The Murder of Valerie Tieman (Maine)

In 2016, the disappearance of Valerie Teaman became one of the most talked about cases in Maine in the last decade. At first, there was room for hope, and maybe even a version of the story where Valerie had simply walked away from a life that had become too painful. Her husband, Luke Teaman, was a wounded military veteran. A man whose service and struggles shaped how people first understood him. But as investigators followed the trail from a parking lot to a wooded property in central Maine, the story Luke told evolved. Each new version raised a darker question, "What happened to Valerie? And why were the people who loved her the last to know she was gone?" I'm Kylie Lo and this is the case of Valerie Teaman, on Dark Down East. For the mother and father of 34-year-old Valerie Joy Teaman, the worry started with the kind of silence only a parent knows how to hear. Valerie was living in Maine with her husband of two years, Luke Teaman, hundreds of miles from them. Distance was part of their normal, but silence was not. And it had been too long since they'd heard from her. So on August 27, 2016, Valerie's mother Sarah Jean Harmon reached out to her son-in-law to check in. Luke made it sound like there wasn't anything urgent to worry about. According to Judy Harrison's reporting for the Bangor Daily News, Luke told Sarah Jean that he and Valerie were good. Thank you. He also said that he loved Valerie so much. The last time Sarah Jean heard Valerie's voice was more than two weeks earlier, on August 10. It was Sarah Jean's birthday and Valerie had called to wish her a happy one. Before they hung up, Valerie told her mom, "I love you." Sarah Jean and Valerie's father, Alan Harmon, heard from Valerie again on August 18. This time through Facebook Messenger. Then, on August 25, Sarah Jean tried calling Valerie to ask if she had remembered to call her brother for his birthday. Valerie didn't answer, and she didn't respond to Facebook messages either. One missed call could have been nothing. A Facebook message could go unread, but Valerie stayed connected to her family by phone and online messages sometimes just to say hello, so this silence stood out. But Luke said he and Valerie were good, so for a little while longer, Sarah Jean and Alan waited. By September 8, they still had not heard from their daughter. So that day, they called Luke's father, trying to figure out what anyone in Maine might know. That's when they learned something they say, no one had bothered to tell them. Valerie was missing. According to Sarah Jean and Alan's recollections, later featured in the series Raw Terror. Luke's father said it had been a couple of weeks since anyone had seen Valerie, and they didn't know where she was. Then, in the same conversation, he asked what he should do with Valerie's belongings. Her things were all bagged up in garbage bags, he said. For Valerie's parents, that was a jarring thing to hear all at once. Their daughter was missing. Her husband's family apparently knew she was missing. Her belongings were already packed up, and yet only days earlier, Luke had told Sarah Jean that he and Valerie were good. Sarah Jean and Alan contacted Luke and asked why he hadn't told them Valerie was missing. Luke said he had been waiting for Valerie to contact them herself because he still would never badmouth her. He eventually disclosed to his in-laws that Valerie had left him for someone else, and he hadn't seen her for some time. That same day, September 8, a Facebook page that appears to belong to Luke's husband posted a short message, quote, "Needing prayers from those who do pray. Thank you," end quote. The next day, September 9, Valerie's parents contacted the Fairfield Police Department, and officially reported their daughter, missing. Sarah Jean and Alan drove north from South Carolina to Maine soon after, toward the home of Luke's mother, LaRalteeman, in Fairfield. Luke and Valerie had been staying there, earlier that summer, when times got tough, and they couldn't keep their own apartment. But when Valerie's parents arrived, LaRalte told them Luke and Valerie didn't live there anymore. According to Valerie's parents' account in raw terror, LaRalte later called them after the missing person's report was made, and she said she had spoken to Valerie herself, and Valerie was definitely alive. But that didn't bring Sarah Jean and Alan any comfort. If anything, it raised another alarm, because if Valerie was alive, and if she was able to contact Luke's mother, then why hadn't she called her own parents? Why hadn't she answered her mother's messages? Why hadn't she said in her own voice? That she was okay. At that point, no one was saying anything about Valerie possibly being dead. If Luke was to be believed, Valerie had run off somewhere with someone else. But for the people who knew Valerie best, that explanation was getting harder to believe. Before she was Valerie Teeman, she was Valerie Joy Harman. Her father tells the story of the day she was born in a public Facebook post. It was freezing rain and snowing outside, and her parents had no choice but to head out into the treacherous weather at four o'clock in the morning to get to the hospital. Years later, Valerie's father wrote about that day saying quote, "Little did we know that this dramatic entrance into this world was setting the stage for so many acts of love and kindness, humor." Valerie grew up with that kind of presence. She was warm, funny, deeply faithful, and the kind of person people remember not because she demanded attention, but because she made people feel cared for. Her friend Emily Farnier told the Kennebec Journal's Amy Calder that Valerie showed up for anyone who needed her. She described Valerie as "sweetest sugar" with good Southern values. Valerie had been married once before, but Valerie had older brothers. It was a loveless marriage and she wanted out. After 10 years, she got a divorce and poured herself into the things that made her feel like herself again. She loved theater. She was a talented hairstylist and cosmetologist. She soon started telling her family about a new man in her life named Luke Teaman. From what her family could see, Valerie seemed truly happy. When Valerie and Luke first started dating, he was in the military, so their relationship existed largely through Skype calls. According to one of Valerie's friends, those calls sometimes turned into little concerts. Valerie would sing to Luke, including the song that had come to define their long-distance relationship, wishing you were somehow here again from the Phantom of the Opera. Valerie still sang that song at Thursday night karaoke, dedicating it to Luke. Her friends said she had a beautiful singing voice. Valerie and Luke were married in June of 2014. Over the next couple of years, they lived between Maine and South Carolina and by the summer of 2016, they had moved into Luke's parents home in Fairfield. She grew friendships in Maine she found creative outlets. She was involved with the recycled Shakespeare Company and in the summer of 2016, she had recently been cast as the lead in an upcoming show and was supposed to pick up her script ahead of her goals, but she never came to get it. When rehearsals began, Valerie didn't show up for those either. Valerie had a role waiting for her, friends expecting to see her, and family still waiting to hear from her. When the message is stopped, it didn't feel like distance. It felt wrong. On September 12, Luke Teaman called Fairfield Police himself. The audio of that call has been edited for time. Yeah, where was that? You wanted to take my truck. It was gonna go and never come back again. I wouldn't let her and then we went go Offer to drive and we went to Cal even Walmart and Because we wanted to go out. Okay, and I don't know Want to get food that way? She won't come in with me. Okay? No idea what she might have gone to. No. Is that it? So according to Luke, Valerie threatened to leave him for another man. He wouldn't let her, and apparently defused the situation by driving them to Walmart for food. Valerie had stayed behind in their truck while he went inside the store, but when he came back out, she was gone. Airfield police officer Casey Dugas asked if Luke knew where the guy was from or if he was local, but Luke said he didn't know, and that Valerie didn't really go anywhere or do anything. He sounded confused and upset, and then he asked officer Dugas his own question. Within 24 hours, Fairfield police called in "Mainstate Police". Luke of Hugh Landry was assigned to Valerie's missing person's case that day. After a briefing by the local PD, Detective Landry went to the scowheag in Walmart. The place Luke said he last saw Valerie, and in the parking lot, Landry spotted Luke's red Chevy Silverado, and Luke was sitting inside. Detective Landry knew that Luke had a suspended driver's license, so he stopped the truck, and told Luke he was there because of the missing person's investigation into Valerie. He said he planned to review the store's security footage, a sensibly to see where Valerie went after leaving the truck. Luke told the detective he was there for the same reason, to find Valerie. He offered to show Detective Landry the area where they had parked, and the angle investigator should check on the security cameras. Detective Landry told Luke he wasn't concerned about his suspended license, and asked if Luke would be willing to come with him to the state police barracks for a more detailed interview. And Luke agreed. During that first interview, Luke walked Detective Landry through his and Valerie's movements before she disappeared. According to Luke, his sister was supposed to visit his parents' home where he and Valerie had been living. Luke said Valerie didn't get along with his sister, so he and Valerie decided they would stay with a friend in Norwichwalk for two or three days while his sister wasn't town. But during that stay, Luke said Valerie told him she was going to take the truck and leave him. Luke said he told Valerie not to leave, and he would take her to Walmart to get food. He said they pulled into the parking lot around dusk near the back of the store. Valerie didn't want to go inside, but she still wanted food, so Luke took the keys from the truck before going inside to prevent her from driving off without him. When he came back out, according to Luke, Valerie was gone, but she had left behind almost all of her belongings so Luke assumed that meant she planned to come back. He said he called and texted Valerie afterward trying to find out where she had gone and assuring her he would take her back, but he hadn't seen her since. Steve Landry asked about their relationship, and Luke explained that he and Valerie never argued, nor had there ever been any physical fights. But there was one part of the story Luke didn't see me go to share. He didn't want to tell police who he and Valerie had supposedly stayed with in Norwichwalk while his sister wasn't town. Eventually though, he agreed to show investigators where the house was. Luke led Detective Landry and another detective to some railroad tracks. He had the detectives park their vehicles and walk with him along the tracks, under a railroad trestle, until they reached a certain point on Main Street. There, Luke pointed out the house where he said he and Valerie had stayed just before she disappeared. But the more detectives tried to anchor Luke's story to evidence, the less it held. The detectives told Luke they wanted to speak with whoever lived at the house where he and Valerie last stayed, the place in Norwichwalk, but Luke hesitated before coming clean. He admitted that he and Valerie hadn't actually stayed at that house together. He never stayed there at all. The house belonged to someone Luke described as his "rebound girl". About an hour later, detectives met up with Luke again. He sat in the front seat of their cruiser and agreed to help them narrow down a few key dates for their case timeline. As they talked, Luke described Valerie as his caregiver. She was the only person he had, he said, and with Valerie missing Luke told detectives the only person who probably cared about him was a woman named Billy Joe. While Luke was sitting in the cruiser with detectives, Billy Joe actually called him. She was upset. She told Luke she didn't want to get involved with whatever was going on, but before Luke hung up the phone, he told her, "I love you." What exactly was Luke's relationship with Billy Joe? Just pressed him on it, how long had they known each other? What did he mean when he said he loved her? Could Valerie have found out about Billy Joe and gotten upset? Luke told them he had known Billy Joe for a little while and said they were all friends. He claimed he started talking to Billy Joe. Around the same time, Valerie was talking to someone else too. And the house Luke had pointed out near the railroad tracks? That was Billy Joe's place. For a short time, there was still a version of this where Valerie was alive. Maybe she had found out about Billy Joe. Maybe she was hurt, furious, embarrassed, done? Maybe after whatever happened between her and Luke, Valerie decided she didn't want to answer his calls or her parents' messages or anyone else's questions. Maybe she just needed space. Maybe she left on her own. If that was all true, it should be easy to prove, right? At minimum, surveillance cameras should have been able to corroborate the leading detail of Luke's story, that Valerie disappeared from his truck outside Walmart that night. However, when investigators reviewed 11 days of footage, every hour between 5 pm and 10 30 pm, the window when Luke claimed he and Valerie were there, Luke's red truck never appeared. No truck, no Valerie, no Luke, not in the window of time that lined up. The cell phone records told a different story too. Investigators learned that on the night of August 24, Valerie called Luke 31 times between 5.46 pm and 10.22 pm. The last recorded phone call from Valerie to Luke lasted 13 minutes and 33 seconds. Luke's phone, pinged from a tower in Scalhegan that serviced the general area of Norsewalk Road in Fairfield near Luke's mother's home where Valerie and Luke had been living. Luke's phone, meanwhile, first pinged from a tower in Waterville. By the end of that call, his phone was pinging from the same Scalhegan tower as Valerie's. After that, Luke's phone continued pinging from that same tower until the next day, August 25, around 2.30 pm, when it connected again with a Waterville tower. Based on that cell phone data, it appears Luke may have been on his way back to the Fairfield home during that final call with Valerie and that the call ended when he arrived. While investigators were working behind the scenes to piece together Valerie's last known movements, Luke was speaking publicly about his missing wife. On September 15, he told reporters that Valerie had run off before during their relationship, but that he had always been able to catch her and in his words, talk her sense to come back. He thought Valerie might have gotten back with an ex, but he didn't care. He just wanted her to come back, no hard feelings. He said he was exhausted, exhausted from trying to find Valerie, exhausted from everyone trying to talk to him, exhausted from having to repeat the story again and again. His message to Valerie was, quote, "I love her, and I don't care about the past, just come back or at least let your family know," end quote. A Facebook account that appears to belong to Luke also remained active during this time. On September 15, the account posted about going back to the gym for the first time in months, stating that he had benched 315 pounds five times in a row, leg pressed 900 pounds, 9 times in a row, and played with 50 pound dumbbells, "Glory to God," the post said. The next day, September 16, the same account posted, quote, "Please pray for Valerie Teaman," missing, end quote, followed by requests for prayers for two other people who had recently suffered heart attacks. Also, on September 16, Luke shared an article about the investigation into Valerie's disappearance that Valerie's father, Alan, had posted from new station WMTW. Beneath the article, Luke commented that he had just finished that day's search with a couple of detectives, and that in one of the last places he saw Valerie, they found set of women's footprints that matched her shoe pattern and shoe size. He said those prints were found with another set of mail-boot prints and that they took photos and would continue surveillance of the area. Those footprints were discovered after Luke brought police to a campsite he said he and Valerie had used at some point. In another comment, Luke wrote that they were talking about bringing in a canine for tracking, adding, quote, "Pray we find her," end quote. Then on September 17th, the account posted two Bible verses. One read, "Rong duvers eagerly listen to gossip, liars pay close attention to slander." The other read, "Rumors are dainty morsels that sink deep into one's heart." Meanwhile, on September 18th, a main state police trooper responded to Welch Street in Norwichwalk near the apartment where Luke had admitted he was staying with the woman he called his "rebound girl." Doug Harlow reports for the Kennebec Journal that someone had found Valerie's license lying face down in the grass in a parking lot off Main Street. If Valerie never lived there, then how did her license end up nearby? No matter what Luke said, the evidence kept pulling investigators away from the scenes and locations Luke claimed Valerie was last seen and pointing them much closer to home. On September 20th, 2016, main state police obtained a search warrant for the team in residence in Fairfield. The property sat off Norwichwalk Road, also known as Route 139. It's not deep wilderness, exactly, but in that part of the state, a home can sit close to the road, with the woods gathering behind it all that pine, rush, uneven ground, and enough distance so that whatever happens beyond the backyard can feel separate from the rest of the world. Investigators soon arrived at the log cabin-style home where Luke and Valerie had been living with this family. A police dog, named Sig, was brought in to assist with the search. The canine moved through the property the way trained dogs do, nose low, working the ground, pulling investigators away from the house and into the wooded area behind it. They didn't have to search long. Just a few minutes later, a few hundred yards into the woods behind the home, investigators found a shallow grave. Inside was the partially buried body of a woman. At that moment, police had not yet publicly confirmed that the woman was Valerie. But everything about the discovery pointed the investigation away from a missing person who had run off and toward something much worse. According to the autopsy report, the woman's body was wrapped in a blanket. She was wearing damp clothing, including brown boots, bright yellow green socks, a gray t-shirt, jeans, and a navy shirt. There were other items buried with the body, beneath her was a bag of potato chips, an empty sweet tarp box, a mason jar with flower stems, and a note. The note read, quote, "To my one and only joy joy, flower, forever, you forever. I love you for always. I love Valerie Joy team in with all my heart. Rest in peace with my heart and Jesus. I can't wait to be with you and see you and hold you again. Your luky debaer, GI Joe Forever, Amen." Also buried with the body was a perfume bottle, the name of the fragrance was guilty by Gucci. While investigators were searching his parents' property, Luke Teaman was being interviewed by police. He talked about going to a pool party on August 24th. He talked about the girlfriends he had while he was married to Valerie. He talked about issues in his marriage about Valerie's alleged drug use and about a woman texting Valerie to tell her Luke was cheating. Then about halfway through that interview, investigators told Luke what was just found on the property. A body believed to be Valerie buried in the woods. Luke's first response was, "Is it her? Was it suicide?" And then Luke said he didn't know anything about it. He said he hadn't done anything to Valerie. But as detectives pressed, Luke Teaman's story changed once again. This time, he said yes. The body was Valerie. He claimed Valerie had struggled with substance use and that he provided her with heroin on the night she died. According to Luke, he watched Valerie use the drug, saw her smile at him, and then she stopped breathing. Luke told investigators he didn't call 911 because he knew Valerie was dead. He said he left her in bed until late that night then buried her in a trench outside. He also said his brother helped bury her. He said he didn't tell her parents because he didn't want them to know about her drug use. For a moment, that was the latest version of Valerie's disappearance. Not that she had walked away from Walmart to be with someone else, but that she had died from a drug overdose and Luke had panicked. But when the autopsy was completed, it left no doubt that Luke's newest story was not the truth. The Toxicology Report did show substances in Valerie's system, including buprenorphine, a schedule 3 synthetic opioid used for pain and pharmacotherapy for opioid dependence and tram it all, a synthetic opioid receptor agonist used for moderate to moderately severe pain. But those substances together or separate did not kill her, the gunshot wounds did. The autopsy documented one gunshot wound described as an indeterminate range entrance wound of the right parietal scalp. Within exit wound at the right front of her forehead, a second gunshot wound was found at the right posterior neck. Bullet fragments were recovered from Valerie's skull and she died from those two gunshot wounds to the head. Investigators identified the murder weapon as a 45 caliber citadel handgun. During a search of the house, police recovered a 45 caliber handgun and ammunition from the primary bedroom. Ballistics testing later determined that a bullet fragment recovered during Valerie's autopsy was consistent with that handgun. Investigators also found blood evidence inside the house. With all the information on the table, detectives asked Luke how he could explain the bullet wounds if Valerie died from heroin use the way he claimed. Luke could not provide an explanation. The same day Valerie's body was found buried in the woods behind his family's home. Luke Teaman spent the night at a hotel in Waterville. The next morning around 7 a.m. Luke's mother, Laurel, was reportedly taking Luke to Togus VA Medical Center to see a crisis counselor. About three hours later, police arrested him on the charge of intentional or knowing murder. Even after Valerie's body had been found, even after he admitted to burying her, Luke continued to deny killing his wife. During an interview on the day of his arrest, a detective asked him, "Is it possible you loved her so much you killed her so she wouldn't leave you? At what point did you shoot her?" Luke insisted that he did not kill Valerie. He said he loved her like Christ loved the church and asked, "If I killed my wife, why would I leave a note?" By then, investigators were looking not only at what Luke said happened to Valerie, but at who Luke was, what his relationships looked like. And what else had been happening in the weeks before she disappeared. Judy Harrison reports for The Bangor Daily News that Luke was a US Army veteran who enlisted in 2004 and was honorably discharged in January of 2013. His military records showed service connected to Iraq and Afghanistan, several awards and medals, and work as a power generation equipment repairer and specialist E4. Friends said Luke had suffered a significant skull injury in a mortar attack in Iraq, reportedly causing brain damage. He was described as disabled and said to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Luke had also been married before Valerie. He and his first wife were high school sweethearts and had four children together, but according to his former wife, Luke's behavior changed later in the relationship, but before he went into the army. She said there were numerous domestic violence incidents, and after their divorce in 2013, Luke was ordered not to have any physical contact with their children. Luke's criminal history was limited, though he did have a 2015 misdemeanor criminal mischief conviction connected to a 2014 incident at a Winslow gun shop, where police said he damaged a trailer with a hatchet after an argument with Valerie. But in Valerie's case, it was Luke's relationships with other women that became central to understanding the days leading up to her death. Luke had told investigators that he and Billy Joe were just friends, but Billy Joe's version of events described something much more involved. She said they started talking sometime around August 21st, after she and Luke commented on the same Facebook post. Not long after that, maybe as soon as August 24th, Billy Joe said Luke told her he wanted to be with her romantically. They met in person for the first time at a pool party in Waterville that same day. Billy Joe had posted a photo from the municipal pool, and Luke just showed up there. Luke stayed at the party longer than he should have, and told Billy Joe his wife was not going to be happy about it. But he also said he and Valerie were having problems. According to court records, the relationship between Luke and Billy Joe became sexual that night. But pool party, lined up with the night Valerie called Luke dozens of times, including the final call she ever made to him. According to Billy Joe, sometime after the pool party, Luke came over to her home and then stayed there every single night. He told Billy Joe that Valerie met somebody else and left him. But Billy Joe wasn't the only woman investigators learned about. Our woman named Tori said Luke had reportedly stalked her for months, trying to get her to go out with him even calling her children and sending them money. Tori was unpersuaded. She knew Valerie, had met Luke and Valerie at the same time, and didn't want anything romantic with Luke. And then Tori learned Luke was involved with another woman too. She decided Valerie deserved to know and sent Valerie messages on August 25th, the day after the pool party with Billy Joe. At first, Valerie didn't believe her. But eventually, Tori said, Valerie took her at her word. Valerie responded that Luke had broken her heart, but that it would all work out because God had a plan. She also said Luke would never find anyone better than her, and that he had lost her. According to Tori, Luke called her after she disclosed his affair to Valerie. He asked Tori why she did that to him and said that he'd just calmed Valerie down. Investigators would later come to believe that Luke shot Valerie that same day, August 25th, and after that, Luke moved in with Billy Joe. It became the theory prosecutors would take to trial that Valerie found out Luke was cheating, confronted him or planned to leave him, and Luke killed her rather than face what came next. The state didn't have a confession. Luke never admitted to shooting Valerie, but prosecutors argued they didn't need him to say the truth out loud. They had the timeline, the phone records, the affair, the changing stories, the body buried behind the home where Luke and Valerie had been living, and the gun evidence. By the time Luke team instead trial, the question was no longer whether Valerie had walked away from Walmart. The question was whether a jury would believe Luke's last remaining denial. On October 28th, 2016, a Somerset County grand jury indicted Luke's team in on the charge of intentional or knowing murder. He pleaded not guilty and was held without bail. Before trial, the court ordered a competency evaluation that looked at Luke's post-traumatic stress, brain function, and whether any serious mental condition affected his ability to understand the proceedings or appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. The case ultimately moved forward. There were also fights over what the jury would and would not hear. The defense tried to suppress statement Luke made to main state police, including the version where he said Valerie died after using heroin, and he buried her in the woods. The defense also tried to introduce an alternative suspect theory involving another man with alleged drug connections, and to keep Luke's phrase "rebound girl" out of trial. Assistant Attorney General Leanne Zaneia argued that the alternative suspect theory was speculation, not evidence, and that Luke's own words should remain in the case. The judge denied the key motions, the defense could not present the alternative suspect theory, and Luke's statements about the rebound girl could be used at trial. Every selection began at the end of March 2018, and when the members were finally seated, they heard a case built around Luke's changing stories. A trial prosecutors walked the jury through each version Luke had given, Valerie leaving from Walmart, Valerie leaving him for someone else, Valerie dying from heroin use, and Luke bearing her body. To the state, those weren't misunderstandings. They were lies, layered over the truth. The defense saw it differently. Luke's attorney argued that Luke had "cooperated" yet spoken with Belize, helped search for Valerie, pointed out places she might have been, and didn't act like a man with something to hide. But the physical evidence was hard to get around. Former state deputy chief medical examiner Dr. Claire Bryce testified that there was no evidence of heroin and Valerie's system when toxicology testing was performed, although other substances were found, Dr. Bryce testified those substances did not kill her. Valerie died from two gunshot wounds. Even though the judge had blocked the formal alternative suspect theory, the defense still tried to shift attention toward someone else. Luke's own brother, Sam Teeman. Luke had previously claimed that Sam helped him bury Valerie's body. The defense pointed out that Sam lived in the same house, had a history of drug use, worked in construction, and that the tools used to bury Valerie belong to him. The prosecution countered that everyone had access to those tools because they were kept in an unlocked shed on the property. They also argued that Sam was working about 90 minutes away for the entire week and did not have his own license, so he relied on his boss for rights to work. He just didn't have the means to come back and kill Valerie. Sam testified that Luke told him Valerie had left him, and the next thing he knew Luke was accusing him of helping bury her body. Sam said that was why he wanted to testify to call his brother out on the accusation. He said he did not help bury Valerie and did not know anything about her death. And then Luke took the stand in his own defense, despite what his attorney Steven Smith described as repeated and strenuous advice not to testify. When asked directly if he killed his wife, Luke said no. He did admit that he changed his story many times, though. Luke testified that he made up the Walmart story because he wanted to spare Valerie's parents the worry of thinking she had left with another man to use drugs. He said if Valerie came back that version would make her look bad. Assistant Attorney General Znaya pressed him on that. She pointed out that when Luke was telling those stories, Valerie was already buried in his backyard. Luke responded with one word. No. In an unusual move, Luke delivered his own closing statement to the jury. He argued in part, quote, "The state is accusing me of murdering my beautiful wife Valerie team in which I didn't do. It would have helped if they could show a motive," end quote. Luke had offered explanation after explanation already. Prosecutors called them lies. And now the decision was in the hands of the people who had heard all of it. They didn't need long. In less than an hour, the jury returned with a verdict. Guilty. At sentencing, Luke's mother, Laurel, asked the court for mercy and consideration for her son, describing him as a wounded veteran and speaking about the post-traumatic stress service members can experience after combat. She said she didn't want to make excuses for Luke, but asked the court to balance justice with mercy. Then Valerie's father, Alan, gave a victim impact statement rooted in faith, grief, and grace. He thanked Luke for his military service, and said he could never hate him, but he also told Luke that he was supposed to love and protect Valerie, and instead he took her life and lied about it. Luke's team was ultimately sentenced to 55 years in prison. He appealed his conviction in 2019, raising evidentiary issues involving emails and Facebook messenger messages that he argued had not been properly authenticated. The messages included communications between Valerie and the woman who told her Luke was having an affair, as well as messages apparently sent from Valerie's Facebook account after Valerie was dead. The prosecution believed Luke sent those messages, but his lawyer argued the state couldn't prove that, and that the messages should not have been admitted at trial. The appeal was denied. Luke's team remains in prison. Despite all the questions that came out throughout the investigation and trial about other members of Luke's family, including his mother, brother, and father, no other member of the team and family was charged with anything related to Valerie's death, the burial of her body, or the alleged efforts to conceal what happened to her. Luke has never truly taken responsibility for Valerie's death. Again and again, Luke has tried to make Valerie's death into anything except what it was. And that denial is part of what makes this case so chilling. Not just that Luke lied, but how completely he seemed to live inside those lies. How he could very Valerie write a note to her, speak to her parents, talk to reporters, pursue a new relationship, and still stand in court as if the truth had not followed him there. Now Valerie's case is also part of a much larger and devastating pattern. Moving to the CDC, about one in five homicide victims in the United States are killed by an intimate partner, and more than half of female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male intimate partner. In an analysis of intimate partner homicides involving female victims from 2018 to 2021, the CDC found that most happened at the victim's residence, most involved the male suspect, and about two thirds involved a firearm. For too many women, the person who poses the greatest danger is not a stranger, at someone who knows them, who says they love them, who believes jealousy, rejection, humiliation, or control, gives them the right to decide whether that woman gets to keep living. After Valerie's death, her father wrote about one of the most heartbreaking things a parent could ever experience, the tragic and useless murder of her precious daughter. He said the family was comforted in the hardest time of their lives by the belief that Valerie was in heaven. At Valerie's memorial service in Maine, her friend Erin Rodin said, quote, "Everyone that knew Valerie knows that her flame was a flame of light, providing illumination to those around her, and lighting a path of faith and joyfulness," end quote. Another friend, Lynn Rodin, shared with Kennebecht Journal reporter Lorna Botte that, "Valerie's heart was full of love, and the praise of God was on her lips and in everything she did." That is what remains after Luke's stories fell apart. Not the version of Valerie he tried to create, the real Valerie Harman. Valerie was kind without being weak, faithful without being performative, creative, funny, generous, and brave. She was the woman who showed up for other people, the woman who sang, the woman who loved hard, believed deeply, and kept trying to find joy even when life had not been gentle with her. And that is the truth her killer could not bury. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdown east.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram @DarkDownEast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Adria Chuck. I think Chuck would approve.