Maine State Police are asking for the public’s help in solving a 42-year-old homicide case involving a middle school teacher gunned down while moonlighting at a gas station.
The state’s new cold-case squad spotlights unsolved killings around the time of their anniversary.
On June 20, 1975, Robert McKee, 35, a sixth grade teacher at the Vickery School in Pittsfield, was working the overnight shift at McNally’s Texaco Station, which was where an Irving Station is today, when he was shot three times.
A Maine State Police trooper who stopped in for gas around 1 a.m. reportedly was the last person other than the killer to see McNally alive. A customer found the teacher’s body around 3:30 a.m.
About $400 was missing from the till, and the owner of the gas station ran a fundraiser for McKee’s widow and two children, a New York Times article from that time said.
In 1977, investigators reopened the case because they reportedly had received a tip about the location of the murder weapon. A lawn on Washington Street in Pittsfield was excavated in a futile search for the small-caliber weapon.
Anyone with any information about the death of Robert McKee can contact the Maine State Police, Major Crimes Unit-North, at 973-3750 or use the online Maine State Police tip form.