LEWISTON, Maine — Among the list of Maine cold cases is Dorothy Milliken, a mother of three who was beaten to death outside a Lewiston laundromat nearly 40 years ago.
With the creation of Maine’s first cold case unit underway, CBS 13 is looking at the long list of unsolved cases.
Tonia Ross was 7 years old when she lost her mom.
“[She was] the best anybody could ask for,” Ross said.
Dorothy “Dottie” Milliken was 27 and a mother of three when a trip to the Laundromat turned deadly.
“I always thought she was going to come back, and of course she didn’t,” Ross said.
It was Nov. 6, 1976. State police said the night before, Dorothy left her Sabattus home after her husband went to bed at 11 p.m. She went to do laundry at Beal’s Laundromat on Lisbon Street in Lewiston.
“We don’t believe anything occurred inside. She was drawn out somehow,” Larry Gilbert, a former investigator with the Lewiston Police Department, said.
Police said Dorothy’s body was found at 4:40 a.m, beside the building.
“She was found by — I think it was a newspaper delivery person,” Gilbert said.
Police photos show her laundry was unfinished when she was brutally beaten. An autopsy revealed blunt force trauma to the head.
“Every time I drive by here I think of it,” Gilbert said.
He investigated another murder that day but was asked to look at the Milliken case a few weeks later.
“There were a couple of people of interest, but, you know, we were never able to take that to the next step,” he said.
At 18, Ross started her own investigation.
“I’ve come up with some information, and I’ve passed it on,” she said.
But that didn’t stop the case from going cold.
“When I retired as chief of police in 1994, that was the biggest regret in my whole career,” Gilbert said. “That we could not clear this case.”
With advances in technology, Gilbert is hopeful DNA can be used to track down the killer.
“A young mother, to be taken away just doing her laundry for her family. … This should not happen,” he said.
Dorothy’s daughters just want to know what happened and why.
“We have gone through a living hell, and I know for a fact that there is somebody out there that knows,” Ross said.
Ross said she’s willing to increase the $5,000 reward announced in 2006 to $10,000 for information leading to a conviction.
She said answers would mean the world.
“It would bring peace to every one of us,” Ross said. “We’ve accepted what has happened, but it would bring peace to my family.”
Not even peace can fill the hole left in their hearts nearly 40 years ago.
“That void, it’s a void,” Ross said. “Always will be.”
State police Lt. Brian McDonough said there’s no new activity in the case, but like all cold cases, it is open. Anyone with information is urged call the Major Crimes South Unit at 657-5710.