Utah parolee admits killing Colby student

WATERVILLE – Along the railroad tracks where police found the body of 21-year-old Colby College student Dawn Rossignol of Medway on Sept. 17, wardens found a handwritten sign fastened with red and black electrical tape to a stick. The sign was written in crayon and read: “The world may never know!”

On Thursday in Waterville District Court, Judge John Nivison unsealed affidavits and other court documents that revealed to the world the horrors Rossignol endured and what led to the arrest of Utah-parolee Edward Hackett, 47, for her murder eight days later.

Earlier this week, Hackett told his story to the Portland Press Herald, confessing to killing Rossignol and painting a gruesome picture of a man who begged his parole board to put him in a controlled environment.

“There’s just no way for someone like me to fit into a society like yours,” Hackett told the newspaper. “I’m the proverbial square peg in a round hole. Sure, I wanted out [of jail]. I wanted out really bad. But I knew I shouldn’t be let out. I am definitely going to make sure your system does not let me out again.”

Utah parole officials told the Press Herald they were in no way to blame for Hackett’s actions in Maine.

“He’s a typical no-account criminal who is trying to shift blame from his own actions over to somebody else,” said Mike Sibbett, chairman of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.

Hackett is accused of kidnapping Rossignol as she walked to her car in a Colby dormitory parking lot early on Sept. 16 and forcing her to a dirt road about one mile from the campus. Her body was found a day later, face down in a brook.

She had traumatic head injuries and had been raped and sodomized. The exact cause of death has not been released.

According to an affidavit filed by Maine State Police Detective Anna Love, “Pieces of Rossignol’s pants were found cut and tied in a knot at the crime scene, suggesting that she had been tied up or bound during the assault.”

After Rossignol’s body was found, police began checking probation and parole records for offenses similar to those in the case. After Hackett’s file was reviewed, he was interviewed by police. During several interviews, he denied killing Rossignol but admitted being in the Waterville area. At the time he lived with his parents in Vassalboro. He had traveled to Waterville on Sept. 16 to get on Interstate 95 to drive to a 9 a.m. counseling session in Augusta.

He showed up at that session three hours late, the documents stated. During one of the interviews, police had Hackett drive them on the same route he had used that morning, including by Rice Rips Road, the crime scene.

“At Rice Rips Road, Hackett almost hit another vehicle as Hackett was looking at the Rice Rip Road side of the road,” the affidavit states. A DNA sample obtained from Hackett police say matches DNA samples taken from the driver’s side interior door handle of Rossignol’s car.

Also in police interviews, Hackett said he fantasized about rape and having sex with a 22-year-old female with blonde hair parted down the middle, a description Rossignol nearly fits.

Two days after Hackett’s arrest, state police executed a search warrant at his parents’ home in Vassalboro and of his car. They seized duct tape, black electrical tape, a box containing “sex toy items,” a silver folding knife, and a bag of women’s jewelry from his trunk.

According to the Press Herald, Hackett said he killed Rossignol because he wanted to demean someone as he had been demeaned throughout his life. “I was driving down the street and there she was, a day just like this … and nobody around,” Hackett told the paper.

“I just pulled over, walked up to her, made her get in [her] car and drove away,” he said. “There was sex involved, but it had nothing to do with sex at all. Sex was a tool, to dehumanize, to destroy. I remember feeling good about myself, that I am finally able to put somebody else down worse than I had been put down.”

The Press Herald reported that Hackett recalled hitting Rossignol repeatedly, but was told by police that she drowned in the stream where he left her.

“She was just the vehicle to an end. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. Hackett told the newspaper he walked back to the Colby campus to retrieve his car after the attack.

The only explanation he had for the killing was a deep anger within himself, he said. “I could feel it building and building and building and building inside of me, that anger and frustration,” he reportedly said.

Hackett said he tried to kill himself later that day after driving to his sister’s in Connecticut, but failed. He said it was frightening to think of what he is capable of. “Not knowing yourself can be a scary thing,” he told the paper.

Hackett has been in jail most of his adult life. Growing up in Connecticut, he was charged with kidnapping a woman when he was 16 and attempting the same crime at age 20. At 36, in 1992, he abducted a woman in Utah at knifepoint and served 11 years in prison. He was paroled six months ago to Maine.

Because Hackett went public with his confession of murdering Rossignol this week, Deputy District Attorney William Stokes withdrew his motion Thursday to impound court documents. Defense Attorney Pamela Ames had no objection. She said after the hearing that Hackett had given the interview against her advice.

“My client has indicated he wants to take responsibility,” said Ames. After she reviews the state’s evidence, Ames said she will determine if the case will move forward for trial, but added, “a trial would likely not be in my client’s best interest.”

Stokes said Hackett will likely be indicted by a Kennebec County Grand Jury in November.

Meanwhile, Ames confirmed Hackett is not being held at the Kennebec County Jail but has instead been transferred to an undisclosed location for treatment of “a long-standing medical condition.”