Distraught mom seeks aid finding ‘missing’ child

BANGOR – Her red face was covered with tears and she was nearly hysterical as she reported to police that her 6-year-old daughter, with brown hair, brown eyes and wearing a blue jacket, was missing in the downtown area.

The missing child report came into Bangor police at 1:15 p.m. Thursday, and several police cruisers began scouring Bangor’s streets, looking for the little girl.

“She could have gone over to the bus, but she wouldn’t get on by herself,” the woman said while standing in front of the Lunchbox Cafe on Main Street talking with a Bangor police officer while another officer waited nearby.

The 34-year-old woman stood in front of the cafe fidgeting with her clothing and her purse with a beat-up shopping bag at her feet and a cup of coffee in her hand. She was wearing an old suede jacket and a red sweater, and she kept turning and looking in all directions up and down the street, looking for her missing child.

Asked if she had been downtown shopping with her daughter, the woman said that she had just taken her methadone dose and had fought with her husband early in the morning.

“He kicked me out at 5:15 a.m.,” she said, unable to stop crying.

The police officer then asked her if she was sure she had had her daughter with her.

The woman’s eyes filled with new tears as she suddenly remembered she actually had left her daughter at home.

“I wouldn’t have taken her at 5:15 a.m.,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. The tears didn’t stop as she apologized to the officer.

“I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”

The police officer called off the search just before 1:45 p.m., and the woman started to make her way home.

Telling her story, she acknowledged that she was a heroin addict who had been struggling with her problem for years.

The anguish in her eyes was very visible as she described what she has been through in recent years and the fact that once people hear she’s a heroin addict, “they don’t care.”

The woman said she had received a methadone dose from Acadia Hospital on Stillwater Avenue to help her with her addiction.

Efforts made on Thursday to reach Acadia officials were unsuccessful.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic that serves to block the effects of other opiates and eliminates withdrawal symptoms. Clients who have daily methadone doses, a treatment that has been used for decades, reportedly may live normal, active lives.

In Bangor, Acadia Hospital began administering methadone four years ago, and Colonial Management Group’s first Maine methadone clinic opened Monday at Maine Square Mall on Hogan Road.

Bangor Police Chief Don Winslow said Thursday that local heroin use has increased in recent years.

“Six or seven years ago, we very rarely dealt with anybody locally who was dealing with heroin,” he said. “It was not widespread. Around the year 1999 to 2000, it really started to take off.”

Heroin addiction in Bangor “is still a significant problem,” Winslow said, but then he added: “We don’t seem to see a lot of new heroin addicts. It’s the same names coming up over and over again.”

Methadone remains the most effective treatment for opiate addiction, though new drugs are on the horizon, the police chief said.

Asked if the Police Department is dealing more often with disoriented addicts since the clinics have moved into town, Winslow said traffic accidents are more common.

“What we’ve seen is a number of motor vehicle accidents where people apparently nod off,” he said. “There is some belief that this has happened after their treatment [with] methadone.”

Even though health care officials say methadone doesn’t have a euphoric effect on their patients, “there have been enough numbers of incidents of people stopped … to raise suspicion that it might be caused by the methadone,” the chief said.

“That really has been the most sufficient impact on the community,” Winslow said. “The bigger fears that I had about crime in and around the clinics just haven’t materialized.”