Police hope the latest episode from the podcast, “Murder, She Told,” will encourage key witnesses to come forward, enabling them to finally crack the case of Monroe’s only unsolved murder, the killing of eight-year-old Renee Freer. On June 22, 1977, the little girl’s battered body was found in a wooded area, about 300 yards from her family’s Connecticut home, near a blood covered rock believed to be the murder weapon.
Kristen Seavey, an actress and true crime fan, started the podcast over four years ago, producing over 130 full length episodes on nearly 100 cases. “Murder, She Told” primarily focuses on unsolved murders in New England.
“I grew up in central Maine, and have always been interested in mysteries and true crime since I was a kid,” Seavey said. “Over the past few years I started exploring the crimes that happened in my home state and realized there are so many unsolved murders, missing persons, and buried mysteries that people aren’t talking about.”
Seavey said stories from Maine are rarely covered by the mainstream media. “I wanted to change that and give these cases a platform to get people talking about them again,” she said, adding her ultimate goal is to bring closure for victims’ families and friends.
Her new episode, “The Unsolved Murder of Renee Freer,” was posted to her blog today (Tuesday).
Seavey uses interviews with Monroe Police Lt. Kevin McKellick and Det. Jeffrey Marcel, who is the officer currently handling the case, and author Erik C. Hanson, who grew up in Monroe and recently published a book on the Freer murder entitled, “Dead End Road.”
Seavey and McKellick credit Hanson with bringing renewed attention to the case through his book and “Who Killed Renee Freer?” Facebook page.
“I get a lot of Google alerts and I had one about an article about Erik’s impending book,” Seavey told The Sun in a phone interview Monday. “Then Erik reached out to me and asked if I was interested in covering it, so I took it as a sign to say yes.”
Seavey went on to do her own independent research, incorporating old newspaper articles and details from Hanson’s book, while working with the Monroe Police Department to learn what officers were at liberty to tell her, in light of the open investigation, and to avoid adding fuel to any false rumors swirling around the case over the years.
“We strive to be accurate on our show and make corrections whenever we can,” Seavey said.
Unless podcasters and reporters have a police report sitting right in front of them, Seavey said mistakes are bound to happen from time to time.
“This will hopefully help correct some of those little details reported incorrectly,” she said of rumors and repeated mistakes over the years. “The good thing about partnering with Monroe police is we can go over those things and correct anything.”
‘It’s 100 percent solvable’
Seavey’s style is that of a vivid storyteller and her podcasts are enhanced by audio clips from interview subjects being weaved into the narrative.
In the Renee Freer episode, Seavey introduces the little girl affectionately known by her friends as “Giggles” before telling her audience about the tragic murder, the ensuing police investigation and the impact on their small town, whose residents were suddenly gripped by fear over a killer on the loose.
The podcast chronicles the “countless hours” of interviews and mountains of paperwork local investigators have pored over, while frequently following up fresh new leads in their shared goal of solving the case.
“What went into trying to solve this case, just the amount of effort is incredible,” Seavey said. “Those are some of the things you don’t see online or in the newspapers, just to hear about the amount of work that was done and knowing how much people care about solving this case.”
Though Freer’s murder dates back to 1977, Seavey said she believes there is still hope that the killer will be brought to justice.
In her podcast, Seavey shared the story of the case of Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish, who were both killed in 1978:
They were at a highway rest area in West Springfield, Massachusetts, in their beat-up pickup truck, sleeping. The killer shot both of them multiple times, breaking the glass of their truck window. Their bodies were pulled out through the driver-side window and dragged down an embankment where they were left to die.
Police were able to lift a fingerprint from the scene, but could not find a match until October of 2024, when they received a tip to look into a man named Timothy Joley. Investigators not only learned he bought the same caliber of weapon used in the murder just a month before the double homicide, but fingerprints from his taxi cab license application in 2000 were a match.
On Oct. 29, Timothy, 71, was charged with the murders. He is currently awaiting trial.
In Seavey’s podcast, McKellick said Monroe police continue to work with the Connecticut Crime Laboratory to examine old evidence from the Freer case.
“I agree that it’s 100 percent solvable,” Seavey said. “I get so inspired when I see cases get solved when someone calls in a tip. Just because this case is from 1977 doesn’t mean that it can’t be solved and it also doesn’t mean people are not working on it.”
“I’m just so happy that Erik breathed new life into this case,” she added of Hanson.
Over the years, Seavey said some listeners of her podcast told her they shared information with police after hearing an episode, and she said it may have happened other times that she wasn’t aware of.
She expressed her hope that the episode on Renee Freer will encourage someone with information to come forward to help police. Anyone with information is encouraged to call Detective Marcel at the Monroe Detective Division, 203-452-2831.
While creating the podcast, Seavey said she was struck by how so many people still have memories and care so deeply about Renee — a generation impacted by the loss of a close childhood friend, while the man who took her life has gotten to live his own.
“Hopefully, I can have an update episode in my feed,” Seavey said. “There’s always that hope of an update for an arrest or for a case that has been solved after the suspect had died. That’s the hope when I put out these stories, that the families and victims will finally get justice.”
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