Aisha Mariah Dickson - The night of the murder

Three adults were in the house the night 8-month-old Aisha Dickson was beaten to death.

According to her mother, Sarah Johnson, this is what happened.

On Friday, January 6th, 1995, Sarah had been at school all morning while her baby was at home with her father DeShawn and her grandmother June in their apartment on Bald Mountain Drive in Bangor, Maine. After returning home from school, Sarah and her mother June took baby Aisha took a bus to the Airport Mall to buy a new television. At the time, Sarah noticed Aisha was fussy but brushed it off as hunger.

Later that afternoon at home, Sarah played with Aisha before giving her a bottle and putting her to bed upstairs for the night. Again, she took note of Aisha’s persistent fussiness. A friend and her young son came over while Aisha was sleeping, and they watched some TV together while her mother lay on the couch. DeShawn was upstairs playing video games. At some point, Aisha woke crying. To soothe her, Sarah gave her another bottle. Aisha usually held her own bottles, but this time she didn’t even grab for it. Sarah had to feed her the entire time. Before putting her back to bed, she put her in her walker, thinking it would comfort her. Once she stopped crying, Sarah put her back to bed, returned to the living room, and bid her friend goodbye. Around 9:30PM, she took a shower before locking up the apartment for the night. Her mother still reclined on the couch. Before turning in, Sarah checked on the baby.

Aisha’s crib was against the wall, and she was laying on her stomach. Sarah later said that the baby initially looked as though she was sleeping peacefully, but she momentarily realized that didn’t seem to be breathing (and had thrown up some formula). Sarah panicked and paced between the bedroom and bathroom until running downstairs to tell her mother something was wrong with Aisha and to use the phone to call 911. As the emergency operator told Sarah what to do, DeShawn gave Aisha CPR. When the EMTs arrived, they also tried to resuscitate her. A few minutes later, neighbors watched as the infant’s limp naked body was carried out to the waiting ambulance—she was still breathing. Aisha and Sarah were taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center, where the baby was pronounced dead an hour later.

Autopsy findings

Dr. Kristen Sweeney performed Aisha’s autopsy on Sunday. The baby’s body showed signs of blunt force injuries, and Dr. Sweeney ultimately determined the cause of death to be a blow to the head. And her postmortem examination revealed more than the damage done Friday night. The medical examiner discovered scars going back to when Aisha had been just two months old. While her most fatal injuries were fresh, she also showed signs of healing from past wounds. Nearly every major bone in her body had been broken at some point in her short life except for her spine.

Aisha, too, was severely underweight. She weighed 11 pounds at her death, but an average female 8-month-old baby should weigh 18 pounds. A typical baby is 11 pounds by their second month of life. Aisha’s weight was alarming.

This examination raised some questions: had the accumulating injuries Aisha had suffered caused a slow death over the last few weeks? Or did she die because of one particularly violent incident that Friday night?

Who were Aisha’s parents?

Sarah Johnson was 21 years old when she gave birth to Aisha. At the time of her daughter’s death, Sarah was attending the Penobscot Job Corps part time. Since 1964, it was a program for at-risk high schoolers and young adults to train for careers in technical fields such as healthcare, manufacturing, and hospitality. It was at Job Corps that Sarah met DeShawn Dickson, who was in the welding program. They moved in together, and when Aisha was a few months old they’d moved to the apartment on Bald Mountain Drive. Earlier that winter, Sarah’s mother June moved in with them. Before Aisha died, Sarah had been trying to go back to school full time at Job Corps after getting Aisha on their daycare waitlist.

Brian and Shirley Stormann, the adoptive grandparents

Brian and Shirley Stormann of Bangor had only known Aisha for the six weeks leading up to her death, but for that brief period they were a constant presence in her life.

Brian, who was 50 years old, taught Sarah at Job Corps. His wife, Shirley, was 45 years old, and they lived together in a 2-story single-family home in a well-kept neighborhood on the west side of Bangor. Shirley and Brian had raised her son, but by 1994, when they met Aisha, he was in his mid-20’s and was on his own. Brian and Shirley lived by themselves.

Brian had met Sarah in his classes and recognized her as a new and inexperienced mother. She seemed uncomfortable with Aisha. Brian shared his observations with Shirley and encouraged her to reach out to the new mom. Shirley was around kids all the time in her job as a kindergarten and first grade teacher at Downeast Elementary and was confident and capable with children. Shirley offered to help Sarah, and she accepted. Aisha stole their hearts, and Brian and Shirley took on symbolic roles as Aisha’s foster grandparents.

Shirley: “He came home one day and said, ‘I have this student at Job Corps. She’s a young mom. The dad is kinda questionable.’ Brian was not a fan of DeShawn’s... Had seen a few things with DeShawn pushing Sarah around in the hallways. I just really think that she could use some help... some support... parenting this baby. She had asked repeatedly, ‘Can I come over some time? Can I come over some time?’ So we eventually invited her over to dinner. And she pretty much spent the next three weeks with us, excluding sleeping time.”

Taking Sarah under their wings, the Stormanns would have her and her daughter over to their home a few times a week for dinner. They were concerned about Aisha and tried to help Sarah become a better mother.

Shirley: “She was an awkward mother. She didn’t have, what I would consider to be, that natural mothering, nurturing instinct. Once I met June, it answered a few questions. I don’t know if Sarah ever had a nurturing mother either.”

Shirley: “Sarah was not a patient mother either, and would get pretty frustrated if the baby would be fussy. We talked a lot, ‘sometimes babies are just fussy.’ Little did I know, Aisha had a lot of reason at the time to be fussy.”

Shirley: “Most of it was just around being a more nurturing, patient, mom. We talked a lot about skin contact and eye contact, and the importance of that to infants. I honestly don’t think any of that made much of a difference. I didn’t see much of a change.”

Aisha’s father, DeShawn, was opposed to Brian and Shirley’s involvement in their lives, and interacted with them as little as possible.

Shirley took Aisha to church with her on Sundays—a non-denominational church in Brewer.

Just weeks after they connected, Brian and Shirley had Aisha and her parents over for Christmas at their home.

The Stormanns start noticing problems

In that brief period of time, Shirley immediately noticed problems with Aisha’s development. She was not a normal healthy baby.

Any time that she was picked up, she would fuss—as though she was physically in pain—no matter who was carrying her.

Shirley: “I had concerns... She would cry really hard any time that you changed her position. Like if she was laying down and you picked her up. Obviously knowing what we know now... She hurt.”

Shirley got her a baby bouncer/walker and Aisha couldn’t make it move. She had no motor skills. Shirley later had baby twins that were bouncing all over her house at 6 months old.

They noticed injuries to Aisha and began writing them down. On December 18th, they wrote that she had bruises on her forearm and right cheekbone. On December 23rd, they noticed that Aisha had bruises the size of quarters on both sides of her head. Shirley thought it looked like someone had jammed her head between the bars of a crib.

Sarah told Shirley that her mother, June, was watching Aisha when these injuries happened. And June said that Aisha tipped her bouncer/walker over, hurting herself. But that didn’t sit make sense to Shirley: Aisha couldn’t even make the thing move, much less topple it.

Shirley believed that part of the explanation of Aisha’s delayed development was neglect. She was never given the stimulation to thrive and was left in her crib or car seat for hours and hours all alone.

Shirley noticed bruises on Sarah as well, and suspected that DeShawn was physically abusing her.

Shirley: “I’ve seen bruises on Sarah. [She’d say] ‘Oh, I bumped the door case,’ or ‘I fell,’ or ‘I tripped going downstairs.” And I asked her outright, ‘Is DeShawn hitting you? Is he abusing you?’ And she said, ‘No, no no.’ So yeah, I do believe she was [physically abused].”

Brian and Shirley sensed something disturbing was going on. They contacted child protective services, but were told by DHS that there was insufficient evidence to warrant action—so they kept watch, themselves, as best they could. We asked Shirley what DHS told her.

Shirley: “It was always the same thing. They’d take the call. They’d discuss it with a supervisor. The supervisor would make the decision if it was going to be investigated...”

Shirley: “Because I did it anonymously, I was always fearful that Sarah would figure it out and estrange me from her and the baby. To my knowledge that never happened, which led me to believe that DHS never investigated.”

Years afterward, Brian struggled with feelings of guilt that he didn't do more to protect Aisha. “I just wish I had taken her and run,” he said. “I should have just grabbed her and gone.”

1995, the January 5th incident

Thursday, January 5th, 1995, the day before Aisha’s death, Shirley made another entry in her log of injuries. Shirley spoke with Sarah on the phone that evening, and Sarah said that Aisha had blood in her mouth, but said it was nothing to worry about. “We think she’s fine.”

Shirley and Brian insisted, “We’re coming over.” Shirley told Sarah, “We’re going to the hospital.” Aisha was admitted at the ER and a pediatric doctor saw her. Sarah refused to let her into the room—Shirley speculates today that it was because she was worried what Sarah might say to the doctor. Sarah and Shirley both knew how serious a call from a doctor to child protective services would be for Aisha’s future. Sarah had bundled Aisha in two snow-suits which Shirley believed was to conceal how underweight she was. Sarah told the doctor that she believed that Aisha had cut the inside of her mouth with a rattle, but Shirley was skeptical—Aisha had limited mobility in her arms, how would she have been even holding a rattle.

We asked Shirley why she thought that Sarah would have put Aisha in two snow-suits.

Shirley: “Because, #1, I think she wanted her to weigh more. I don’t know if you’ve been to one of those pediatric clinic type places, but it’s just crazy busy. And I think that she was hoping that they wouldn’t take the time to totally undress her. If they saw bruises on the baby that were inexplicable, they would have to report, and that’s what she was trying to avoid... in my opinion.”

Shirley: “You know it’s the same reason that Sarah never let me change a diaper when she was [at the house] with the baby... EVER. I would say, ‘Oh my god, baby’s stinky! I’ll change her,’ and she would say ‘No,’ and take her to another room... Evidence of abuse that she didn’t want me to see.”

To this day, Shirley carries some guilt about that night. She wonders if the pressure she applied to Sarah resulted in the violent and lethal consequences the following evening.

Shirley: “We tried to get Sarah to spend the night because I was very worried about sending them home, and she wouldn’t stay.”

Shirley remembers the night of Aisha’s death

The Stormanns had no communication with Aisha’s family the next day until it was already too late.

Sarah called Shirley before she called 9-1-1.

Shirley: “She was very matter of fact. She said, ‘You know, we found the baby... I went to check the baby before I went to bed and the baby wasn’t breathing.’ And I’m like, ‘My god, Sarah! Have you called 9-1-1?’ ‘No.’ ‘You NEED to call 9-1-1.’ Then when she called me back she said, ‘The ambulance is going to come.’

Shirley: “I don’t know if she called me thinking I’d say... ‘I’ll come over...’ or ‘Don’t call...’ I don’t know what the purpose of that call was. That’s always puzzled me.”

Shirley rushed to the hospital before Aisha had died, and confronted Sarah. She asked, “Which one of you did it?”

Shirley: “[She responded] with her same rehearsed story that she always had. ‘We don’t know... we don’t know what happened... we didn’t do anything to her...’ And I told her that night, and I’ve told her any time I’ve had an opportunity since, ‘You’re lying. If you didn’t do it, you know who did.’”

DeShawn and June weren’t present—they were still at home.

When Shirley learned that Aisha was in critical condition, she called her pastor and asked him to come quick.

The doctor came into the waiting room and said, “We’ve done everything. She’s gone. Would you like to hold her?”

Shirley: “Sarah—to my knowledge—never shed a tear. And I remember thinking she was afraid... it was almost like it became more about her than the baby... like, ‘Oh my god, now what?’ It was just a feeling. And when the doctor came out and offered her an opportunity to be with the baby, or see the baby, she declined, and said, ‘Oh my god, gross! I don’t want to see her if she’s dead.’ My husband and I took the opportunity and went in. I went in and rocked her.”

Shirley said that there were police officers in the hallway. She told them, “They killed her,” and they replied, “We know.”

Announced as a homicide

On the Monday following Aisha’s death, Bangor PD held a press conference and declared her death a homicide. The autopsy, which was conducted Sunday, concluded she had died of a skull fracture and blunt force trauma.

Shirley: “Honestly, there was a little spot of relief because now that they’ve ruled it a murder, we’re gonna have a little justice here. I just hadn’t felt that there was a lot of support the last two days. I had asked a lot of questions of the police, and I was getting [a lot of answers]... and probably rightfully so, they’re not going to tell me every little thing they’re finding. But when I got news of the autopsy, I thought ‘Now there’ll be an arrest,’ but that never came. So that moment of relief didn’t last very long.”

The Bangor Daily News called the house, got Sarah on the phone, and were told, “What happened to my daughter is nobody’s business.” They spoke to June as well, and she said, “Police have no reason to arrest the baby’s parents because they weren’t responsible for their daughter’s death.” The language she used—the baby and the baby’s parents—was odd and distancing. June was talking about her own daughter and granddaughter.

The funeral

Tensions ran high at Aisha’s funeral services on Wednesday, January 11th at Brookings-Smith in Bangor. Aisha’s tiny body lay in an open casket surrounded by pink and white flowers. In the front row sat Sarah, DeShawn, and DeShawn’s mother, Elaine. Through most of the service, DeShawn had his face in his hands while Sarah quietly sobbed. Two police detectives also attended, watching for suspicious behavior and gathering evidence. According to witnesses, after the ceremony, Elaine accosted Sarah’s mother June as she stood over the casket touching her granddaughter. Elaine told June to leave Aisha alone because she’d “hurt her for the last time.” June also apparently struck her own daughter in the face after Sarah tried to prevent her from taking a photograph of Aisha in her casket.

Shirley and Brian were there, too, swallowing a potent mix of anger and sadness. Shirley remembered feeling disgusted when Sarah told her, with morbid fascination, “They had to put a bonnet on her, because her head was cut open.”

Shirley remembered how many reporters, videographers, and cameramen were conducting interviews and lingering outside.

Stormanns’ anger

After the funeral, Brian and Shirley were consumed with anger. Shirley took matters into her own hands, calling the Bangor Police constantly, speaking out in the community, and even putting up signs in Sarah’s neighborhood that read, “Baby killers live at 41 Bald Mountain Drive.”

When DHS director Nancy Carlson said of Aisha, “Unfortunately, we never heard of her. There were no referrals made to us,” Shirley was enraged. She had called DHS multiple times about Aisha. They told her that her information was insufficient for them to take action. Aisha was killed before DHS took the complaints seriously.

Shirley said that Brian’s whole world turned to darkness and he took a very different approach.

She said, “It really changed who I was.”

Police investigation

Police immediately suspected Sarah, June, and DeShawn in Aisha’s murder. The investigation’s contact with the three adults was limited and sporadic; they immediately each hired separate legal representation and were uncooperative with police. When contacted by journalists, Sarah said her daughter’s death was “nobody’s business,” and June maintained the baby’s parents weren’t responsible. Investigators also had to consider people outside the family who had contact with Aisha in the days before her death, but nothing immediately indicated that someone besides Aisha’s parents and grandmother were involved. A few months after her murder, Sarah and June moved back to June’s home country of Honduras. Though Sarah returned to Maine after a few weeks, June stayed.

Aisha’s burial... 8 months delayed

It took eight months to bury Aisha. Sarah told friends that her mother had given her money to bury her, but city officials and the funeral parlor director were concerned when by August no one had come forward to claim her body. At the time, there were no known statutes governing a situation in which a body was simply abandoned. Aisha’s parents eventually decided on an unmarked grave at Mount Hope Cemetery, three weeks before her burial permit expired. Sarah and DeShawn had asked that the exact location where Aisha was laid to rest remain a secret.

Brian and Shirley were not allowed at the private burial. They later located Aisha’s grave and left her a spray of flowers. They also donated a small, pink granite gravestone to mark her resting spot. It’s engraved with a panda bear and a message that reads, "We'll see you come morning."

Shirley: “I just felt that she had been so forgotten. I guess in—in a way—unimportant (even to her parents). It was important to me that she have a permanent resting place with a permanent marker, hopefully that people would visit... hoping that she wouldn’t be as forgotten and [hoping] that she would stay more in the forefront and [hoping] that she would have the recognition that she hadn’t had.”

Sarah has 2 more children

In the years after Aisha’s murder, law enforcement and the town of Bangor remained focused on Sarah’s life. She and DeShawn initially separated before she flew to Honduras. But after she returned, their relationship started back up and they moved in together again.

A year after Aisha’s death, DHS was made aware that Sarah was expecting another child with DeShawn, due in summer 1996. The police were immediately troubled by this news—how safe would a new baby be under their care? Lieutenant Brian Cox, when he heard that Sarah was pregnant again, said,

“We are concerned that one child had died in this family as a result of injuries that someone inflicted on her. We can’t, however, ban [Sarah] from having children. We are certainly hoping that DHS will monitor the situation.”

DHS reportedly presented evidence of the police investigation to a judge and petitioned that the agency be allowed to take custody of the child immediately. That spring, DeShawn and Sarah had separated again. Around this time, Shirley was on her way to work, saw Sarah standing out in the rain—looking very pregnant—and stopped to give her a ride.

Shirley: “I would prefer to say that I chose to give the baby a place [to live]. The day that I saw Sarah on a street corner in Bangor it was cold... it was pouring rain... She was pregnant, and I thought, ‘You know what, if she’s cold and wet? The baby’s cold. The baby’s suffering, too.’ I circled the block and said, ‘Get in.’ I took her back to my house. She hadn’t had any prenatal care up to that point. I called my husband and told him, ‘I just want to let you know that I took Sarah in.’ We got prenatal care, I went to birthing classes with her, I was present when Dylan was born, I gave Dylan his first bath, I was the first person to hold Dylan. It was quite awhile from that first day before Sarah even held Dylan. Again... Totally unattached. They offered the baby to her, and she knew that there was a chance that she wouldn’t be able to keep him, and even in spite of that, but when they offered him to her, she said, ‘Give him to mom,’ which is how she was referring to me at the time.”

Brian and Shirley were considering adopting her child, but they were worried about the future safety of the child if they were to take him.

Shirley: “We were getting pretty significant threats. You know, a rock through the window... telephone calls... drive-bys... and we gave up our hope of adopting Dylan because we didn’t feel he could ever be safe.”

Before giving birth, Sarah started cooperating more with Aisha’s murder investigation and sought a restraining order against DeShawn.

Petitioning the court, she wrote,

“While I never saw DeShawn hit Aisha, there were marks on her that I questioned after she had been in his care. He always had an explanation, or he would say he didn’t know. Aisha had been in his care the day she died… I am fearful that because of my cooperation with police that he may hurt me. DeShawn has been physically abusive to me in the past. He is currently under suspicion for the death of our first child, Aisha Mariah Dickson... I am fearful for the life of my unborn child, if he has access to the baby.”

The legalistic tone of the writing makes it feel... carefully crafted and strangely impersonal.

In a phone interview with reporters, she acknowledged that it was odd that such injuries could occur to her daughter the night she died without her knowledge. “I know that I should have known. I feel bad that I didn’t know, but I didn’t,” she said. At the time, she also implied that her mother may have been involved in Aisha’s death, telling reporters that June often forgot things and had been on medications for lifelong psychological disorders. That 1996 interview gave the public the only thorough timeline of Aisha’s last day of life, all through Sarah’s eyes.

One year and three months after Aisha’s death, Sarah gave birth to a baby boy in April 1996. He was immediately taken into DHS’s custody and later placed with a foster family. Sarah didn’t appeal the DHS decision but was working with the courts on reunification efforts. She continued to live and work in Bangor, having occasional supervised visits with her son. That reunification hinged on Sarah staying away from DeShawn, but she moved back to Lewiston in December 1996 to rekindle her relationship with him. She terminated her parental rights at a court hearing, where she was visibly pregnant for a third time.

She gave birth to her third child—a daughter—in 1997, and she, too, was taken by DHS. The same family that adopted her son took her daughter as well, uniting the siblings. DeShawn was the biological father of both of these children.

Aisha wasn’t the first to die in Capehart

A little more than a year before Aisha’s death, Capehart was rocked by what happened to another child, 5-year-old Tavielle Kigas. She had been starved to death by her mother, Tonia Kigas Porter. Tonia had locked her young daughter in one room in their apartment for an entire month. Neighbors were particularly disturbed at this shocking episode of abuse—they’d passed by the apartment several times a day, completely unaware of the horror taking place just a few feet behind the locked door. Tonia was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and sent to a mental health facility.

Shirley was a teacher at the school that Tavielle attended, and wondered how this shocking tragedy went undetected.

Shirley: “I think any time something like that happens, you go, ‘What did I miss? What did we miss as a community?’ That that little girl was in her apartment, but nobody knew! Assuming there’s a window in her bedroom, was she not able to open that window and cry out for help? A lot of it was wondering, ‘What did we miss?’”

When Aisha was killed, the community was again enraged and riddled with guilt. Abuse leading to the death of a child had happened under their noses all over again. One woman who lived close to Aisha’s family said, “We all vowed to pull together when Tavielle died, and a couple of months go by and we all forget. It’s time that we stop acting like hermits and pretending that nothing is going on.” She had promised herself that she would never let anything like that happen to the children who lived near her. “Maybe I should have gone over there. We all say that we’re going to pull together and help out young mothers and families who get stressed. People should have helped,” she said.

A January 23rd op-ed in the Bangor Daily News also expressed frustration at the community for not stepping in.

“I do not understand what the problem is of not being able to arrest anyone for the murder of Aisha Dickson. As I see it, anyone who is living in the same household and sees the abuse happening (and you have to see something – bruises, black eyes, etc., going on over a period of time), is just as guilty as the abuser for letting it happen. Even in a bank robbery, the driver of the getaway car is prosecuted.”

Eleven days after her death, a small group of people gathered at the community center to discuss how to deal with this second death of a neighborhood child. But not everyone believed that the community could make a difference. A guidance counselor at the Downeast School told the frustrated and tearful attendees that there was probably little they could’ve done to prevent the tragic deaths of Aisha or Tavielle. While they had to accept that they couldn’t prevent every tragedy, they dedicated a community action team to better identify children in their low-income area who might be at risk. The committee focused on visiting parents of newborn babies to offer a helping hand or an ear for new parents who might be struggling. Instead of coming in as an unyielding authority, they wanted to be seen as a welcoming community, people who could be trusted and asked for help in hard times. The residents of Old Capehart had seen the consequences of keeping an arm’s length.

Even official organizations began using Aisha’s name as a rallying cry for increased community funding. The Department of Health and Welfare brought up Aisha’s case as one that could have been prevented. “We had identified this as a high-risk family,” a director told the city council. Staff had visited the home until October 1994 (when she was five months old) but stopped “because the family had decided they didn’t need our services any longer.”

Shirley helped promote a gospel concert to raise funds for the Tavielle Kigas Scholarship fund just a few months before Aisha’s death. She had been a teacher at nearby Downeast Elementary, and the area’s children had a special place in her heart. She too expressed outrage at the crawling investigation and the horrors the abused child went through. Two years after Aisha’s murder she wrote,

“Her attackers were most likely a part of her world, people she should have been able to trust; who were supposed to love and protect her. Yet, instead of [that], she suffered at least six months of horrific physical abuse. Almost every bone in her body was broken. She suffered a skull fracture. At 8 months, she could not run and try to hide from her attackers. She could not tell anyone of the torture she endured. No one has ever been charged with her abuse and murder. Her parents have had two more children.”

Brian and Shirley, epilogue

The following year, Shirley and Brian separated, in no small part due to the ways they coped differently with Aisha’s death. They didn’t stay close, and it was 10 years before they could even be civil with one another again.

For a few years Shirley pulled away from children and pursued real estate, but at 51 years old, in 2000, Shirley adopted twins who were 6 months old, and then later, their biological brother. She wanted to help children. Today, in 2023, Shirley has fostered over a hundred children, and she’s the executive director for the Maine Foster Care Association.

In fact, Sarah’s friend that was over at the apartment the night of Aisha’s death, had two little boys. DHS ended up later taking those boys away, and Shirley ended up fostering them. Sarah’s friend actually requested Shirley and Brian as their placement guardians.

Shirley is still in contact with Sarah’s surviving daughter, who still lives in Maine.

Brian is in the Veterans Home in Bangor with dementia, and he’s not doing so well.

Remembering Aisha

The Stormanns kept Aisha’s name alive within the community, visiting her little rosy gravestone and sending memorials on the anniversaries of her death to the local newspaper. In May of 1995, they’d even published a poem in the Bangor Daily News.

The flower budded

But had not bloomed.

Until by God’s own hand

‘twas groomed.

Now joyfully playing

In God’s sight,

My precious baby

We say good night.

But as our Lord brings

Forth the dawning,

Sweet Aisha we’ll see you again,

Come morning.

We love you,

Grandma & Grandpa Stormann

The pain that Brian and Shirley experienced from Aisha’s death shook them.

Shirley: “You know, I questioned God. Why would you bring this baby into my life? But Randy Washington—who did her service—said she had an opportunity to know real life before she left earth. That’s why. There was some comfort in that. And I also think that we saved the other two—they all three could have suffered the same fate had Aisha not been taken. That’s the only comfort really.”

More than two decades have now passed since Aisha Dickson was killed. Brian and Shirley bought a bottle of champagne that they planned to open the day that the case was solved.

Shirley: “Still have it... Still have it. We bought that the day of her funeral, and said, when they solve this and arrest somebody and somebody’s in jail, we’ll pop it open. Still have it.”

We asked Shirley what she would say to Aisha’s killer.

Shirley: “I would probably say that they are very lucky that judgment and justice comes from God and not me. I truly hope that they burn in hell. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I’m not that one that gets to make that call.”

Shirley: “I would just hope that somebody someday before they leave this earth does the right thing. I wish that June had before she passed. I tried to encourage that. But I hope that someday—whether I live to see it or not—that somebody will do the right thing and there will be some kind of justice. I had said to the police, ‘Put them in separate rooms. [Tell one of them] she said you did it, etc.’ and he told me I watch too much TV. But I honestly don’t think that it was June because I could maybe understand Sarah covering for her mother, but DeShawn never would have. They did not have (from everything I was told) a very good relationship, and I think that if June had done it, and DeShawn thought he might take the fall for it, he would’ve given her up in a heartbeat.”

June, her grandmother, passed away in the early 2010’s. Sarah and DeShawn are no longer together. Sarah lives in Maine, and as of 2019, DeShawn was living in Texas. Shirley said she was last called about 4-5 years ago (2019) by a detective with the Bangor PD.

Aisha’s is one of three of Bangor’s unsolved murders. We reached out to the Bangor Police Department for comment, but they did not respond. They wouldn’t even give us the name of the detective assigned to the case. Even still, they are the custodians of this investigation.

If Aisha were alive today, she would be getting ready to turn 29 years old. But that life was stolen. It angers me that people don’t know her name. Please share this episode with other Mainers to bring more awareness to this unsolved case.

If you have any information, please call the Bangor Police Department at 207-947-7382.

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Sources For This Episode

Newspaper articles

Various articles from Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald, here.

Written by various authors including Brooks W. Hamilton, Janet S. Duncan, Jason Wolfe, Susan Butler, John Silvernail, Linda Madsen, Beth Murphy, Maura MacDonald, Nok-Noi Ricker, Pamela R. Edwards, Renee Ordway, Roxanne Moore Saucier, Shirley J. Stormann, Tom Weber, and Victoria Brett.

Interview

Special Thanks to Shirley Stormann for taking the time to share her memories for this episode.

Photos

Photos primarily courtesy of Shirley Stormann. Some others from various newspaper articles.

Credits

Vocal performance, audio editing, and research by Kristen Seavey

Writing support, research support, and photo editing by Byron Willis

Written by Paige Quiñones

Research by Bridget Rowley

Murder, She Told is created by Kristen Seavey