Two Aroostook County residents walked from their northern Maine homes three years and 10 miles apart. They’re still among The County’s missing.
Teenager Stefanie Damron, who will turn 16 in October, has been gone for two years, and mother of four, Attiin Rachmawati Shaw, now 38, for five.
Their September disappearances are riddled with more questions than answers, and multiple law enforcement and volunteer searches over thousands of miles of rugged terrain have unearthed few if any clues. At the anniversaries of their vanishing, their cases are still rattling local, regional and national audiences who continue to keep their names and stories alive, despite relative silence from law enforcement.
Last September, during a Bangor Daily News interview at their home, Stefanie Damron’s parents, Lisa and Dale Damron, called on Maine State Police and the FBI to go on television to discuss the case.
“It’s like she vanished into thin air,” Dale Damron said at the time.
In Attiin Shaw’s case, former Washburn police officer Hunter Bellanceau previously told a BDN reporter that the initial missing person report was not taken seriously enough. Inconsistencies in the original investigation led Bellanceau to ask the Maine State Police for help in 2023.
Despite little news, the investigations remain active, and detectives continue to follow up on information and leads while also conducting proactive investigative efforts, said Shannon Moss, Maine Department of Public Safety spokeswoman.
Police are unable to discuss specific investigative efforts or details because they are active investigations, she said Monday.
Stefanie Damron
Regarding Damron, the Maine State Police remain committed to finding her and appreciate the continued efforts to keep her case in the public eye, Moss said.
“The FBI continues to offer a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to the safe return of Stefanie and/or the arrest and prosecution of anyone involved in her disappearance,” Moss said.
Remote homes and seasonal cabins along unpaved and deeply potholed roads dot this isolated portion of The County, which is just miles from the Canadian border.
In July, Dale Damron organized a coordinated private search with three teams, each starting at different locations in New Sweden, including the trailhead below the New Sweden Post Office and a private property and the Beardsley Brook crossing on Rista Road.
After reviewing the “different theories, terrain descriptions and tips — including information provided by mediums — they identified four fixed landmarks that form a clear search area,” Dale Damron said in a social media post to search teams.
He asked each team to search about 150 feet on both sides of a trail, creek, treeline or access route, paying close attention to logs and brush, culverts, banks and debris.
“There are a million things a father thinks about when his daughter is gone,” he posted in a March letter to his daughter on Voices for the Missing. “I think about whether you are safe, whether you are warm, whether you have eaten, whether you are hurting, whether you know just how deeply you are loved.”
In the absence of any new information from authorities, unproven theories and unsubstantiated claims abound across social media platforms.
Local Richard Jackson has recorded more than 60 YouTube and TikTok videos detailing the Damron case, such as the night Stefanie allegedly walked into his New Sweden home at midnight just weeks before she went missing, stayed four hours and then he drove her home, he said in his videos.
Some neighbors have claimed on social media and shared with the BDN last year that in the weeks before she went missing, they saw her pacing up and down the road near their home as if waiting for someone. A 14-year-old said he had connected with Damron online that summer. Other locals have been hostile to Damron’s parents, claiming they know what happened to Stefanie, according to a Mainely Kate Facebook post.
Several online initiatives — including Mainely Kate, which has 14,000 followers, Stefanie Damron: On The Record, Letters to Stefanie and MissingAndUnsolvedInMaine — told the BDN that they refuse to engage in rumor but want to keep the missing women’s stories in the public. Some of the women behind the pages, who all live in Maine, do not want their actual names posted for safety reasons, they said.
Attiin Shaw
Attiin Shaw lived 10 miles from the Damron’s New Sweden home.
Kate Dyer, Mainely Kate’s founder, posts Shaw’s photo and story nearly daily on Facebook so she will not be forgotten.
In September 2021, Shaw, 33, walked from her Washburn home and was never seen again. Despite her September disappearance, Shaw was not reported missing until the end of 2021, according to the Washburn police.
Shaw, an Indonesia native, had been living with her husband and children in Washburn since 2020, according to Maine State Police.
Shaw said in a personal blog that she was born on Biak, a small island in Papua, Indonesia. In a 2012 post, she said that at the time she and her husband, Mike Shaw, had one son, Zakiy, and they were living in Tembagapura, Indonesia, “a small town where it rains everyday.”
Mike Shaw taught math and science at an international school there when they met in 2011. They were married a few months later, she said.
“It was love at first sight,” she posted along with a Valentine’s Day dinner photo of the two.
The blog ends shortly after that, and there is little information about Shaw, her other children, or where they lived until a 2020 move to Washburn.
According to several Indonesian news accounts, her Indonesian family had little contact with her following the move to Maine. Shortly before her disappearance, she told her sister she was going to look for work outside the home.
The state police became involved in early 2023, and on Feb. 13, 2024, troopers, evidence response technicians and detectives with Major Crimes North were at the Shaw residence on Washburn Road as part of their investigation.
“It was simply a follow up from their last search, which was during the winter months,” Moss said at the time.
Anyone with any information about Stefanie Damron or Attiin Shaw should call the Maine State Police Houlton Barracks at 207-532-5400.
