Police Seek Man Who May Have Clue to Strangling

As reported in the Bangor Daily News on March 22, 1965
by Jim Byrnes

Bangor police, working around the clock over the weekend, failed to come up with any new clues in the strangulation rape of Mrs. Effie MacDonald, 54, in the Bangor House on Thursday afternoon.

Police are seeking to locate a man who may have valuable information and who was seen in the Bangor House Thursday between 1 and 2:30 p.m.

Police said the man who may have information valuable to them is around five feet ten inches tall, of stocky build, weighing about 175 pounds and is in his thirties. He has brown hair and very prominent brown eyes. When seen he was wearing an open neck shirt and had a brown jacket or short coat. Anyone having seen this man is asked to contact the Bangor Police Department immediately.

County Attorney Howard M. Foley also asked that anyone having information of any kind concerning the case write to him or the police and to either sign the communication or leave off the signature.

Two Massachusetts detectives are working with the Bangor Police on the case as there is some indication that the crime is similar to the “Boston Strangler” cases, although there are discrepancies in the method employed in the Bangor case and the Boston killings.

Numerous persons were interrogated over the weekend in an effort to get a lead. Laboratory evidence was being studied.

The partially nude body of Mrs. MacDonald was found in an unoccupied room at the hotel with a nylon stocking wrapped around her throat. Police said the woman had been raped. A maid at the hotel, she had worked there for seven years.

The Boston detectives who are assigned full time to Boston Strangler case said in the Boston slayings the nylon stockings used were tightly knotted about the victim’s throat, whereas in the Bangor case the stocking was wrapped about the throat but not tied.

Police are in hopes that the public will cooperate by passing on any information, no matter how trivial it may seem.
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SOURCE: Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine, March 22, 1965