The year was 1976, and the Penobscot County Sheriff's office received a report of a burned out 1971 Chrysler with a body inside on a woods road in Amherst.

The car had Massachusetts plates, and found near the car was an empty gas can.  Cops would use dental records to identify the victim as 43 year-old James Arlington Cassidy of Brookline, Massachusetts.

Cassidy was a banker. He had worked at the Brookline Trust Company.  FBI agents surmised that he had traveled to Maine from the Bay State after they received information on sightings of Cassidy in both Portland and Bangor.

At the time of his death he was under indictment for embezzling almost $20,000 from the bank that he had worked for.

To this day, nobody knows how Cassidy ended up on a dirt road off Route 9 in Amherst. He may have been murdered, or he may have doused the car with gas himself, climbed inside, and then struck a match.

At the time of discovery, State Police ruled the death "suspicious."  The case is still open today.  Watch this news report of now veteran news guy Don Carrigan, towards the end of the video he says, "they say the investigation could be a very long one."  Guess he was right.

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