Police seek man who faked death notice

BANGOR – Police are seeking an Arizona man with connections to Maine who fabricated his obituary this week in what investigators believe is part of the man’s ongoing harassment campaign against private citizens and law enforcement officials.

On Tuesday, the Bangor Daily News ran an obituary for Peary Brown, 54, a nurse and former scallop fisherman in Maine who was living in Arizona and reported to have died in Los Angeles on July 21. The obituary stated his ashes were subsequently scattered on Santa Catalina Island.

But in the weeks that followed his supposed death and as recently as Wednesday, law enforcement officials received e-mails consistent with the scores of e-mails Brown had sent them in the past. And at least one friend of Brown called the NEWS on Tuesday to report speaking to him in recent days.

Wednesday night, Brown’s stepmother in Virginia told the NEWS that she contacted her son after learning about the obituary earlier that day. She confirmed that Brown was “alive and kicking.” A message left at the telephone number listed on the e-mail containing the obituary was not returned Wednesday.

For awhile, however, there was some uncertainty as to the condition and whereabouts of Brown, a registered nurse who has worked in eastern and Down East Maine.

The obituary submitted Sunday listed a funeral service business that could not be located. A credit card was used by telephone to pay the $88.20 for the obituary Monday, one day after a NEWS employee left a message on the telephone number supplied with the e-mail, indicating that payment was needed for the obituary.

Law enforcement officials, upon reading the obituary, suspected it was a ruse.

“I’m confident he’s still alive,” Detective Steve McFarland of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday. McFarland has followed Brown’s activities since 1995 and said he has been a target of Brown’s sometimes scathing, sometimes obscure, but usually anonymous e-mails.

The e-mails have ranged from a concise one-word commentary to rambling on for several pages, reported Hancock County Assistant District Attorney Pat Larson, whose office has been the recipient of some of Brown’s electronic missives.

Using e-mail remailers that strip away any identifying information, Brown’s e-mails have contained threats, both real and veiled, McFarland said.

McFarland has wrapped up his lengthy investigation into Brown’s past activities and forwarded it to the Hancock County District Attorney’s Office for review. Already wanted on a warrant for violating a protection order, Brown could face additional charges and it appears that the case has drawn the interest of federal authorities.

But at least two local law enforcement officials familiar with Brown think that he submitted the obituary for reasons that had less to do with eluding police than in continuing to harass people associated with the cases against him.

“His motives were probably more to mess with their heads than to avoid arrest,” McFarland said.

“This is classic Peary,” said Mount Desert Police Chief John Doyle, who said Brown has an extensive history of stalking people.

“His whole life is stalking,” Doyle said.

A former co-worker has been the target of Brown’s fixation for at least six years, although police report that he has targeted others with his anger. On Aug. 5, 1987, he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon by police in Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod. The victim was Brown’s father, then 70 years old, reported Detective Robert Kurisko of the Dennis Police Department.

Kurisko said Brown served six months in the Barnstable House of Correction on the charge. Brown also had been arrested in 1977 for possession of a firearm without a license.

At the time of his arrest in 1987, Brown listed his home address as Holland Street in Bar Harbor, although his obituary listed him as having served as a registered nurse in Machias, Ellsworth and Bar Harbor. In 1997 he was convicted of possession of marijuana in Machias District Court and fined $400.

The day after the obituary ran, the NEWS published a correction indicating that “it appears that Mr. Brown may not be deceased.”

A newspaper official acknowledged that in accepting the obituary, the newspaper had not followed its rules of verification.

“We have safeguards in place that should ensure things like this don’t happen,” said Wayne A. Lawton, NEWS director of advertising. “Unfortunately, in this instance, those procedures were not followed.”

Before and after the obituary was published, the newspaper checked for Henderson Memorial Services, listed as being in Bullhead City, Ariz., but no information could be found. Verizon 411 had no record of it and neither did another funeral home in the area.