ME Robert "Bobby" Desmond, 11, Kennebunk, August 1964

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I wonder if they've done any other searches for him. I really hope they didn't give up after they dug up the basement.
 
This is my opinion:
Maybe it's the 60's, and you think your child "ran away," so you wait a few days, feeling more and more worried, for him to come home. (This is the only way I could see innocent people not reporting him missing the same day, so just giving one example.) But he doesn't come home. So you then would call the police.
Within a few more days, you'd become frantic, searches would ensue, relatives would come, you'd be panicking ...

Did anything like this happen? If not, why not? What do their relatives think happened to him? What did LE do as far as interrogating his parents at the time? (Questions I am wondering.)
I feel so sorry for this 11-year-old kid. It sounds like many people failed him. If that's off-base, I stand corrected. Maybe a verified insider could add much-needed information here.
 
This is one of the saddest cases I've ever heard about. Bobby Desmond went missing in 1964, and very little progress was ever made on his case. In 1976, LE dug up the basement of the house he lived in with his stepfather and mother at the time he disappeared.

There is a new detective on the case and he is actively investigating and seeking leads. I have not found any recent articles (yet) in MSM, but Det. Steve Borst, and Bobby's sister, Dawn were interviewed at length on this week's episode of the podcast Dark Downeast at Det. Borst's request. Hopefully he'll grant an interview soon so that we'll have a MSM source for the reopened investigation.

A link to the show notes is here: What Happened to Robert "Bobby" Desmond? — Dark Downeast Maine True Crime Podcast

I've attached one of the older articles I was able to find from the Evening Express, 14 July 1976.Robert Desmond basem.jpg
 
 

Kennebunk detective pursues answers in 1964 case of missing boy​

Robert "Bobby" Desmond has not been seen since Aug. 1, 1964. Police are asking that anyone with information to contact them.

BY TAMMY WELLS COURIER / POST

When she turned 17 or 18, Dawn said she began to have a vivid recurring dream. A decade later, she began therapy.

“Through therapy I was able to recall this night,” she said, and she is firm in her recollection. “Chet was “busting up the furniture,” Dawn said. She heard screaming and crying and went into the closet under the eaves. Later in her bedroom, she said she saw a sheet tied to the bedframe. She said she saw her footprints in the damp grass – Dawn later learned there was a full moon that night, which accounts for her being able to see the footprints, and she knew her sister Lynn had left the house.

Kennebunk detective pursues answers in 1964 case of missing boy
 
Very lengthy (and sad) article..
1664567433128.png
www.seacoastonline.com

Parents never reported Maine boy missing since 1964. Detective wants to know why.

Robert "Bobby" Desmond disappeared from his home in Kennebunk, Maine, in the summer of 1964.
www.seacoastonline.com
Sept 30 2022 Shawn P. Sullivan

''Parents never reported Maine boy missing since 1964. Detective wants to know why.''​

''Nobody seems to remember Desmond. According to Borst, nobody seems to recall his disappearance almost 60 years ago.

Not anyone in law enforcement. Not the reporter who once covered an aspect of the case. Not any classmates or anyone else who was around in town since the 1960s.

“Surprisingly, nobody remembers this,” Borst said.''

''Borst said he has a theory why the Olenchuk and Tanner cases have had higher profiles than the Desmond one. In those cases, the parents were actively doing everything they could to work with law enforcement to find their daughters. In the case of Desmond, however, his parents never reported him missing.

Borst said he has considered the theory that Desmond ran away.

“Could an 11-year-old in the sixties have survived on his own?” Borst asked. “Could somebody have taken him in? Is that a possibility? I suppose anything’s possible, right? But we try to think about what’s most probable.”
 

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I wonder what happened to Phil Desmond (Bobby's father). He isn't mentioned again after Bobby went to live with his mother and stepfather. Unlikely, but could Bobby have run back to live with him?
 
Alleykins said:
Do we know anything about his father, like where he lived, etc?
Click to expand...

Good question, I would love to know. I've searched but haven't been able to figure it out.
 
An articke about the case. My theory is that the stepfather killed him. Reports are that he was a very violent man:

www.pressherald.com

Kennebunk detective pursues answers in 1964 case of missing boy

Robert "Bobby" Desmond has not been seen since Aug. 1, 1964. Police are asking that anyone with information to contact them.
www.pressherald.com www.pressherald.com

Satch
 
Last edited:
Satch said:
What evidence do we have that Bobby's stepfather died in 1977? My research comes up with a Chester "Chet" Marden, who died in Maine in 2005. Born 1939, Died October 2021. Could he be related to Bobby?

www.findagrave.com

Chester J. “Chet” Marden (1939-2021) - Find a...

www.findagrave.com www.findagrave.com

Satch
Click to expand...
Not sure if they're one in the same, but it sounds like it could be.
My ex-MIL was told her father, who was shell shocked from the war and very abusive, died when she was a small child, to explain his absence.The truth was he actually abandoned the family and passed away in the 80s, not the 50s, like she was told, and attended his funeral.
 
Alleykins said:
Not sure if they're one in the same, but it sounds like it could be.
My ex-MIL was told her father, who was shell shocked from the war and very abusive, died when she was a small child, to explain his absence.The truth was he actually abandoned the family and passed away in the 80s, not the 50s, like she was told, and attended his funeral.
Click to expand...
I agree,

That guy's face makes me uneasy. It sounds like both the Mother and Stepfather were horribly abusive people. They could have hid all evidence, or lied about wrongdoings for years, just to cover up the abusive horror. And if this guy was a military man with a history of violence, who knows what he could have done?. The fact that they never talked about Bobby or reported him to authorities suggests that something really horrible happened to him. And it was covered up for as long as the adults lived.

Back in those days (1964) a lot of parents did not look at abuse and reporting it like they do now.

Satch
 
Satch said:
What evidence do we have that Bobby's stepfather died in 1977? My research comes up with a Chester "Chet" Marden, who died in Maine in 2005. Born 1939, Died October 2021. Could he be related to Bobby?

www.findagrave.com

Chester J. “Chet” Marden (1939-2021) - Find a...

www.findagrave.com www.findagrave.com

Satch
Click to expand...

The pressherald article in post 26 states that Chet was a WW2 veteran, so this can't be the same man.
 
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