Cold Case Arrest: The 1984 Murder of Dorothea Burke

Murder, She Told

Kristen Seavey

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.9 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

1984 - Stockton Springs, Maine After celebrating her 63rd birthday at her favorite local dive bar and spending the day at a family wedding, Dorothea Burke went missing. Five days later, her body was found on the side on a country back road—she's been a victim of blunt force trauma. For years her case sat on Maine's unsolved homicide list with no updates to family or media. And then in September of 2020, Maine State Police announced an arrest had been made: 57-year-old Kirt Damon Sr, a guest and local man who had been at the wedding that night. I went to the Waldo County Courthouse to dig through public files for this case and learn what I could, which surprisingly, was a lot. This is everything publicly available (and not yet released by the news) on the upcoming trial of Kirt Damon Sr. for the murder of Dorothea Burke. UPDATE: Check out the follow up episode on this case released in February 2022. Detailed sources and photos can be found on murdershetold.com Connect on Instagram @murdershetoldpodcast Support the show here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Murder She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small town USA.
0:18.7	I'm your host, Kristen Zeebe.
0:20.6	You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow on Instagram
0:26.3	at MurderSheTold podcast.
0:29.1	I'm very excited to share this case with you.
0:35.6	It's the culmination of months of effort, learning to navigate Maine's convoluted network
0:40.4	of newspaper archives, which led us to 12 different institutions who helped us to hunt
0:46.2	down old articles.
0:47.9	We researched and found 10 different family members connected to the victim and contacted
0:53.0	them all.
0:54.0	We even went to the courthouse to review the file of an active murder case.
0:58.9	I am proud to say that the information in this episode is everything that's publicly
1:03.9	available.
1:05.4	This is the story of the 1984 murder of Dorothea Burke and the 2020 arrest of Kurt Damon
1:12.7	Sr.
1:18.9	Saturday, June 23, 1984 was a day of celebration.
1:23.8	It was Dorothea Burke's 63rd birthday, and she spent the day in the company of her rather
1:29.4	large family at her niece's wedding ceremony and reception.
1:34.1	When the wedding died down, Dorothea, who went by dot, continued her own birthday celebration
1:40.1	at Priscilla's bar in Bucksport, a dive spot on Route 1 where she was a familiar face.
1:46.3	Today, Priscilla's is known as Glen's Place, a well-loved family restaurant.
1:52.7	During this time in her life, dot wanted escape.
	...

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