Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

CLINTON

Missing woman's body found

By Scott Monroe smonroe@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

CLINTON -- A brown leather jacket in the woods.

Sarah Rogers, 29, of Barrington, N.H.

Submitted photo

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Douglas Hillman said he found that item near his property off Mutton Lane Saturday. He had recently spoken with his son, a local fire captain, and learned that now most of the snow had melted, another team was being organized to once again search the area for 29-year-old Sarah Rogers, of Barrington, N.H., who had been missing for three months.

Hillman decided to search first because "I know these woods like the back of my hand." And so, when he saw the jacket, "I put two and two together."

Maine State Police trooper Rick Moody arrived and accompanied Hillman back into the woods, about 500 yards from his house. They also found a necklace and other clothing items.

And then, about 30 feet away from power lines, Hillman turned around and saw her body on the ground.

The discovery at about 2 p.m. Saturday brought to a close the search for Rogers, who had gone missing during a snowstorm Dec. 13, 2009. Her body was found less than a half-mile away from where her car had been left abandoned along Interstate 95, Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland said Sunday.

The state medical examiner in Augusta is scheduled to conduct an autopsy of Rogers' body today , McCausland said.

"There is no indication of foul play," McCausland said. "Some of her clothing had been shed; the shedding is a sign of hypothermia. But, obviously, we'll wait for the medical examiner to conclude the cause of death."

McCausland said Rogers' husband Fritz Coulombe and her father, Bob Rogers of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., were notified of the discovery late Saturday afternoon.

Bob Rogers had in recent months personally participated in extensive searches with police along the interstate in Clinton.

"We're devastated," Bob Rogers said in a telephone interview Sunday. "I had some hope. I expanded this search; we went nationwide. We were able to get on the 'Today' show and make an appeal and felt she was not in the woods. So, I've been kind of living on that hope and now everything's dashed."

'This could have been stopped'

Meanwhile, Bob Rogers' sadness on Sunday was counteracted by frustration. He said his daughter, who suffered from bipolar disorder, might not have met her fate in the Maine woods had his daughter's hometown police force, the Barrington Police Department, handled the situation differently.

It wasn't her first dangerous episode, he said, and she had "gone off and wandered before and has been hospitalized and then stabilized with medication and then resumed her life." Soon after the birth of her son Elias, now 2 years old, Sarah Rogers went wandering in Delray Beach, Fla., but was found the next day after police issued a "be on the lookout for," or BOLO notice, according to her father.

"Her mind was racing as it can and, when it gets manic, then all of a sudden it shuts down and she gets catatonic," Bob Rogers said.

The week she went missing, Bob Rogers said he suspected from phone conversations that she was "breaking down" and "becoming more paranoid," and now suspects she hadn't been taking her medication.

A few days before she went missing, Sarah Rogers was arrested by police for driving under the influence of alcohol, but was released when a Breathalyzer test showed her alcohol level below the legal limit, Bob Rogers said. Coulombe subsequently took away her car keys, but she called Barrington Police and an officer "threatened to arrest him if he didn't give them back," Bob Rogers said.

That led up to Dec. 13, when Coulombe called police to report her missing and "stated to them unequivocally that Sarah was a danger to herself and possibly to others because she was in a disturbed state of mind," Bob Rogers said. But the police waited two days before issuing a BOLO notice, he said, missing an opportunity for his daughter to be stopped by police while she was driving.

Rogers said he wasn't notified her car had been found by police until a week after the fact.

"There were a number of points where this could have been stopped," Rogers said.

On Sunday, a police officer who answered the phone at the Barrington Police Department referred questions about the case to Police Chief Richard Conway, but Conway was not available for comment.

'We will move on'

Sarah Rogers apparently crashed her blue Scion xB between mile markers 140 and 141 on I-95 in Clinton and then walked away.

Bob Rogers has said his daughter was wearing shorts, dress shoes without socks, a tank top and a spring jacket. Temperatures were in the mid-30s during the snowstorm.

Her car was found about eight hours later by a passing tow-truck driver, who called police. Footprints in the snow led from the car across the median, ending at the southbound lanes.

Bob Rogers joined the third extensive search for his daughter, held three weeks after she went missing, and says now that he initially suspected that she had died in the woods because "it's not like her to not have at least called me." But during a second search, a tracking dog could not pinpoint her scent, so "it was like a cloud was sort of lifted; I was thinking she was at least not in those woods."

The searches had not turned up any signs of her. He had been waiting for the forthcoming "definitive" search now that the snow had melted.

Saturday afternoon, after Hillman and officer Moody discovered the body, another six authorities, including two detectives, arrived on scene, according to McCausland.

Bob Rogers said Sunday he didn't know what his family would do except "we will move on." Arrangements would be made later.

A Web site set up by Rogers' family, findsarahrogers.com, thanked "everyone who prayed and helped look for their loving wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend."

Scott Monroe -- 861-9253

smonroe@centralmaine.com