The remains of David Lemmer, 48, of Plainville, Mass., were found in East Greenwich six years after he was reported missing.

11:13 AM EDT on Monday, September 15, 2003

BY ANDREW C. HELMAN
Journal Staff Writer

David Lemmer had settled into a routine. His days of excess drinking behind him, he had been sober for seven years.

During the day, he cared for his wheelchair-bound father and maintained the house they shared in Plainville, Mass. At night, he worked as a machinist about 10 minutes away in Wrentham.

And Sunday, July 21, 1996, was another routine day. He mowed the lawn and went to buy groceries. Then he returned home and cooked dinner for his 84-year-old father, Harold Lemmer.

Journal photo / John Freidah Detective Lt. Geoffrey F. Rinn (left) and Detective Matt Haley of the East Greenwich Police Department do not know what caused the death of David Lemmer, whose skeletal remains were discovered in woods off Route 4.

Late that afternoon, he said goodbye to his father, telling him he was going out for a bit before his midnight shift, as he sometimes did. Lemmer, 48, got into his 1986 Buick Regal and drove off.

But Lemmer never showed up at work, and he never returned home.

His disappearance was only partially solved with the discovery six years later of his skeletal remains, leaving a mystery that police in two states are still hoping to unravel: Was it a murder, or a suicide?

"I think you could probably come up with a myriad of scenarios, but the question is, what scenario is reasonable?" said Geoffrey Rinn, a police detective in East Greenwich, where Lemmer's bones were found last fall.

"In this instance, interjecting a theory of foul play without evidence would be irresponsible," Rinn said. "But the problem we face is we don't know the cause of death.

"Unless someone can place themselves there at the exact time of death, we will never know."

THE INVESTIGATION began in Plainville. Lemmer's twin sister, Barbara McGrath, reported him missing when he had not returned home by Tuesday.

The police flagged his credit cards, and contacted his health-insurance company, in case he had been hospitalized.

The only lead was a $15 credit-card purchase at a North Kingstown gas station the day after he disappeared. But Lemmer had no reason to be in Rhode Island, according to the police and Lemmer's brother-in-law, Richard McGrath.

Over that Labor Day weekend, an East Greenwich police officer noticed a brown Buick in the parking lot at East Greenwich Square, a shopping plaza on Division Street. Curious, the officer ran the Massachusetts license plate, 362-XTO, through a national database that tracks missing vehicles, but nothing unusual came up.

The car sat in the parking lot night after night, and the police periodically checked the database.

On Oct. 13, they got a hit: David Lemmer, 48, 5-foot-4, 180 pounds, brown hair and brown eyes, was listed as "involuntary missing," according to David E. Desjarlais, the East Greenwich police chief.

Desjarlais was a junior detective at the time Lemmer's car was discovered. He and other officers searched the area, including the swampy woods between the shopping plaza and Route 4.

"Nobody told us they had any recollection of seeing him and it was even sketchy from the parking lot sweeper as to how long the car was there," Desjarlais said.

Tucked under a windshield wiper on the driver's side was a chain letter with a prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

The car was towed to Massachusetts, where state troopers examined it. They were unable to find any fingerprints, not even Lemmer's. It was as if the car had been wiped clean.

Plainville Police Chief Edward M. Merrick recalls that he had two conflicting theories about Lemmer's disappearance.

"One was that he was taken and the other was that he left and did not want to be found."

David Lemmer

DAVID LEMMER, who never married, moved in with his father when his mother died in 1991.

Harold Lemmer was a difficult man, said Richard McGrath, who said his wife is struggling with an illness and no longer wishes to speak about the case.

"You'd be there for three hours and he wouldn't even offer you a cup of coffee," McGrath said.

But that wouldn't have driven David to suicide, or to disappear intentionally, he said.

"Nobody got along with [Harold]," McGrath said, and David was always "fine when he left the house."

McGrath said he'd asked his father-in-law if the two had argued that day, and "he said no."

"We expected him back," McGrath said.

Harold Lemmer died six months after his son disappeared.

LAST NOVEMBER, more than six years after Lemmer disappeared, the police finally caught a break. Two hunters found a skull in the woods between Route 4 and East Greenwich Square. One of them, who told the police he feared he wouldn't be able to find it again, took the skull and gave it to the police.

Over the next two days, the police, with the aid of search dogs, unearthed more bones, including several vertebrae, a rib and parts of a pelvis. With the bones they found Lemmer's wallet, which appeared to be intact.

Journal file photo Last November, East Greenwich police Detective Sgt. Thomas Coyle, front, followed by Patrolman Matt Haley, carries away boxes of human bones found in the woods off Route 4.

"One would assume if there was foul play the wallet would be gone," says Merrick, the Plainville chief.

Investigators found several other clues that Rinn, the East Greenwich detective, says might support a theory of suicide: a branch found near the bones; a nearby tree with a break that a botanist dated to the time of Lemmer's disappearance; pieces of his thick, leather belt found near his upper torso.

In February, the state medical examiner's office concluded that the remains were Lemmer's. The manner of death was listed as "non-natural," the cause as unknown.

"I have been in the business for 34 years and this is one of the most baffling ones I have ever seen," Merrick said. "There are no clear answers. There is conjecture, but nothing concrete."

What most puzzles Desjarlais, the East Greenwich chief, is,"Why here? Why this area?"

"Based on what we have uncovered, and the lack of new leads, we are left with hypotheticals," Desjarlais said.

Rinn said the evidence from the woods points to suicide.

"I believe he took his life by hanging himself," Rinn said. "What takes away from this theory? Nothing."

But, he quickly adds, nothing proves it, either.

Richard McGrath doesn't buy that theory. McGrath said he believes someone killed Lemmer, or maybe that Lemmer had a heart attack while trying to flee from someone -- possibly a hitchhiker -- through the woods.

"How many guys would fill the tank [with gas] and drive eight miles to commit suicide?" McGrath said.

COLD CASE CONTACT: To contact the Plainville Police Department call (508) 695-7115. To contact East Greenwich, call (401) 884-2244.

Andrew C. Helman can be reached by phone at 277-7361, or by e-mail at ahelman@projo.com

DIGITAL EXTRA: Look back at past installments in the Cold Case series, at: projo.com/extra/2003/coldcase/