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Robert McFetridge in Boothbay on Dec. 20. McFetridge is retiring after 34 years in law enforcement. (Abigail Adams photo) |
By Abigail W. Adams
After 11 years with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and more than 30 years in Maine law enforcement, Detective Robert McFetridge has retired. His last day with the sheriff’s
office was Nov. 5.
“I’ve been going full throttle in public safety for my entire adult life,” McFetridge said over breakfast in Boothbay Dec. 20. “Now it’s time for me to try to learn
how to relax.”
Relaxation is not something McFetridge is accustomed to. His career in law enforcement has kept him on the front lines of situations that have ranged from the tragic
to the bizarre to the comic.
“I keep thinking I should write a book,” McFetridge said.
His career as a first responder has its roots early in his childhood. McFetridge used to listen to a scanner owned by his father and daydream about working as a
dispatcher. At 16, as part of a youth employment program, McFetridge began working at a dispatching center in Pittsfield.
He also began working with the auxiliary program for the Pittsfield Police Department. “It was a lot more fun to be on the other side of the radio,” McFetridge said
of his time as a cadet.
He continued to work with the Pittsfield Police Department during his summer breaks from Bangor Community College.
Two weeks after being sworn in as an officer with Pittsfield in 1980, McFetridge was a party to one of the most tragic incidents in the history of the Maine State
Police.
McFetridge responded to a report of a man threatening to harm himself. He tried to talk the man down and prevent him from leaving the scene, however, he could not.
The man drove away and a high-speed chase ensued that resulted in the death of State Trooper Thomas Merry.
“He was a friend,” McFetridge said, still emotional when speaking of the incident. “It’s something you don’t forget. It’s something that shaped my career.”
Training was limited for police officers in the early 1980s, McFetridge said. Police departments were primarily responsible for training new hires.
“From that point on I paid attention to my training,” McFetridge said. “I made sure that if I was going to take action, I knew what I was going to do.” McFetridge
went on to work for police departments throughout the state of Maine.
He met his wife Nita while working as a contract deputy in Stonington. Early in their courtship, McFetridge interrupted a date to arrest a drunk driver. “That was my
introduction to dating a cop,” Nita McFetridge said with a laugh.
While working at the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office in the 1980s, McFetridge helped train Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett. Brackett rode with him so often
that other officers began to refer to Brackett as McFetridge’s son.
In the early 1990s, McFetridge worked at the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. He left to work for the Wiscasset Police Department and the Boothbay Harbor Police
Department. McFetridge rejoined the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in 2003 and was promoted to detective in 2007.
McFetridge also worked as an emergency medical technician and served as Boothbay Harbor’s assistant fire chief as recently as 2012. However, the demands of his work
at the sheriff’s office caused him to give up his position with the fire department.
McFetridge’s attention to and emphasis on training made him the sheriff’s office’s primary investigator for domestic violence and elder abuse cases.
Elder abuse is one of the most under-reported crimes in Lincoln County, McFetridge said. It is also one of the most difficult crimes to investigate. Isolation of the
victim and dependence on the family members and caretakers who are often the abusers prevent many cases from being reported.
McFetridge underwent specialized training from the Maine Attorney General’s Office to learn the unique skill set needed to investigate elder abuse.
Specialized interview skills are needed to investigate elder abuse crimes, McFetridge said. Patience and the development of trust are crucial to collecting a
victim’s statement, especially from elders with dementia or memory issues.
Due to the financial exploitation involved in many elder abuse crimes, the sheriff’s office’s lack of access to forensic accountants also complicates the
investigation and prosecution of elder abuse.
McFetridge has investigated high-profile elder abuse cases in recent years, including the case of an elderly woman in Bristol who fell victim to a neighbor’s plot to
drain her bank account by convincing her to fund the investigation of a neighborhood drug ring, and that of an elderly California woman who was found in a shack in Edgecomb
after being missing for four years.
Rodney Chapman told his 84-year-old neighbor in Bristol that there was a drug gang operating in their neighborhood. He convinced her that he had connections to the
Texas Rangers, who would bring the drug dealers to justice if she would provide them with money. Chapman stole over $300,000 from the woman.
“He isolated her,” McFetridge said. “He took her phone and her car keys. She was afraid to talk. It was a long time before she made a formal statement.” Chapman was
sentenced to 3½ years in prison and ordered to pay almost $1.5 million in restitution and damages. He died in 2014.
The story of Sarah Cheiker, an elderly woman from Los Angeles who was swindled out of her assets, transported across the country, and abandoned in a cabin in
Edgecomb made national headlines.
She was found in 2012, four years after a missing-person report had been filed, malnourished and neglected. “The story she told was hard to believe,” McFetridge
said, “but we investigated it and it was true.”
The three individuals responsible for the crime, twins Nicholas and Barbara Davis and their godson Jonathan Stevens, pleaded no contest to the crime and were placed
on probation.
“I long ago had to come to the realization that all I can do is do my job the best I can,” McFetridge said of the outcome of those cases. “All I can do is make sure
it gets to the court system. Whatever comes out of the court system comes out of the court system. There’s only so much I can do. There’s also only so much the district
attorney’s office can do.”
The increase in outside support and resources for the victims in elder abuse and domestic violence cases is a positive change in law enforcement that McFetridge has
witnessed over his 34-year career.
“It’s not all doom and gloom,” McFetridge said. McFetridge has worked closely with Lincoln County Triad, a community and law-enforcement partnership that seeks to
reduce the victimization of the elderly, since its foundation in 1999.
The support community organizations like Lincoln County Triad provide is changing the face of law enforcement. “I can arrest the bad guy,” McFetridge said, “but what
happens to the victim? Now there are places the victim can turn to.”
In the case of the Bristol woman and the California woman, community organizations have helped end their isolation and reintegrate them into the community.
“One thing I’ve learned is that law enforcement can’t do it alone,” McFetridge said. “It has to be dealt with on many levels.”
McFetridge lists his work with the community and with elders as his favorite part of the job. “I loved working with the older population,” he said. “I loved
listening to their stories. It taught me a lot.”
McFetridge is leaving the sheriff’s office with a long list of stories of his own. Those stories range from heart-breaking tales of exploitation and abuse to stories
worthy of a sitcom, such as the investigation of the alleged homicide of a family’s pet, a one-eyed turkey named Hambone.
On Thanksgiving Eve in 2006, McFetridge responded to a report of a triple turkey homicide from a Dresden farm that sold live turkeys. One of the victims was the
family pet, Hambone. The turkeys had allegedly been murdered in front of the live turkeys, inflicting severe trauma on them.
McFetridge investigated the complaint with the same tenacity and dedication he applied to all of his cases. He tracked the individual who killed the turkeys to
Portland. It turned out to be a simple misunderstanding.
The man’s religion dictated that the turkeys had to be killed on the scene. He was simply following the food preparation protocols of his religion – his act was not
intended to be criminal terrorizing or threatening of the live turkeys. The man’s unfortunate decision to choose Hambone was also a misunderstanding. He did not realize Hambone
was the family pet.
“I’ve had the good and the bad of it,” McFetridge said of his career.
McFetridge is currently focused on catching up on a long list of home-improvement projects in Boothbay Harbor and returning to some long-neglected hobbies, such as
operating a ham radio.
The McFetridge family, however, is carrying on the first responder tradition. McFetridge has three daughters. Of those three daughters, two are trained firefighters,
one is trained as an EMT, one works as a dispatcher, and one is completing her EMT training.
The sheriff’s office is working on filling the gap left by McFetridge’s retirement. Elder abuse and domestic violence cases are currently being divided between the
Criminal Investigative Division’s three detectives, Lt. Michael Murphy said.
The sheriff’s office plans to promote someone to focus specifically on those cases, but has no timeline for that promotion yet.
“Anytime you lose someone with as much knowledge and experience as Robert McFetridge it’s an enormous loss,” Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Ken Mason said of
McFetridge’s retirement. “But he’s moving on to greener pastures. We all will one day.”
