FAYETTE – People here recoiled in shock this week. Not once but twice.
Their idyllic Golden Pond environment, where most felt safe and secure, was shattered by the slaying of 14-year-old Marlee Johnston, followed by the arrest of her neighbor, 14-year-old Patrick Armstrong, whom police say killed the popular, outgoing girl.
Johnston had taken her dogs for a walk at about noon on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Her quiet neighborhood is located on a Lovejoy Pond peninsula of homes connected by dirt lanes.
A short time later, her teenage brother found her body in a shallow cove about a half-mile from her home.
Armstrong, who lives nine houses and a street away from the Johnston family on Water Lily Lane, was arrested by police on Tuesday and charged with murder.
On at least two Web sites, Armstrong emerges as an angry and isolated youth with dark thoughts and opinions. He rages against religion, his father, and another girl, an ex-girlfriend, but never mentions Marlee Johnston’s name.
The two teens had grown up in the same neighborhood. While Armstrong was home-schooled, Johnston attended Fayette and Winthrop schools and had her heart set on attending Kents Hill School next year.
On Wednesday, after the snow had melted from a holiday storm, a large blue circle remained where Johnston’s body had rested after it was pulled ashore and her father, Ted Johnston, had tried unsuccessfully to breathe life back into his daughter.
It was the only mark that marred the ground, now blanketed with leaves, that had returned to a vision of peace and tranquillity.
However, for the residents of this small, rural community with about 1,100 year-round residents, their safe and secure environment has been shaken to its core.
Emotions have run the gamut – shock, fear, anger, pain, relief and an overall sadness brought on by the series of tragic events.
“It’s been a shock on the system for sure,” Fayette Town Manager Mark Robinson said Wednesday. He and his wife, who live three houses from the Johnstons, have three boys, ages 9, 13 and 16.
He was away when Johnston was killed, he said, and didn’t find out about it until late Saturday night when he arrived home and learned about the crime from a state trooper.
“If this could happen here, it can happen anywhere,” Robinson said. “Now that we have someone apprehended for the crime, it does provide some relief in one sense, but the preconceived belief we had that we live in a safe and secure environment, particularly as it is related to this neighborhood, has changed. The innocence is lost.”
Despite that, he added, it is important for Fayette residents to know that it is still a great place to live.
“This is a very unfortunate, tragic event that is hard for people to grasp and understand and I don’t know if we’ll ever understand,” Robinson said, “but as the facts become known about the case it will, in some way, allow not only this town but other communities to potentially prevent something like this from happening again.”
“Someone knew this young man. Someone spoke to this young man on a daily basis. There had to be telltale signs of behavior that would be a cause for concern,” Robinson said. “You just don’t often strike out and do this without exhibiting some kind of behavior that is abnormal. So what can we learn from this tragedy to prevent it from happening again? It’s tragic for the families. The family of the young man who committed this heinous act needs our compassion as well and that will take the strength of the community.”
Bad memories
For Beverly Stevens, a longtime Fayette resident, Johnston’s murder stirred up painful feelings and memories of a murder more than two decades old. Judy Flagg, the wife of Stevens’ nephew, was murdered in her Fayette home in January 1983.
Flagg’s husband, Ted, had worked a 16-hour shift at a paper mill and returned home late that day to find his wife dead and his blood-soaked 1-year-old son wandering around their Fayette home alone, Stevens said Wednesday.
That case remains unsolved.
“This brought it all back,” she said.
Stevens said Fayette is not a close-knit community, but rather a divided community because of its geography.
“There is nothing to bring the town together,” Stevens said.
There is a school for younger children, a country store, a town office, a Grange hall and now a new fire station being built in a small town with more than 12 ponds and lakes.
Children in grades six to 12 have the option of being tuitioned to several schools.
“I used to feel safe,” Stevens said. “I guess I still do feel safe. It’s as safe as any community. Crime is everywhere – a murder in Fayette every so many years, yet, it’s a daily thing in other places.”
Stevens said she felt relief when a suspect was arrested, but felt sadness for everybody.
“It’s just a sense of sadness for the families and the community,” she said. “It’s just a sad place for everybody. I think life will return to normal for most of us, whatever is normal. It’s just tough. Tough for everyone involved.”
John Chartier of Vienna stopped Wednesday at the Fayette Country Store on Route 17, something he does routinely.
Chariter said he hoped that the person responsible is sent to prison and doesn’t just get a slap on the wrist. “He obviously knew what he was doing and he certainly can pay the consequences,” Chartier said outside the store.
Chartier said he was both angered and alarmed.
“I was more angry that someone could do this,” he said. “I live two communities over and it’s alarming. It will be interesting to see what the circumstances are.”
Nice children
Fayette librarian Suzanne Rich said she knew both Johnston and Armstrong and their families. They had both come to the Underwood Memorial Library while growing up, more so when they were younger. She considered them both to be nice children with nice families.
“I think everybody was scared,” Rich said Wednesday, after learning Johnston was killed and before Armstrong was arrested.
Her teenage grandson asked his mother to escort him to the bus stop, she said.
Rich, who lives on the other side of Lovejoy Pond, said everybody was calling her to see if she knew what was going on that day.
“It’s just so hard to believe that something like that would happen in our small town,” Rich said.
She felt angry, she said, that a young girl with a promising future would be killed.
“It’s kind of scary that it could possibly be a neighbor,” she said prior to Armstrong’s arrest. “I don’t know who it is. That would be heartbreaking as well.”
Eventually, the town will move through the tragedy, she said, “but it’s going to be hard, but time does heal. But it will be a long time.”
“I feel bad for all of them – for the girl and for the boy,” longtime resident Arthur Chase said. “This is a great place to live … You read abut this happening in the paper all the time and it doesn’t happen in Fayette but it did.”
Comments are no longer available on this story