Lucifer's Child

By Elliott Epstein

On a chilly, gray autumn afternoon in 1984, a patrolman was dispatched to an inner-city tenement in Auburn, Maine to investigate the report of a possible fire. What he found inside the building's smoke-filled, second-story apartment was not a fire but something far more horrifying -- the charred body of a 4-year-old girl, Angela Palmer, who had been stuffed into the oven of a kitchen stove and cooked to death. The discovery traumatized the community and shocked the country. The ensuing murder prosecution of the youngster's mother, Cynthia Palmer, and her boyfriend, John Lane, cast a searching light into the shadows of a secret world in which children and women suffer violence and sexual predation at the hands of those who are supposed to love and protect them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452035628

Elliott Epstein

Elliott Epstein has been a Maine trial lawyer for more than 30 years. Previously he worked as a journalist, and, since 2007, has written a monthly newspaper column entitled "Rearview Mirror", which analyzes current events in the context of history. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, received a master’s degree in history from Imperial College of the University of London, and earned his law degree from the University of Maine. He and his wife, Ellen, live in Auburn, Maine and have two children. This is his first book. He can be contacted at [e-mail].

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LUCIFER’S CHILD

Elliott L. Epstein

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© 2010 Elliott L. Epstein. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/23/2021

ISBN: 978-1-4520-3561-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-3560-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-3562-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010907964

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To the Memory of my parents,

Samuel and Tedra Epstein,

Who taught me to persevere.

To Ellen, Matthew and Ariel,

Who have taught me to empathize.

There was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and a crown on each of its heads…He stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, in order to eat her child as soon as it was born…

Then war broke out in heaven! Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, who fought back with his angels, but the dragon was defeated and he and his angels were not allowed to stay in heaven any longer. The huge dragon was thrown out! He is that old serpent, named the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.

Book of Revelation: 12

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: LUCIFER IS DEAD

Chapter 2: JESUS LOVES YOU

Chapter 3: GABRIEL

Chapter 4: ANGIE WAS BAD

Chapter 5: THE SLIMY GREEN MONSTER

Chapter 6: SILENT WITNESSES

Chapter 7: PURGATORY

Chapter 8: CYNTHIA

Chapter 9: BURN ON THE GALLOWS

Chapter 10: N.G.R.I.

Chapter 11: JOHN

Chapter 12: THEY’VE ALL GOT A DEAD BODY IN THEM

Chapter 13: I BURNED MY BABY

Chapter 14: LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

Chapter 15: HOCUS POCUS

Chapter 16: MICHAEL

Chapter 17: IT’S A DAMN SHAME

Chapter 18: PRINCE CHARMING AND CINDERELLA

Chapter 20: SKIING ON ONE SKI

Chapter 19: SQUEEZE A BALLOON

Chapter 20: JUDGMENT DAY

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

1: LUCIFER IS DEAD

By late Saturday afternoon, Auburn policeman John Reid had been on duty for almost 10 hours. It was a damp, gray autumn day. The trees were past the peak of foliage color, a chill was in the air and the long Maine winter beckoned. Reid was looking forward to getting off work, anticipating the pleasure of playing with his 5-year-old son, then going out with his wife for the evening. He was patrolling in a cruiser, the intermittent crackle of radio transmissions interrupting the monotony of his rounds, when a dispatch call at about 4 o’clock instructed him to proceed to 317 Main Street to check a report of smoke.

Minutes later, Reid reached his destination, an old apartment building. Fire trucks were arriving, and his backup, Tom Kelly, was already standing outside the building. He had radioed ahead to Kelly to wait for him. Reid emerged from the cruiser and strode to the front door. Short and compact, his hair and mustache neatly trimmed, he walked with military bearing.

Let’s go up and get it over with, he told Kelly as they climbed the four concrete steps to the threshold and entered the front hallway, several firemen following in their wake. They headed for the second floor, where two or three residents were standing on the landing. One of them, a middle-aged woman, complained loudly, The guy inside is crazy. Look at all the smoke. It smells like burnt hair!

Reid turned to face the apartment door to his left. He could see smoke seeping from beneath the door. The woman continued talking to him, They’re crazy, they’re crazy. I don’t know what the hell’s going on in there. They’re burning the whole God-darn house! Have you knocked on the door? Reid asked. Yes, she replied. We’ve been knocking for hours. They won’t answer.

Reid turned the knob, but it was locked. He knocked several times, but no one answered. Then he kicked the door twice, but it held. Finally a paunchy firefighter gave the door a hard kick and broke it open, splintering the jamb.

While the firemen went for their equipment, Reid entered the apartment. The interior was blanketed with white smoke. Crouching beneath the heaviest layer of smoke, Reid began to circle, searching for occupants.

The front door led to a kitchen, the hub of the apartment. The room was in shambles. A rectangular dining table lay upended. Towels, pots, toys and trash were strewn about. An electric stove stood against the left-hand wall, its oven door wedged shut by a chair. Thick smoke was pouring from the oven compartment.

To the right of the entry was a small bathroom. Reid looked in and shouted, Is anyone in here? There was no answer. He walked across the kitchen and pushed open a door to a bedroom, also empty. As he backed out of the bedroom, he noticed a living room to his left. It was not as smoky as the kitchen.

Reid could make out three people in the living room, a man, a woman and a child, all holding hands. They were standing before a bay window, staring towards the street, their backs to him. Get out of here! he told them. The adults were unresponsive, as though they had not heard him. The child, a girl of 5 or 6, turned and looked up at Reid but did not move. Her right hand was held firmly in the grasp of the woman, apparently her mother.

Get out of here! Reid said again, this time with more urgency, but the three stood frozen in place like mannequins in a department store window. Reid was becoming increasingly alarmed. He could not determine the extent of the fire, and he needed to evacuate everyone.

Reid approached the trio, stumbling momentarily on a large suitcase in the middle of the floor. In his free hand, the man was clutching a Bible to his chest, his fingers inserted in the book as if to mark a particular page. No expression registered on his face or the woman’s. They simply continued staring blankly out the window.

Reid reached down to pick up the child, but her mother held her fast. For Christ’s sake, he shouted. Will you let her go? Let me take her out of here. You can stay, if you want!

The woman turned towards the man, her expression still flat. It’s all right, he assured her. Lucifer is dead. Lucifer is gone. Angie will be o.k. now. Hearing these words, the woman released the girl’s hand, and Reid lifted her into his arms. Then the man began reading from the Bible as if preaching a sermon.

Now you get the hell out of the building, too! Reid commanded. Get out of the fucking building! The pair turned and walked somnambulantly through the apartment door.

Kelly was waiting at the landing. Reid briefed him. Something’s going on. I don’t know what, but don’t let them out of here. Kelly shepherded the pair down the staircase, while Reid, the child still cradled in his arms, brought up the rear.

When Reid got outdoors, he was accosted by a young woman who had been inside the building when he first arrived. Where’s the baby? she shouted hysterically. Reid was puzzled. He was carrying the only child he had found. I’ve got the baby in my hands, he said. No! she insisted. There’s another little baby in the apartment.

Reid called to nearest firefighters, Look for a baby. Look for a crib. Then he handed the girl to a paramedic and rushed back to the apartment. Three firemen stood in the kitchen, one holding an extinguisher. The stove had been unplugged and moved away from the wall, its door opened. Reid’s eyes were immediately drawn to the oven compartment. Crouched inside was a small burned body, its leg protruding from the blackened space.

2: JESUS LOVES YOU

The six-family tenement at 317 Main Street was a homely building, three stories high and comprised of two bow-front wings knit together by a central stairwell. Mustard-colored with brown trim, its bay windows looked out onto shabby surroundings -- a neighboring tenement on one flank, a bakery thrift shop on the other, a concrete retaining wall across the road. There was constant traffic noise from Main Street, a busy thoroughfare connecting the commercial downtown with the suburbs to the south.

Situated in the central Maine city of Auburn, the apartment house, like the community itself, was down on its luck. Auburn had been a prosperous shoemaking center on the west bank of the Androscoggin River for more than a century. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, immigrant mill workers and shopkeepers streamed into the area around 317 Main Street, known as New Auburn.

Now the nation’s free trade policies and the shoe industry’s offshore migration were eviscerating Auburn’s factories. A number of sprawling mills, the site of enterprises which once employed thousands, had been demolished, while others lay empty or were converted to warehouses or elderly housing. The multi-storied tenements, which once teemed with laborers and their families, had become dilapidated.

It was hardly surprising, then, that the apartment house at 317 Main Street was less than a luxury accommodation. It was home for the working poor and the unemployed poor. Social turbulence was as much a part of the landscape as ambient noise. Police cruisers were frequently dispatched to the neighborhood to respond to complaints about domestic squabbles and loud stereos. However, the sounds and smells emanating that day, Saturday October 27, 1984, from John Lane’s and Cynthia Palmer’s apartment were more obnoxious than the tenement’s residents could tolerate.

For the past month, Lane and Palmer, together with Palmer’s young daughters, Sarrah and Angela, had been living in the unit located in the left wing of the building’s second story. They had kept largely to themselves and caused no trouble. They had not been seen outside their apartment for the past two days, and their laundry had been hanging on the back porch since mid-week as if abandoned. Yet the couple must have been home. Since Friday afternoon, their neighbors had been annoyed by loud music, strange voices and pounding noises from their apartment. On Saturday afternoon, irritation turned to alarm as a burning odor from the unit wafted through the building.

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Patricia White, a tall young woman with long blond hair and a gentle face, lived, with her two-year-old son and her boyfriend, Robert LaGrange, in the apartment directly below Lane and Palmer. On Friday afternoon, she heard religious music blaring from the floor above, so loud it drowned out her television. It was the same recording, played over and over, repeating the words, Jesus Loves You. White remained stoic through most of the evening but finally lost her patience and, at 2 in the morning, sent her boyfriend upstairs to complain.

LaGrange, a short, tough-looking shoe worker, with a dark, full mustache and a tattooed right arm, stamped up the staircase like a sailor wading into a barroom brawl. He knocked angrily at the door. Turn down that music! he barked. The door did not open, but a man’s voice answered from within, Go away. When LaGrange continued knocking, the voice warned, The wrath of God will strike you dead!

Come out, and I’ll show you the wrath of God! LeGrange said menacingly. Then he heard the voice again. The man was giving orders to someone inside. Tell him to go away or the wrath of God will strike him dead. A woman dutifully repeated the warning. White, who was standing at the foot of the stairs, calmed her boyfriend and summoned him back to bed. Leave well enough alone, she said. We’ll talk to the landlord about it tomorrow.

When White awoke three hours later, the music was still playing loudly. It continued until late morning, when the volume was suddenly turned down. At 2:30 Saturday afternoon, a new disturbance took its place. White’s light fixture rattled. It sounded like someone banging or jumping on the kitchen floor upstairs. Curious, she stepped out onto her rear porch and started climbing the stairs to the next landing. She thought about peeking through the window of the apartment. Midway up the steps, however, she changed her mind and turned back. She did not want to appear nosy.

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Mary Deraps, another young mother, also wondered what was happening on the second floor. Deraps, her husband and their two-year-old daughter lived above Lane and Palmer. She awoke at 5 a.m. Saturday with music from downstairs ringing in her ears. A sound sleeper, she learned from her husband that it had been going all night. Deraps could not make out the lyrics. She could only hear the word Jesus.

John Lane had played religious music earlier that week but was considerate enough to ask if it bothered her. At the time it did not. Now it did. When the music continued late into the morning, she pounded on the floor. Then she called the landlord. She assumed Lane and Palmer got the message, because the sound became softer.

At 11:30 in the morning, Deraps descended to the first-floor mailbox. As she passed the door of Lane’s and Palmer’s apartment, she heard a little girl’s plaintive voice within crying, Daddy, let me out! Deraps thought little of it, assuming the girl had been sent to her bedroom as a punishment. That afternoon, when she heard the noise of someone jumping below, she started down her back-porch stairs to investigate. Not wishing to intrude, however, she stopped before reaching the second story. It’s probably nothing, she assured herself.

Deraps was carving a Halloween pumpkin in her kitchen later in the day, when a sickening odor enveloped the room. She walked to the living room to check whether the smell was from a lit cigarette she had left there. She did not find a burning cigarette but did see her apartment filling with smoke. Alarmed, she left the 9-year-old child she was babysitting to look after her own daughter and hurried downstairs to find out what was happening.

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Julie St. Amand, who lived across the hall from Patricia White, had known John Lane and Cynthia Palmer for only a few weeks but was better acquainted with them than anyone else in the building. She helped take care of Palmer’s girls after Palmer was hurt in a car accident 11 days earlier, and had invited John, Cynthia and the children to her apartment for a visit the previous Thursday evening.

St. Amand, who was only 18 and whose diminutive stature made her look even younger, was fond of John and Cynthia. That feeling was not shared by her roommate, James Bussiere. After Lane proclaimed that Cynthia, her daughters and even Julie herself had multiple personalities, Bussiere decided he did not like Lane’s attitude. He told St. Amand to lay off going up there.

Although St. Amand and Bussiere were nominally the landlord’s managers, they did not manage the building or collect the rents. Their role was to keep the noise down and report any disturbance to the landlord. When he came home from work early Friday evening, Bussiere heard loud gospel music from Palmer’s and Lane’s apartment. He sang