Bones may have link to ’87 Maine murder Lab testing DNA of remains found in Mont.

The discovery of bones buried at a property formerly owned by a man who killed his third wife by pushing her off a cliff at Acadia National Park has led to speculation about the remains of his first wife, whose body was never found, according to a Montana newspaper.

Dennis Larson was convicted in Maine of murdering Kathy Frost Larson of Dexter, Maine, in 1987 by pushing her off Acadia Park’s Otter Cliffs. He committed suicide in 2000 at Maine State Prison in Warren while serving a 50-year sentence for the murder.

According to reports published in the Great Falls Tribune, a couple renovating a building in Great Falls, Mont., that was formerly owned by Larson recently found bones underneath a bathroom floor. The bones have been sent to a Montana state crime lab to determine if they are human and whether they might be those of Leslee Reynolds Larson, the paper has indicated.

A few months before he killed himself, Larson confessed to killing Leslee Larson in 1975. He told investigators he pushed her into a flooded stream near Wolf Creek, Mont., and watched as she was swept away. Her remains were never recovered.

The discovery this month of the bones in the Montana house, which was a garage when Larson owned it, has led to speculation that Larson may have lied to police about how he killed his first wife.

Larson shoved Kathy Frost Larson off an 80-foot cliff in Acadia on Oct. 11, 1987, just weeks after they had wed and only a few months after they had first met through a newspaper classified ad. The day after they married, Larson took out a life insurance policy on himself and added an accidental death rider for his wife that would double the value of the $200,000 policy.

Larson died the evening of Dec. 31, 2000, after he wrote the word “Geronimo” on a piece of duct tape, placed it over his mouth and then leaped out a third-story window at the Warren prison.

Information from Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune and BDN staff reports.