UPDATE: Police search for Kim Moreau in Canton with radar, cadaver dogs
UPDATED 12:46 P.M.: CANTON — State Police Det. Sgt. Mark Holmquist updated the media Thursday afternoon about the search for Kimberly Moreau — missing since 1986
* Police are prepared to search 5 acres at 502 Pleasant St. (Route 108) for two days.
* The search is using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs.
* The search does not include inside the mobile home on the property.
* The home is owned by Brian Enman, one of the men who was last seen with Moreau. Enman did not own the property at the time of Moreau’s disappearance. Holmquist would not comment further.
* Frank A. Campbell owned the property in 1986.
* Holmquist said a lot of work has gone into the investigation.
* Richard Moreau, Kimberly’s father, said he is “Feeling optimistic” but he has felt that way before.
This story will be updated.
UPDATED 12:24 P.M.: Maine State Police, Oxford County Sheriff, Maine Warden Service, Franklin County Sheriff and Jay Police Department are cooperating in the effort, according to Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant.
They have a search warrant for the entire property at 502 Pleasant St. (Route 108) in Canton, said Gallant.
UPDATED 12:17 P.M.: State police say they are searching the property of a person of interest in the missing person case of Kimberly Moreau.
Moreau was with Brian Enman, whose property is the subject of the search, on May 10, 1986.
Police expect to be searching through out Thursday and into the night.
This story will be updated.
UPDATED 11:04 A.M.:CANTON — Police are searching land around a mobile home on Route 108 as part of the cold case of Kimberly Moreau — last seen in 1986.
Moreau has been missing since May 10, 1986. She was 17.
Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland says several police agencies are on the scene and expect to be there the rest of the day.
In a March interview, her family talked about their search for answers to what happened to Kim. Richard Moreau and his daughter, Karen Dalot, vividly recalled their memories of Kim in an emotional interview at Dalot’s home.
Kim did cheerleading and gymnastics and attended Jay High School; she was a high school junior at the time she disappeared. Dalot said Kim liked going to the beach and outdoor activities.
“Kim wanted to be a model,” she said. She was entered in the Miss Maine beauty pageant at the time of her disappearance.
On Saturday, May 10, Moreau was working with his wife at the VFW in Jay. He was chairman of the 120 Club. The VFW was on Jewell Street in Jay not far from the family’s home.
“We had a big supper and dance,” he remembered. “We came home at 1:30, 20 minutes of 2. We looked in (to Kim’s bedroom). No Kim.”
They began to be concerned, because Kim “was never one to be out like that at that time,” Moreau said. “We went over to the (Jay) Police Station, and they said, ‘You can’t report her missing until 48 hours have gone.'”
That night, according to various reports, Kim went into town with her friend, Rhonda Breton, who was a senior at Jay High School. There, they encountered two 25-year-old acquaintances in a white Pontiac Trans Am, Brian Enman and Darren Joudry. Around 11 p.m. after Darren left to go to work, the car pulled up in front of Kim’s home on Jewell Street. Kim ran inside and told Karen that she was going out for a ride and would be back in an hour.
There were rumors that she was at a big party where they was a lot of drinking.
“We’ve heard stories every which way,” Moreau said. “I can’t find anybody that absolutely says she was there. The one that could have told us, and she’s dead, is her girlfriend, Rhonda Breton.”
Moreau does believe that Kim died accidentally, that the people she was with didn’t set out to kill her. Moreau also believes his daughter died not long after leaving home for the final time.
“I would stake my life that within four hours of the time she left home, she was dead,” he said.
The Moreaus asked their other children, Karen and Diane, if they knew anything about Kim’s whereabouts. When she had been missing for 48 hours, they reported it to police.
Although the paperwork went to Farmington to be processed, somehow, it got lost, Moreau said, and wasn’t listed in the database until August 1986. At that particular time, the Jay Police Department was extremely unhelpful, according to Dalot.
“The Jay police stopped articles from being in the newspaper. They stopped us from hanging up posters,” she said.
Both Dalot and Moreau were quick to point out that in recent years, Jay police have been of great assistance and have stood by the family even in their darkest moments.
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