For the Hampton, New Hampshire, hotel manager who helped lead police to a missing Old Town teenager and her stepfather, Tuesday began like any other work day.
Joseph Burke, 30, is a Hampden Academy graduate who now lives in New Hampshire, where he has been working at the Royal Crest Motor Inn for about two years.
As part of his job as night manager, Burke routinely runs Google searches on people checking into the motel, he said Tuesday evening in a telephone interview. As a former Mainer, he also keeps tabs on what goes on in the Pine Tree State.
Among the recent news was that police had been searching for 15-year-old Natalee Cote and her 43-year-old stepfather, Christopher Julian. Cote’s mother reported her missing after Julian reportedly picked her up at school about 3 p.m. Monday, Old Town police Capt. Lee Miller said earlier in the day.
Cote left willingly with her stepfather at the time, but investigators determined Tuesday morning, after receiving additional information, that the girl might be endangered, Miller said.
Old Town police issued an arrest warrant for Julian for criminal restraint, Miller said.
About 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Burke thought a man checking in at the hotel looked familiar.
“Something just told me to look him up,” he said.
Another thing that raised a red flag, Burke said, was the girl standing behind him.
“She didn’t look distressed or anything,” he said, but the age difference bothered him. Burke mentioned his concerns to his boss, who agreed something looked amiss.
“Within a second [of doing the search], 15 stories popped up and his picture,” Burke said.
He contacted his local police department as well as Old Town police.
In the meantime, however, the two had gotten into a car and left the hotel parking lot, Burke said.
“I was afraid he got spooked,” he added.
Burke said he got on his bicycle and started searching the area, eventually finding the vehicle they arrived in at Hampton Beach after about four miles of pedaling. He alerted the police.
Julian was taken into custody by Hampton police and was questioned Tuesday evening, Old Town Police Chief Scott Wilcox said. The girl’s mother was headed to New Hampshire to pick up her daughter.
Julian, however, later was released, according to a video that Dan Lampariello of Portland television station WGME, CBS 13, tweeted shortly after 9 p.m.
In the video, Julian is seen leaving police custody and being questioned by a reporter.
“They released me. Ask them. That’s all you’re getting,” Julian said.
Asked if the incident was a misunderstanding, Julian said, “It absolutely was.”
While there were no clear signs that Cote was in danger, Burke said he and others in the hospitality business are trained to be on the lookout for signs of sexual exploitation and other illegal activity, and that is what prompted him to act.
“You just never know,” he said. “That’s just what we do. We try to run a really nice place down here. We try to keep the riffraff out.”
It remained unclear Tuesday night where Julian and Cote were headed after leaving Maine.
“He said he was taking her to Comic Con in Texas,” Burke said.
Several websites listed an event called the Wizard World Comic Con taking place on Sept. 23-25 in Austin, Texas.
Finding the missing teenager was not the first time that Burke has played a role in crime prevention. In 2010, he and a friend thwarted a purse snatching in Bangor.
He and his roommate, Tyler Heber, had been on a bicycle ride around the city and stopped at the State Street One Stop convenience store to get a drink when they heard a woman scream. The two gave chase and recovered the woman’s purse after the suspect dropped it while trying to run away.
Burke doesn’t see either action as heroic.
“I’m a Maine guy through and through, so when I see something like that, you know it was important” to do something about it, he said.
Bangor Daily News writer Nok-Noi Ricker contributed to this report.