CANTON — Friday was about waiting.
For Kim Moreau’s family, waiting to see whether Kim’s remains would be found buried at the home of one of the last people to see her alive 29 years ago.
For Brian Enman, waiting for police to get off his lawn and the media to clear out of his driveway.
“If they come up with nothing, I’m going to be even more upset,” Enman said Friday afternoon. “They come in, humiliating me. I’ve got my name plastered all over Facebook. They have no proof of nothing yet.”
Asked point-blank if he’d hidden Moreau’s body on his property, Enman said, “No.”
On the second day of an intensive police search of 502 Pleasant St. (Route 108) with five cadaver dogs, Maine State Police Detective Sgt. Mark Holmquist once again declined to say what led police to Enman’s property so long after Moreau’s disappearance.
Moreau, 17, went missing the night of May 10, 1986. According to reports over the years, she’d gotten into a fight with her boyfriend on prom night and ended up driving around town with a friend and two 25-year-olds, one of them Enman. She told family at 11 p.m. that she’d be back in an hour and was never seen by them again.
Moreau’s father, Richard, has hung thousands of posters around Western Maine in the decades since, begging for help to bring his daughter home.
He was back at 7:30 a.m. Friday on the roadside of Route 108, watching what he could of the search through the heavy trees. Friends stopped by frequently to offer hugs and support.
“I don’t pray a lot, but I’m praying for you here,” one man told him.
Enman has owned the 5.7 acres where his house is located since 2000. He built a double-wide trailer there in 2006.
In a midmorning news conference, Holmquist said police used ground-penetrating radar to rule out the slab under the home as a hiding spot for a body.
“The skirting around the mobile home had to be removed,” he said. “They put the ground-penetrating radar device inside a plastic sled with ropes on either end and they drug it across the area, and they were able to do that with four or five people while the scientists were taking down the readings.”
The ground search was extended beyond Enman’s property on Friday into two adjoining properties, based on where dogs were leading police, Holmquist said.
“We’re going off of what the dogs are indicating,” he said. “(Police) systematically go through every portion of the property, now extending into the wood line. They have five dogs rotating in and out so they don’t get nasal fatigue.”
Those owners gave consent for their properties to be searched.
“We’re hopefully optimistic, with caution,” Holmquist said. “We just maintain confidence that we’re going to find something here, but this isn’t the first search in the course of this investigation, so this is just another piece of the puzzle and we’ll go on from here.”
He declined to say whether dogs or radar had hit on any spots that called for more digging.
“We have evidence-response-team members on standby, just in case there’s something found,” Holmquist said. “Obviously, if we do find something, the process will slow down and we’ll take our time and be really methodical.”
Enman said he’d had no warning of the coming search and had gone to work as usual on Thursday morning.
“Last night, I found my home all (expletive) tore open,” he said.
Insulation and skirting had been removed and a swing set had been damaged, he said.
“People are just grasping at straws, is what I think,” Enman said. “I wish they could resolve it. I don’t think they’re going to do it by looking at me. I’ve got zero stuff.”
Asked if police would find anything on his property, Enman said, “Not that I know of.”
Did he know what had happened to Kim that night?
“If I knew, I’d be saying,” Enman said.
Holmquist said he had no reaction to Enman’s comments.
“He’s entitled to think whatever he wants to think,” Holmquist said. “We are going to do things a certain way — the way we always do them — and it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks. We’re going to do things the way we’ve been trained and the way our experience tells us.”
Police investigators, crime scene technicians and the dog handlers and their dogs finished up their work at about 4 p.m. Friday, and Holmquist said they would be back again Saturday morning.
At the end of Enman’s driveway, while Richard Moreau gave lengthy interviews in front of TV cameras, his brother and sister, Ron Moreau of Jay and Carol Worthley of Waterville, waited and watched from lawn chairs.
They were Kim’s aunt and uncle, and her godparents.
“I’m not optimistic at all,” Worthley said. “I’m only hopeful.”
This search felt a little different, bigger than others, Ron Moreau said.
“They must know something; we don’t know anything,” he said. “We’re hoping this is the final chapter to this horror story we’ve been writing for 29 years. For everybody’s sake, it’s time this ends.”
Both said they had been touched by the number of strangers who have been moved by Kim’s story over the years. As they sat on the side of the road, Ron Moreau knew of a prayer meeting in Florida that was being held, right then, in Kim’s honor. At other times, strangers have gone to psychics and reported back to them.
“It’s reaffirming; it’s life-changing,” Ron Moreau said. “It doesn’t bring her back, but at least you don’t give up on the world.”
After a long morning of talking, Richard Moreau said Dateline NBC had reached out to one of his daughters and he’d been told they might be calling.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “The more people that see it, the more potential we have that one person is going to know something and say something.”
He added, “I really want to do one more interview: The one that says this is all over and I get to thank everyone.”
Staff Editor Scott Thistle contributed to this report.
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