Being beaten to death is a very personal and intimate way to die. Was it someone that was unstable or someone close to her? I am not really sure we will ever know.

On the morning of November 6, 1976, 27-year-old Dorothy L. Dottie Milliken was found dead outside Beal’s Laundromat on Lisbon Street in Lewiston, Maine. A paperboy discovered her body at about 4:40 a.m. An autopsy determined she had been beaten to death; blunt force trauma to the head was the cause of death.

The night before, November 5, Milliken — a mother of three who lived in nearby Sabattus — left home around 11:00 p.m. after her husband went to bed to use the 24-hour laundromat, a routine she often did late at night or in the early morning. She had been preparing to return to work from maternity leave the following Monday.

No arrests have ever been made. Investigators have interviewed suspects over the years, but the motive remains unclear and the case went cold. Milliken’s daughter Tonia, who was seven when her mother was killed, has worked to keep the case in the public eye and the family has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. A recent book has examined the case and its unanswered questions.

Did anyone in Lewiston or Sabattus in 1976 have information about Milliken’s late-night routines or the area around Beal’s Laundromat?