybe a killer still on the loose after all these years.

As always, stay safe out there, Maine.

Ticks, Black Flies, and Witches, OH MY!

It's getting to be that season MMers, ticks and black flies are out in full force. But are the pests accosting you just part of the natural season cycle or are you being targeted by disgruntled neighbors, coworkers, or ex’s? Reports have reached us here at Malevolent Maine that there is a coven of witches operating somewhere in Southern Maine. This coven in order to make enough money to pay for exotic supplies is taking orders for hex totems that draw pests such as ticks and black flies to unsuspecting homes. 

What a totem could look like

We interviewed someone who was a new potential member of this coven who ultimately decided against joining. She told us her name was Talia, but also said that wasn’t her real name. “Well I’ve always been super into the occult and alternative lifestyles, but once I was actually in with these people I realized how weird they were.” Talia told us about strange initiation rituals where they had to kill small animals such as squirrels and rabbits, and make trinkets and totems out of their bones. “It was pretty icky” she said, “I was really uncomfortable the whole time, but some of the other people were really into it.” Some of these totems would then be used to hold the hexes that bring pests down on unsuspecting people.  

What a totem could look like

The leader of this coven was known simply as the Betrothed. “When I asked why she was called that, I was told it was the highest title of the coven. It meant she was like literally engaged to marry the devil, like satan you know? And that sketched me out.” Talia said that after a few weeks she started trying to figure out how to get out of the group. “Eventually I told them that I couldn’t participate anymore because my dad was sick. He wasn’t, but it was the only way I could figure out how to get out of all that. They offered to heal him but it would take more than a few little animals, but I declined.” 

Talia says that if you are experiencing any sort of curse or hex be sure to look around your home/property for small totems made of sticks or bones, tied with hair or strips of leather. This is most likely the source of the misfortune befalling you. She also warns against joining any sort of occult group “It seems fun at first, and sometimes you feel powerful, but eventually they will ask you to do something you aren’t comfortable with. It isn’t worth it.”  

Check your house for these totems, avoid occult groups, and stay safe out there, Maine!

The Witch of Woodland Valley

Good afternoon, MMers! With summer rapidly approaching and the weather improving, we wanted to take some time to warn you about potential harm found in a seemingly safe hobby. As you may know, there is a disc golf course in Limerick called Woodland Valley Disc Golf. You may have even played a round there yourself at some point in time. However, what you didn't know is that there is an evil spirit that haunts the grounds. If you've ever played there, you may have experienced a chill crawling up your spine around the sixth hole on the Grizzly Bear course. The hollowed out tree that marks the hole? Well, that's not there by accident. 

Back in the early 1690s, long before Maine was granted statehood, a woman named Isabelle Houser was arrested, and later convicted, for practicing witchcraft. It was said that she used her powers to lure young boys and girls out into the woods, pierce their ankles with rusty nails, hang them from a tree, and slowly drain the blood and life force out of them until they expired. Many believed that this was Isabelle's way of staying young, as she was 102 years old according to local records, but she didn't appear to be a day over 70. Once she was convicted and found guilty of witchcraft, murder, and other unmentionables, it was decided that she herself should hang from the same tree she had drained so many children from. So, the noose was readied, and Houser was hanged until death. The locals decided to not bother taking her body down afterwards, as she "deserved to rot" for what she had done. Six days after Houser's hanging, the middle of the tree seemingly imploded on itself, leaving only the hollowed out trunk that exists now. Interestingly enough, the tree hasn't changed shape since those days. Some say that it has an impenetrable hex that can never be removed. 

After her death, there were numerous reports of strange activity in those woods. Some reported hearing cackling in the distance, others heard the cries of desperate children. If you got close enough, you might even be able to smell, even see, the fresh blood of innocent children dripping down the tree's bark. 

Britney Bernard in the Hollowed Tree

In recent years since the disc golf course's opening on those "hollowed" grounds, a trend has started in which players pose in the hollowed tree for a photo opportunity. In 2017 a local, Britney Bernard posted a picture to her Instagram of her posing in the infamous tree. Britney was found dead six days later, cause unknown. We tell you this today, MMers, to warn you while you are out in those woods. If you hear a strange noise, smell the scent of freshly spilled blood, or even feel something brush against your shoulder, you should pick up your disc and leave the grounds before it is too late. Stay safe out there, Maine! 

The Night Jean Massacre

Okay, heads up MMers, today’s story is our darkest, most terrifying report yet. This one comes from Strong, in Franklin County, an old mill town on the banks of the Sandy River, and while none of the individuals involved are still alive, the former sheriff of Strong was willing to share everything he remembers from the case.

Welcome to Strong!

It started when the Happy Sun Folk moved to Strong in the spring of 1967. The Happy Sun Folk, or the HSF as they referred to themselves, were a communal living society. They lived on an old farm their founder, Willem S. Fuller purchased. Their entire philosophy was free living. They worked together to live off the land sharing whatever they had with each other. The HSF believed that anything and everything physical was temporary and transient. It was the spirit or essence that was true. They were ostensibly a collective of artists, philosophers, and free thinkers, but what they really were was a cult.

The Happy Sun Folk

As sheriff Pat Sampson put it, “The Happy Sun Folk worshipped Fuller. He was their father, their husband, their god. If he said jump, the HSF did. If he said fly, they’d do their damndest to do it.”

They were tolerated by the people of Strong, but never really fit in. They mostly kept apart from the townsfolk, and in exchange they were allowed to live their hippie lifestyle up at their farm.

That all changed on the night of October 13, 1968. There were reports of screams coming from the HSF farm, Sunnyville, as the members called it. It wasn’t that uncommon to hear screams though; the HSF was into primal scream therapy and other odd “rituals” that were seen time to time from hunters and hikers who wandered a little too close to the farm by accident. These screams were different. They were more “painful” as the police reports indicated. They “sounded like someone was getting slaughtered,” according to one witness.

The big building

Finally the police had enough of the complaints and drove up to Sunnyville just after 11 pm. What they found was the most gruesome scene Sheriff Sampson had ever seen. We’ll let him describe it. We have to warn you this is quite graphic, so our more sensitive readers may want to skip ahead to the next section.

Sampson: “When we got up there, the farm was all quiet. It was just three of us, me, Bill Dempsey, and Jimmy Coloumbe. Jimmy was a rookie, just his first year on the force, and after what we saw…well, he didn’t make it maybe another month before he up and moved to Florida. Said he got a better job opportunity, but we all knew the truth, after what we saw up at the farm, he just couldn’t do it anymore. As for Bill, well... I guess I’ll get to that in a bit.

"The farm was all quiet and dark, but there was this weird smell in the air. It was like the smell that lingers after a fire. No, that ain’t right. It was like the smell in the air after a lightning strike. Fire and smoke, sure, but it was like the very air itself had been burned. We made our way to the big building. It was an old barn they had converted into their church or meeting hall or whatever. The door was locked, from the outside, which we thought was a little odd, but we’ll get back to that too. We knocked a few times, but no one answered. No one answered anywhere on the farm, but that smell… and something else, seemed to be coming from the big building, so eventually, me and Bill Dempsey kicked down the door. 

"What I saw stays with me to this day. I’m 89 years old and I’ll be the first to admit my memory ain’t what it was, but this is something that’s still just as clear as the day I saw it. The Happy Sun Folk were all in the meeting hall, all of them, we later confirmed that. Every single one of those hippies was locked in their own hall. And there was a bonfire burning in the middle of the room. It had been big, but by the time we got there it had burned down low. It was throwing an eerie red light all around the room. Maybe that made it worse, maybe that made it better, but I tell you, before we even saw the HSFers, I was already scared to the dickens.

"They were all there, like I said, all scattered around the room like they had been tossed there by a strong wind or something. They had been torn apart, and when I say torn apart, let me ask you, have you ever seen a man eat a chicken? Like ripping the wing bones apart, or tearing the leg off the body? It was like that, like someone, something, had just come in there and torn those poor bastards to shreds.

"There was blood everywhere, up and down the walls, the floor was sticky with it. Flies had already started to settle down to their feast. And that smell, it was worse inside the big building. It was that same burnt smell, but mixed with the blood of course. There was something swampy about it, like that rotting smell. I know this isn’t doing it justice, but it’s the best I can do. It smelled wrong; it smelled evil. And there, on the far wall, someone had written in blood two words. They’re seared into my mind and I wish for the life of me I could have made sense out of them. Someone had written, ’Night Jean’ in their own blood.”

Pretty gruesome, right? We warned you. But the story isn’t over. See it turns out that one of the HSFers, a young woman named Sandra Carmichael was still alive, despite some pretty serious injuries. While the officers secured the building, Sandra reached out to Officer Dempsey and clutched his leg. 

She only said a few words before she died right there in Bill Dempsey’s arms.

“There’s something beyond” she said. “We called to it and it came. Eyes like lost stars. Hair - oh God, I think it was hair, let it be hair, black and gray and hanging over its face. It moved. It moved in impossible ways. The Night Jean. We didn’t know. We didn’t know. Forgive us.”

Could this be what the HSF saw?

There were no foreign fingerprints on the bodies, anywhere on the big building, or anywhere on the farm that the police could find. There was no evidence of anyone being at Sunnyville that night aside from the members of HSF. Police found no footprints, tire marks, no weapons and no blood anywhere outside of the big building. In the end, the most brutal and horrific homicide in Maine history had to be labeled an unsolved mystery. The police offered their best guess at the time - that one of the members had gone insane and attacked the others before killing himself - but that couldn’t explain the savagery, the torn limbs and severed heads. In the end there was no explanation that made any sense, so everyone did their best to simply move on.

“Poor Bill,” Sheriff Sampson told us. “That girl dying in his arms, hearing her last words. It got to him. He was never the same after that. Two years later he put his service pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

The case of the Night Jean Massacre was never officially solved and remains a cold case to this day, but Sampson has a theory, one that’s grown in his mind in the five and a half decades since that awful night.

“I think they were doing something up there, something they shouldn’t have. Maybe there are things we’re not supposed to understand, creatures that exist beyond our universe. Maybe that crazy cult opened a portal or whatever and let something in, something that didn’t like our world, that hated its very existence. They called themselves the Happy Sun Folk, but they let in the night, and I think it killed them.”

Stay safe out there, Maine.

Az'azouzis

 It's been a wild couple of weeks here at Malevolent Maine, MMers! A lot has been happening behind the scenes, and a lot of it has to do with our encounter with the Midnight Magician, Malachai Blackstone. There's a lot of moving pieces when it comes to running an investigative blog and often times these things take some time. As you'll see, we also weren't able to talk about this until now because of police involvement. 

After our discussion with Professor Carter Derwent, a history and linguistics professor from Bowdoin College, about Az'azouzis, a word we first encountered when we investigated the six people in Crannog's Field with no memory of who they were or why they were there. We heard the word again from Malachai Blackstone when we "interviewed" him last month. Blackstone claimed the word meant, "the end is not the end." Professor Derwent discredited this and translated it instead as, "dark watcher from beyond the stars."  

Derwent did a little more digging for us, reaching out to several colleagues from different universities. He was able to piece together a pretty clear description of Az'azouzis. Here's Derwent:

Az'azouzis, the dark watcher

Az'azouzis is a creature from beyond our plane of existence. Some call him a god, others refer to him as a beyonder - a being outside the known world. He is said to be watching the world, waiting for a way into this world. Over the centuries there have been various cults and groups dedicated to finding a way to open a doorway or portal for Az'azouzis to enter the world. One group, the Order of the End, was active in Europe from 1800 until about 1840. And here's the interesting thing, one of the high ranking members emigrated to America, specifically the New England area.

We also heard from one of our contacts in the local occult scene. He didn't want us to reveal his real name, so we'll call him Desmond. He's been a practitioner of occultism for several years and has been one of our sources for all things paranormal. Here's a transcript of a voice mail call we got from Desmond:

Hey, guys. It's [Desmond]. I have to tell you about a session I just came from. There's been some talk in the past few months about that guy Blackstone, the magician. He's been coming around to different groups, mostly doing lecture stuff, but he's been leading some ceremonies too. He's deep into the occult stuff. So the other night, I catch wind about a ceremony happening on Frye Island, in the middle of Sebago Lake. I decide to go, and when I get there, it's him, Blackstone, clearly running the ceremony. There were probably twenty of us there, no names. This was a black robes and hoods kind of event. We're all standing in a circle and that's when things start to go crazy.

Blackstone starts chanting, pretty typical occult stuff at first, but then he gets going. He starts talking about how the end is not the end. "There are tremendous and treacherous things beyond." All this kind of stuff. He starts talking about Az'azouzis, and I recognize that from your blog, right? That's when we hear this great roaring sound. It sounds like the sky is splitting open and some big angry animal is coming through. You know that long rumble of thunder you hear sometimes? It was like that times a thousand. The ground starts shaking, like an earthquake. Out of the ground comes this big stone pillar, like the one from your site. 

Occult ritual

It grows out of the ground, rising up, and then the air around us goes red. Not the light, like from the fire, but the air itself. I can't really explain that, but it's what happened. Then this rip opens up, like in the air itself, this big black void, and through it walks three naked people, two men and a woman. The whole time Blackstone is chanting something, I can't make out the words, but then I realize everyone is chanting along with him. I mean everyone, me included. I don't even understand what I'm saying, but the words keep coming out as that portal opens and those three people walk out.

And then it's done. Everything goes back to normal. The air, the sound, everything. Blackstone is standing there, looking down on those three naked people and he says to us, "The end is not the end. We will bring them, one by one, then thousands by thousands. The Army of Az'azouzis, his Chosen People, the ones who will usher in his everlasting darkness. We send you, brothers and sisters out into our world, Beyonders. Tremendous beings. Treacherous beings. Go and bring about your master's will."

It was right around this time that we were contacted by the Maine State Police. It seems that Kerri Delong had gone missing. You'll recall she was in the second batch of Black Tarot cards. She was the only person we could to receive the cards who had not gone missing. That wasn't the only reason the police contacted us, however. You'll also remember we received another set of cards from a reader going by EroDemon96. It turns out EroDemon96 is a woman named Rebecca Wentworth, aged 29, from Porter, Maine. She too had gone missing. When the family went through Rebecca's emails they found her messages to us.

We went out of our way to prove to the police that we were not involved. That included turning over lots of our emails, as well as the details of our meeting with Malachai Blackstone. In the end, the police dismissed us from any suspicion.

We find it interesting though that after the disappearance of the original four recipients of the Black Tarot, four people appeared in Crannog's Field. After the disappearance of  Brenda Williams, Kerri Delong, and now Rebecca Wentworth, three more people appeared during the ritual Desmond witnessed. Could Malachai Blackstone be the heir of the Order of the End, obsessed with summoning the being Az'azouzis to our world? Could he be somehow marking people by sending them a spread of Black Tarot cards? Could he be using their lives to open a portal to... Beyond and bringing forth new people-looking things, minions of Az'azouzis? 

We told the police everything we knew about Malachai Blackstone and everything we suspected. They were skeptical, of course, but in the end they agreed to at least talk with Blackstone. At the time of this writing, we believe Malachai Blackstone is on the run. He has not performed any magic shows in several weeks, nor any occult rituals. His whereabouts, as well as the whereabouts of the three "Beyonders" who walked through the portal remain unknown, though Blackstone's picture has been distributed among law enforcement agencies. 

Desmond believes that Blackstone was harnessing the energy of the people who visited his shows. He thinks that the password system, combined with the timing of Blackstone's performances, was a ritual derived to funnel the aether from the audience to create his Black Tarot. These marked members were somehow sacrificed to power the portals beyond. Desmond believes that after a certain number of these "Beyonders" had been summoned then they would be able to open the door for Az'azouzis, himself. 

We hope that we have disrupted Blackstone's rituals. We believe that now on the run from authorities, Blackstone will not be able to perform his ceremonies. Since the police began searching for Malachai Blackstone no new sets of Black Tarot cards have arrived and no new missing persons reports have been filed. We believe it's finally over.

Stay safe out there, Maine.

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UPDATE - 10/23/20: 

Since we originally posted this on 10/21/20, we received a black envelope in the mail. There was no stamp, no return address, something that will be familiar to our readers. We were hesitant to open it at first, but after much discussion, we decided we were not going to let Malachai Blackstone control our lives, and that we would not live in fear of him.

Inside the envelope was just a single card of the deck we're calling the Black Tarot:

The Reference Section

There are a lot of terrible people out there, and those who have dealt with a life of suffering at the hands of bullies, abusers, and just general jerks, can easily spot someone who is dealing with the same situations they have been in. Grace Vickery was a student at USM in the early 2000’s and the library on campus was her sanctuary. She had always been a shy girl, and although she had plans to get out of her shell in college she had never found her crowd. So she kept to herself mostly either doing her school work or reading fantasy novels. Either way she was in the library a lot, and formed a close bond with the assistant librarian there who’s name was Mr. Davis.  Her junior year however her safe space was invaded by a group of athletes who were on the verge of being put on academic probation and had set up camp in the library to make themselves at least appear like they were doing something. 

The USM Library

The boys and their girlfriends weren’t just rowdy, whenever Grace walked by they would whisper under their breath and then laugh once they felt she was far enough away. One time a large football player pushed back his chair at just the right time to bump into Grace and she ended up falling to the ground and losing all the papers and books she had been carrying. They all made a big show of helping her up, but “they were snickering the whole time” Grace said. “It was so disheartening, it was the one place I felt at home there, I wasn’t bothering anyone, but as soon as they started coming there I felt like they zeroed in on me as the butt of their joke. One day I just couldn’t take it anymore so I headed deep into the reference section, just so I wouldn’t be near any of them, and so I could have a good cry. I thought I was alone but Mr. Davis came out of the rows and put his hand on my shoulder ‘Don’t let them bother you too much Grace’ he said, ‘they’re insignificant, no better than dumb oxes, and far more useless’.” “I laughed through my sobs,” Grace said, “Mr. Davis sat with me a while and said that the next time he saw them doing something to me he would ban them from the library forever. I got a little nervous at that, I thought it would only make it worse, so I told him not to worry, that I could deal with it. He just nodded and told me if I needed anything to let him know.”

The bullying went on however and as finals week approached Grace was worried that she wasn’t in the right mental state to study and pass all her finals. She cocooned herself in a cozy corner of  the reference section far away from her antagonizers.

“Next time I saw Mr. Davis back there, he asked if things had gotten worse. I told him no it was about the same, I just couldn’t deal with it and study at the same time. He stood up and motioned for me to follow him. He led me through rows upon rows of books, left turns, right turns, I almost lost track of where I was. In the furthest corner of the reference section he stopped, and pointed down a dimly lit row that was filled with dusty books. ‘There are ways of getting even Grace, ways to make people like that regret how shitty they are.’ I didn’t know what to say but was intrigued by the books so I followed him down the aisle. ‘It takes some studying but I know you are good at that’ he smiled, ‘but maybe one day one of them has a freak accident, one comes down with an illness, one is mauled by a rabid dog. These are things we can do with the right words, the right books.’ I can tell you that I was a little disturbed by what he said, but I can’t say it wasn’t appealing to me. To make these assholes pay for treating me like crap all the time, that was something I could get behind.”

Grace tells us that she spent probably an hour going through that section with Mr. Davis, exploring the old books. “Most didn’t have titles, at least not on the cover. When you opened them up a lot were in this weird script that I still haven’t been able to identify. It wasn’t Latin, I studied Latin, it didn’t appear to be Arabic, or a system of language like Japanese or Chinese. I was at a loss and still am.” Grace describes some books as bound in this thin paper like leather, that looked as though it had blue veins running through it, other books had blood stained pages. “All the while we were back there Mr. Davis talked about me joining some sort of exclusive group, one with power, one with the ability to shape the world. But I just couldn’t do it, it all sounded so wrong. I thanked him, but said it wasn’t for me, those people would change eventually or they wouldn’t, I didn’t have to be around them forever, and at the end of the day they meant nothing to me. I wasn’t going to waste however many years it would take to learn whatever it was Mr. Davis was offering just to get back at people that ultimately don’t matter. I still remember that language though, and the feel of the books, some days I regret rejecting him, knowing a spell or two would have been cool, but I also know if I had gone down that path I would have lost something of myself.”

If you are at USM in the library, although Mr. Davis is long gone, perhaps you too can find this hidden batch of books in the back. We do warn you about the dangers of delving into the dark arts however. 

Stay safe out there Maine!

Tiverton

Heads up, MMers! We've got a real spooky story for you on this Friday the 13th! This one concerns the town of Tiverton in Franklin County. Not many people have heard of Tiverton and that's because there are only 12 full time residents! That's because Tiverton is known a vortex of dark energy. Visitors to the town, which was originally settled by Puritans in 1692, have reported seeing orbs of light, wolf-shaped black shadows, and hearing disembodied voices whispering their names. 

Then there's the mysterious group said to patrol the woods around Tiverton. They're called the Dark Watch and some say they're a cult of descendants of the original inhabitants. Others claim they're a group of black magicians who want to keep people from entering the town.

If you do visit Tiverton, make sure you don't take anything home with you. Reports say that anyone who takes an artifact from the town will be cursed. Dark shadowy figures will follow you around and terrorize you. 

One loyal MMer, Torey from Bath, claims he took a small statue he found in an abandoned building. He said that at first he just had some bad dreams. Soon he began to see shadow people around his house and heard strange noises, like a cross between a growl and some sort of whispering. He said every night the shadow people got closer and closer to his bed.

We haven't heard from Torey in some time, but we're sure he's fine. If anyone hears from him, please let us know. And as always, stay safe out there, Maine.

courtesy of Torey, 2019

courtesy of Torey, 2019