LINCOLN, Maine — David Guthrie can’t say he knew Carissa Jo Babcock particularly well.
The 9-year-old Mattawamkeag resident had been into his Shooters pool hall to have dinner with her mother, Charis Rollins, a bartender there, close to a dozen times over the last several months. That all changed with shocking suddenness when Carissa drowned on Aug. 28. She had been into the restaurant for dinner with her mother about four hours before, he said.
“I have grandkids and stuff,” Guthrie said Thursday, recalling how hard the news of the girl’s death hit him. “It was not a good feeling.”
That’s why Guthrie will donate his pool hall’s $3 door charge and fifty cents for every beer he sells on Friday and Saturday to cover the little girl’s funeral expenses, he said Thursday. If the funeral expenses are already paid, the money will go to pay for the college expenses of Carissa’s sibling, he said.
Carissa was buried on Thursday at a private family cemetery in Wytopitlock after a service at Clay Funeral Home in Lincoln, a spokesman for the home said. The body was recovered about 9:30 a.m. Saturday by Maine game wardens.
Carissa disappeared while swimming with family members and other adults in Sleugundy Heater Gorge, about 1.5 miles south of the town-owned Mattawamkeag Wilderness Campground and Park, Park Manager Carlton Norris said over the weekend.
The incident is being reviewed by the Penobscot County district attorney’s office, District Attorney R. Christopher Almy said Thursday. The review is ongoing.
The $3 door charge is often exceeded with $5 or $10 donations in fundraisers such as this, said Guthrie.