For 55 years Doug Dunphy always brought his wife, Sally, flowers on their wedding anniversary.
In 2009, he started trudging through snow every February to instead bring the flowers to Sally’s grave and sit with her after her death.
This was the first year he wasn’t by her side.
Dunphy, 78, was last seen in early January. His family presumes he is dead, but are left waiting for his remains to be found, his daughter Dawn Dunphy told the Bangor Daily News.
The family’s belief that Dunphy is dead is shared by the Office of the Maine Attorney General and Maine State Police, according to a 45-page document that was leaked by the attorney general’s office on Oct. 8. Dunphy is one of the highest-profile missing person cases in the Bangor area.
Maine State Police took over the investigation in early February and have shared few details about Dunphy’s disappearance, besides asking hunters to “remain vigilant” this fall. The Maine State Police is one of the three agencies in the state allowed to investigate homicides.
Doug and Sally Dunphy have a shared vault so they can be laid to rest side-by-side, together forever, but that can’t happen until he is found, his daughter said.
“He needs to be next to Mom,” Dawn Dunphy said. “I want so badly to find him, to put him next to her.”
Dawn Dunphy said she’s hopeful a hunter will find her dad this fall so the family can hold a memorial.
“Every single day we’re all on edge because we don’t know, are we going to get the call they found him?” Dawn Dunphy said. “We don’t know if we’re going to get the call that somebody gets arrested.”
The leaked document details evidence in ongoing cases, including manslaughter or homicide cases in which suspects, named in the document, have not yet been criminally charged. Dunphy’s case is the first listed.
After the document was mistakenly shared, the attorney general’s office said it notified families of victims that information about the cases may be published.
Doug Dunphy’s family learned of the leaked document from the BDN on Tuesday, Dawn Dunphy said. She said she did not hear from the attorney general’s office, nor did anyone in a 16-person Dunphy family group chat.
The family is “up in arms,” about the lack of communication, she said.
The investigating agency typically works with the family in a missing person case, the attorney general office’s spokesperson Danna Hayes said when asked about the lack of family notification. The office hasn’t developed a relationship with the Dunphy family at the request of state police, she said.
Hayes declined to comment on the investigation because it is pending.
State police spokesperson Shannon Moss had no additional information to share about the investigation, and said media inquiries should be directed to the attorney general’s office.
The state police have a good team investigating Dunphy’s disappearance and presumed death, Dawn Dunphy said. Police talk with the family every few weeks but a backlog within the crime lab means the case can’t move forward, Dawn Dunphy said.
Dunphy’s white Ford Econoline van was recovered a couple weeks after he went missing, state police said previously. There have been a couple searches at a property on Kennebec Road, police said. Hampden tax records show Dunphy lives on that road.
Searches of that property and surrounding areas in February and May failed to locate Duphy, police have said.
Dunphy retired from the BDN in 2015 after 35 years as mechanical superintendent. He is 5-foot-10 and weighs 210 pounds and has gray hair and green eyes. Police don’t know what clothing he was wearing when he went missing, they previously said.
For now, Dawn Dunphy’s hopes remain with hunters this year. They’ve found missing people before because they go deep into the woods where others don’t.
“I feel bad for the hunters, asking that, because that’s traumatizing too for them,” she said. “My hope is that they’ll go someplace that nobody thought to go, and they’ll find him.”