Collette Boure’s family shares their story to help others.
The family of a Standish girl who died last month in a car crash in Oklahoma is hoping their story and that of their emotionally troubled daughter will shed light on the difficulties teenagers face and let other struggling families know they’re not alone.
The challenges faced by the family of 17-year-old Collette Boure are not unique, one expert said, and there are limited resources to address such issues in Maine.
Boure died Nov. 2 at a Texas hospital. Her family reported her missing two weeks before that, after she ran away with her boyfriend, Alexander Meyers, 17, of Portland.
Meyers was driving the car and Boure was a passenger when it overturned on an Oklahoma highway after Meyers led police on a chase, according to a report from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Although Boure’s mother declined to be interviewed and Meyers’ family could not be reached, members of Boure’s paternal family gathered for a spaghetti dinner and exchanged stories about their daughter and granddaughter just a few weeks after her death.
They described a young woman who was kind, beautiful and intelligent. Most of all, they said, she was selfless and giving — the kind of person who gave money to homeless people on the street and hid her problems from her family to spare them from suffering.
They also spoke candidly about the challenges they faced and the difficulties of raising a teenager, particularly in a blended family with several caregivers and homes.
Benign beginning
As a child, Boure lived at the Buxton homes of her mother and mother’s boyfriend, and then with her paternal grandparents, Rob and Stacy Lary. At age 7, Boure moved to live with her father, Michael Grindel, in South Portland. A few years later, Grindel married and he and his wife, Stacey, moved to Standish to start a family. They have three young children.
Michael Grindel said Boure’s behavioral issues started relatively benignly, and included stealing family trinkets and odd items from the house and hoarding them in her room, and lying to family and friends.
But Grindel, who is legally blind, lost his job a few years ago. With two young children and a third on the way, Boure’s difficult behavior became overwhelming.
Boure left her father’s home and moved in again with her grandparents in Buxton, where she continued to attend Bonny Eagle schools.
The idea, her grandparents said, was to give her a quieter home with “room to breathe.”
Boure had an extremely tight bond with her grandmother, whom she called “Nina,” they said, and once told her grandmother she thought she had “imprinted” onto her.
But at her grandparents home in Buxton, Boure continued to get into trouble. She poked holes in the seat of a bus and misused a school computer and was suspended from the school bus and school several times. The family also had questions about her use of marijuana, they said.
Boure eventually tried to harm herself, and was hospitalized briefly at Spring Harbor Hospital, a facility for people who have mental illnesses. Typically a straight-A student, as Boure missed more and more class time, her grades plummeted.
Although the family sought counseling for Boure and employed in-home counseling services for a time, they said the resources available for her never seemed to match her needs. Jails and hospitals seemed to be their only options.
They said they felt ill-prepared to handle Boure and wanted to find a service that would provide respite care.
Looking back, several family members said a lack of communication and consistency between the households, and moving between households, took a toll on Boure.
“She never had a place anywhere, between all the homes,” Rob Lary said.
His advice for parents, particularly those in blended families, is “put your kids first,” he said. “You brought them into this world.”
Stacy Lary said she wanted to emphasize that the tragedy was not the fault of one family member.
“It took a collective for us to get here today,” she said.
About a year ago, Boure and Meyers met through mutual friends. Stacy Lary described Meyers as a “sweetheart.” Her granddaughter was in love, Lary said, “and who are we to tell her she wasn’t? That’s in her head — and in her heart.”
Boure and Meyers started dating and began spending a lot of time together, particularly during the summer. In September, they stole a boat from a member of Meyers’ family so Meyers, who was a lobsterman, could fish his traps, they said. They were caught and were charged with a misdemeanor, according to her family.
Boure was sent to New Beginnings, a shelter in Lewiston that provides housing and programs for homeless and runaway youth. The weekend before she and Meyers were scheduled to appear in court, they ran away together, Lary said.
The family had hoped for Boure’s future at New Beginnings, and felt like they had finally found a program that would meet her needs and help her get on her feet.
Challenges of adolescence
Chris Bicknell, executive director of New Beginnings, emphasizing he was not familiar with the details of Boure’s case, said adolescence can be an extremely challenging time for any family.
But when a family faces additional challenges, “such as a health issue or a parent loses a job,” he said, “that can throw a family into crisis.”
Bicknell, who was previously director of access and intake for Opportunity Alliance in South Portland and before that the coordinator of youth services at the Preble Street Shelter in Portland, said those problems and poverty are some of the issues that contribute to youth homelessness and factor into the lives of youth “who come into systems of care across the state and country.”
Bicknell said he has counseled many families following a tragedy involving a teen who said they knew the teen was at risk but could not find the right level of care. Often in these situations, he said, the teen wasn’t at risk of physical harm, and they were not a threat to others, so it wasn’t at the level where a child-welfare agency would intervene.
In cases like that, he said, the services for struggling teens are often limited to schools and faith organizations that are “not necessarily equipped to deal with kids who are really struggling.”
It’s a problem nationally, not just in Maine, he said.
Bicknell said social-service groups are working to fill that void and to “figure out ways to prevent kids from entering (welfare services) earlier, by mitigating the factors that lead to youth homelessness.”
Meyers, meanwhile, remains in a juvenile facility in Oklahoma. He may be tried as an adult, according to his attorney, Thomas Hadley of Hugo, Oklahoma. He pleaded not guilty in an Oklahoma court Nov. 28 to second-degree murder, and if convicted as an adult, could spend 10 years to life in prison.
Lary said the sentence is too harsh for Meyers, who “didn’t do anything but love (Boure). This kid doesn’t deserve 10 years to life. We can’t have two tragedies come of this.”
Boure’s generous nature had inspired her goal of pursuing a nursing career, her grandmother said. “She wanted to save people,” Lary said, “and she wanted to give. And everything started with give.”
The family said they are finding solace in Boure’s “final gift” as an organ donor. “That’s just what she would have wanted,” Lary said.
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