JAY — In the town of Jay, the story of Kimberly Moreau’s disappearance has become a haunting mystery, etched into the fabric of the community for the past 38 years.

On May 10, 1986, Kimberly vanished without a trace, leaving her family and friends grappling with unanswered questions that continue to haunt them. This year, the family has introduced a post office box for people to send anonymous tips.

The search for Kimberly started the night she disappeared. At 17 years old, she decided to hang out with friends that night instead of attending her junior prom after an argument with her boyfriend. Returning home around 11 p.m., Kimberly told her sister Karen she’d be back in an hour. She got into a white Pontiac Trans Am parked outside her house and was never seen again.

Richard Moreau, Kimberly’s father, said there is no option but to keep searching for his daughter. “We’re still trying. The only way I will stop looking is if we find her, or I die.” Moreau said his family was thrust into a living nightmare when Kimberly disappeared.

“We had hard times, seven years before Kim went missing we found out my wife had cancer,” Moreau said. “It was very hard. My wife was doing wonderful until Kim disappeared. She started to go downhill, it negatively impacted her, and she died of cancer in 1988. It was a rough time because ’86 Kim disappeared, ’87 my father died, ’87 I went through the strike at the mill, and in ’88 my first wife died.”

Moreau said he doesn’t want his older daughters, Diane Levesque and Karen Dalot, who have spent more than half their lives searching for their younger sister, to have the burden of continuing the search when he is gone.

In its pursuit of answers, the Moreau family has taken measures to keep the search alive. Moreau and Dalot emphasized their singular focus: “All we’re interested in is getting Kim home. We are not looking for prosecution.” In the quest for closure, the family has offered a $10,000 reward.

“We did something different this year,” Moreau said. “We rented a mailbox called Kim’s Justice. Anybody with information can just drop it in the mailbox for Kim’s Justice P.O. Box 2 in Jay. We will check out the information.” They have already received a few letters, which he said are untraceable.

Over time, there have been sporadic and inconclusive developments in the search for answers. In 2018, there was a search conducted on a property in Livermore that appeared promising but yielded no results. The number of suspects and theories surrounding Kimberly’s disappearance has fluctuated over the years.

Dalot, one of Kimberly’s two older sisters, and Richard Moreau recently offered glimpses into their shared past with Kimberly. “She enjoyed cheerleading,” Dalot said. “I shared a bedroom with Kim. She liked dancing, wanted to be a model. Always had her hair just so. Would never leave the house without doing her makeup. She had blond hair, blue eyes. And, basically, she was a looker. I mean, people flocked to Kim.”

“Kim was a very outgoing individual,” Moreau said. “She loved people. She was considered to be one of the popular ones in the class. She was a cheerleader. She wanted to become a model. She had high aspirations about that. She would walk in and she was the center of attention and she loved that.”

Moreau said Kimberly was a mama’s girl. “There was no question about that,” he said. “She knew if she’d come to me and ask me for something and I said ‘no’, she would go to mama and mama would get it for her. That was fine, it worked out great. She always got what she wanted.”

Moreau said Kimberly was the baby of the family. He said the sisters always hung out together and were close. He noted they had typical teenager issues, like sharing the car. Moreau fondly remembered the cheerful chaos of his three teenage daughters fighting for control of the car.

“When they were teenagers, there were three of them,” Moreau said. “Needless to say, the car did not stay in the yard for very long. One would come home and the others were waiting.” He said eventually he and his wife bought the girls a car they could share.

 

Despite the outpouring of support from the community, the burden of uncertainty weighs heavily on the Moreau family. “It just really sucks because people don’t understand,” Dalot said. “They will call and tell me, ‘I know how you feel.’ Well, you sympathize with how I feel, but you really don’t understand.”

Moreau said there are at least a half-dozen people or more who could tell him where Kimberly is, but they just won’t do it.

“I mean, point blank, tell us where her remains are,” Dalot said. “We have a cemetery plot for Kim, near my mom, grandparents, aunt. We have a stone for Kim. Even if it is just part of a bone. We really want to bring her home, so to speak. Put her with her family. And just lay her to rest. In my mindset, Kim can’t ever be at peace without being found and laid to rest by mom.”

“Please, please give us the information that you have got so we can bring our daughter home and get her buried and take down all these posters,” Moreau implored. “At that point, my job will be done and maybe I will have a year or two before I pass, some peace and quiet and my daughters can have a little bit of life without having to search for their sister. That is not too much to ask.”

As the years passed, the Moreau family refused to give up hope, launching its own investigation, following up on leads and tips in the hopes of finding Kimberly. “We’ve never had anything found,” Richard Moreau lamented.

“We do have DNA on file so if remains are found they can positively identify that it is her. And we would be at peace with that,” Dalot added.

Despite the challenges , the Moreau family has remained determined to find Kimberly. They enlisted the help of the community, launching awareness campaigns and fundraising efforts to keep her case in the public eye.

“We’ve had a lot of people asking questions,” Dalot said. “It is really nice to have people come in and ask me something. I really appreciate knowing you think of and remember Kim. It means the world to us to know people are still asking and questioning what is happening.”

Dalot and her father said the family acknowledges the efforts of state authorities in the ongoing investigation into Kimberly’s disappearance and appreciates those efforts. They said they are advocating for additional support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to bolster their search efforts.

“The FBI has offered us profilers, help to interview people, do searches, and so forth,” said Dalot. With little progress after 38 years, the family believes the expertise of the FBI could unearth new leads and bring them closer to uncovering the truth behind Kimberly’s disappearance .

Despite the family’s willingness to collaborate with the FBI and shows like North Woods Law, the state’s refusal to allow outside assistance in the open investigation has felt like a setback, said Dalot. The family was told that while the investigation is open, the state does not want any outside interference.

As the search for Kimberly approaches 40 years , the Moreau family remains undeterred, its resolve as strong as ever. “This is all about getting Kim home, that is the main thing,” Moreau emphasized. “Getting her the justice she deserves, and at the same time the justice that my other two daughters deserve by bringing this to an end.”

The website the family started is on Facebook. People can send tips via mail to the new Kim’s Justice P.O. Box 2 Jay, Maine 04239.

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