HODGDON, Maine — Brenda Adams, an elementary school teacher at the Mill Pond School in Hodgdon, had a habit of selling 10-cent pencils to her students if they found themselves without one. Loreen Wiley, the principal of the pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school, said Monday that Adams noticed over the past year that her business had dropped off a bit.
On Sunday, she learned why. One of her students, Jesse Ryan, 10, had been selling the same item to needy classmates — for 5 cents.
It was one of the several happy, touching and funny stories that classmates of the fourth-grader shared during a two-hour counseling session Sunday at the Hodgdon Mills Road school.
Ryan, his father, Jeffrey Ryan, 55, and the elder Ryan’s close friend, 30-year-old Jason Dehahn, were found stabbed to death inside Jeffrey Ryan’s U.S. Route 1 mobile home last Wednesday evening.
No arrests in the case had been made as of Monday evening, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Officials in SAD 70 opened up the school for counseling on Sunday to help students cope with last week’s tragic death of their classmate. The district educates students from Amity, Cary, Hodgdon, Haynesville, Linneus, Ludlow and New Limerick.
Robert McDaniel, the superintendent in SAD 70, said Monday that approximately 20 students came to the school to talk with counselors, clergy, teachers and other school staffers.
“It really was one of the best things we could have done for our students,” Wiley said Monday. “When they came into the library for the session, they were quiet and not sure what to do or say. When they left, they were laughing over funny stories about Jesse and had made cards and photo collages for his family, and also made a book full of their thoughts and memories of Jesse that they also gave to his family. A few of his family members were there on Sunday, and they took the cards and book and things with them. This was really a cathartic experience for the kids.”
Wiley said that Jesse Ryan attended the Hodgdon school for most of his life before leaving earlier this year. She pegged him as a “bright, funny young boy” and a “very social child” who loved the outdoors. She said he often spoke to his classmates about hunting and fishing trips that he took with his father.
“It was clear to everyone that he had a great time on those trips,” she said.
Wiley said the students enjoyed writing thoughts and memories in the book, which included remembrances such as Jesse was the “class clown,” who had “the best snacks in school.” Another student wrote that “when you were sad or down, Jesse could always make you laugh.”
The students also let Brenda Adams know about Jesse’s 5-cent pencils, something she did not know before Sunday.
“She told the students that she wondered why business was down,” recalled Wiley.
Wiley said Adams was instrumental in helping the students cope with the death of their classmate.
A man who identified himself as Jason Dehahn’s brother said in a telephone interview over the weekend that he and his father found the boy’s body in a back room when they went to Ryan’s home in search of Jason on Wednesday night. They returned home and called police, who later found the other bodies, he said.
Maine State Police said last week the homicides most likely occurred in the early morning hours Wednesday.
Records of the divorce of Jeffrey Ryan and Jamie Merrill, who is Jesse Ryan’s mother, obtained from Houlton District Court on Friday show the two shared custody of their son, but that Jesse Ryan resided primarily with his father. The 10-year-old had gone to Lewiston to live with his mother in February, according to Shannon Ryan, 35, of Texas, who is one of Jeffrey Ryan’s children.
Jamie Merrill said that her son had returned to Amity less than a week before the slayings to go fishing and spend some time with his father.
On Saturday, the burned remnants of a pickup truck that had been sought in connection with last week’s triple homicide was found in Weston, about 15 miles from the Ryan home. A Cape Cod family found the 1989 Ford F-150 pickup registered to Jeffrey Ryan on their property. The truck was taken from Ryan’s yard last Wednesday.
McCausland said that state police evidence response team technicians continued their examination of the truck at the state police crime lab in Augusta on Monday. He said police could report no new developments in the case. He said investigators continue to work out of the state police barracks in Houlton.
Officials with the state medical examiner’s office said they had no information to release Monday evening about the autopsy results on the three victims, although they confirmed the autopsies were completed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.