ME ME - Wanda Mitchell, 15, Portland, March 1980

More than 35 years after teenage runaway Wanda Mitchell was found dead in the woods, her family still doesn't know how she ended up there...

Wanda ran away from her Buxton home in November of 1979, the day before her 15th birthday... They quickly discovered she was staying at a nearby neighbors house, and later, a shelter for homeless girls in downtown Portland, which frequently called them, troubled by her behavior...

Wanda kept in touch with her sister and turned up occasionally until March of 1980...

It was September when a dog found a skull lying in a wooded lover's lane in Poland. Dental records confirmed the bones belonged to Wanda.

Click to expand...

Sheila Simoneau said her daughter isn’t on the state’s list of unsolved homicides. In more than 35 years, she feels the death hasn’t gotten much attention.

“She did not walk in there and lay down and die, and I want something done,” Simoneau said Tuesday in the State House Hall of Flags, holding a photo of her daughter.

Friends and family members with HAAD Enough Inc., a year-old group representing unsolved missing and murder cases in Maine, held a news conference to announce proposed victims’ bill of rights legislation and to question the progress of the state’s new cold-case unit. They say they are frustrated that not enough has been done since the Legislature created the unit in 2015.

Click to expand...