On the evening of August 22, 1982, 11-year-old Richard Ricky Stetson left home in Portland, Maine, to jog the Back Cove trail wearing a gray sweatsuit. Witnesses reported seeing the red-headed boy running that night and at least one young man with dark hair on a bicycle in the area. When Richard did not return by dark, his parents called police.

The next morning a motorist found Richard’s body at the side of Interstate 295. Although investigators first suspected a hit-and-run, an autopsy showed he had been strangled and stabbed multiple times in the chest. Bite marks on his body indicated a struggle and became a key piece of evidence. An early suspect spent about a year and a half in custody but was released after his dental records did not match the bite mark.

The investigation advanced when 20-year-old Air Force radar technician John Joubert was arrested in January 1984 and his teeth matched the bite mark on Richard. Joubert was later charged, convicted in Maine, and sentenced to life in prison for Richard’s murder. If anyone knew Richard’s routines or saw a young man on a bicycle near Back Cove that evening, please share what you remember.