On Aug. 22, the day before his 49th wedding anniversary, Edward Bolstridge, 68, of Fort Fairfield vanished.
That same day, he got pulled over by Maine State Police on Route 1 near the Westfield/Mars Hill town line, about 20 miles from his hometown, Fort Fairfield Chief of Police Matthew Cummings said.
“He was going toward Mars Hill but he really needed to be going back toward Presque Isle and they redirected him,” said Bolstridge’s daughter, Katherine Gorneault, adding that the trooper followed him for a bit. “He started toward Presque Isle but then he pulled off into somebody’s driveway. And state police thought that he probably knew the person.”
Since that time, with the exception of a video glimpse of Bolstridge driving a 2016 silver KIA Soul with the license plate EAB1 toward Presque Isle and another on the Caribou Road heading toward Caribou, there has been nothing.
“It’s kind of like he just disappeared,” Gorneault said.
Bolstridge is among as many as 600,000 people reported missing in the U.S. each year, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons database, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. While many are found alive and well, some become long-term missing persons. Currently, there are 36 people missing in Maine, according to state police, including five in Aroostook County.
When Bolstridge was reported missing, Fort Fairfield police asked Maine State Police to issue a Silver Alert with his photo, description of his clothing and the car he was driving. Since that time, Fort Fairfield police have partnered with the Maine Warden Service, Maine Forest Service, U.S. Border Patrol and Maine State Police and have conducted ground patrols, aircraft, drone, and infrared drone searches in areas where they believe he was last seen.
Bolstridge did not have a cell phone or credit cards so police were unsuccessful in tracking or tracing any of those Cummings said.
“We utilized the Maine State Police Computer Crimes task force to try to activate any sort of GPS system that may have been in Mr. Bolstridge’s car but were not successful,” he said, adding they have reviewed hours of business and home surveillance footage with the help of business owners and the public.
When Gorneault heard there was footage of her father on the Caribou Road, she took a flier to every home, just in case someone saw something, she said.
Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife rangers are still looking for Bolstridge or his car while out on patrol, on the ground and in the air, said spokesman Mark Latti.
Bolstridge has had multiple sclerosis for over 30 years and he’s a creature of habit, rarely going anywhere unfamiliar, his daughter said.
The family went to every place they thought he would go: The entrance to a trail, previous camps at Long and Portage Lakes, the boat landing on the Limestone Road, nothing.
She said her aunt and uncle still go out every day in search of her father.
“This is kind of like a needle in a haystack situation right now because we don’t have anything to go on,” she said.
People have phones and maybe they have something in a photo or a video that they didn’t notice. Even the smallest clue might help, she said.
“Stay vigilant, if you see something say something even if you think it is not important,” Gorneault said. “At this point we are drawing on whatever we can get.”
Bolstridge’s case is the newest in Maine, but there are other families and friends still hoping to find their missing loved ones.
Thirty-three-year-old wife and mother of four boys, Attiin Rachmawati Shaw disappeared from her Washburn home on Sept. 8, 2021.
Shaw is from Indonesia and had been living with her husband and children in Washburn since 2020, according to Maine State Police.
Shaw’s personal blog said that she was born on Biak, a small island in Papua, Indonesia. In a 2012 post, she said that at the time she and husband Mike Shaw had one son, Zakiy, and they were living in Tembagapura, Indonesia, a small town where it rains everyday.
Mike Shaw was a math and science teacher at an international school in the country when they met in 2011 and 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 posting 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.
Despite her September disappearance, Shaw was not reported missing until the end of 2021, according to the Washburn police.
The State Police became involved in early 2023.
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.
According to spokeswoman Shannon Moss, Major Crimes was back at the house in June, continuing their investigation into Shaw’s disappearance.
“It was simply a follow up from their last search which was during the winter months,” she said this week.
No additional information about the investigation is being released at this time.
Another County mother of five went missing on April 24, 1993, following a domestic violence incident.
Virginia Sue Pictou-Noyes, 26, of Easton, a member of the Mi’kmaq Nation, was last seen at a Houlton gas station that April morning in 1993.
According to police, she left the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor where she had been hospitalized after a domestic assault, at around 1 a.m. to get home to her five children in Easton.
Her husband, Larry Noyes, was arrested for domestic assault, police said. After her disappearance, the charges were dropped.
Maine State Police said they believe she got a ride to the truck stop in Houlton and witnesses saw her using the telephone. She was last seen walking north through the parking lot of the truck stop, police said.
In the days following her disappearance, her brother and sister said they drove up and down I-95 to measure the time it might take to walk or ride from Bangor to Houlton. Then they drove that same route again, stopping at every rest area, turnoff and truck stop along the way from Bangor to Easton.
All these years later, family and others continue to share her story and the Facebook group, “The Search for Virginia Sue Pictou-Noyes,” has over 1,000 members.
Philip Letarte, who would be 102 today, left the Tibbetts Road home of Robert Ericson in Woodland around 3 p.m. on June 2, 1986. Letarte told Ericson that he was going to Gary’s Exxon in New Sweden to buy cigarettes, a 3.5-mile walk. On June 6, 1986, a man fitting Letarte’s description was seen standing on the Colby Road. Letarte has not been seen since.
Fort Kent resident Bernard Bunny Ross was last seen on May 12, 1977, he was 18.
It was suspected that the distraught teen took his Aunt’s pickup truck that was later found along a Maine dirt road.
He was last seen on the Realty Road near the Ashland-Portage Town line. He was wearing a chamois shirt, green vest and corduroy pants, according to The Charley Project.
Despite numerous searches he was never located.
In 2016, Ross’ parents received an anonymous letter with alleged information about their son which police advised not to make public, according to a Washington Post article in 2016.
These cases remain active and detectives continue to follow up on any leads, said Moss.
Anyone who may have information about these cases is encouraged to contact Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit – North, 198 Maine Avenue, Bangor, Maine 04401, (207)973-3750 or toll free 1-800-432-7381.
You may also report information about a case using the leave a tip form.
