ELLSWORTH — It may not be surprising in coastal Maine that most of the local missing person cases are suspected to be accidents involving the water, according to national missing persons database namus.gov.

A Stonington couple went down in a plane crash over Penobscot Bay in 1997. Their remains were never recovered.

Five other local missing persons are fishermen presumed lost at sea, according to the database.

But, what about other types of missing persons?

The family of the late Jessica Grindle of Blue Hill waited and worried for months when she went missing in July 2017 until a deer hunter discovered her remains Nov. 7, 2018.

Grindle’s manner and cause of death remain undetermined, according to Mark Belserene, the medical examiner’s administrator.

“One thing we’ve noticed with missing person cases is that families can get frustrated with the investigation,” said Lindsey Chasteen, planning and research associate for the Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The office “wants families, and the public, to know it’s our job to be ready in the event remains are found.”

To that end, the Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is hosting the first Maine Missing Person Day on Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Augusta Armory.

“This event was organized because the OCME feels it’s important to create more transparency with families of missing people,” Chasteen said.

“We want to let them know what resources we utilize and what steps we take to make sure their loved one can be quickly identified even if they are found out of state.”

“The public tends to forget about a missing person once the story is out of the media, but families face that tragedy every single day,” she said. “They are not alone and their loved one is not forgotten.”

Maine currently has 127 missing persons cases. Of those, eight people are classified as missing in Hancock County.

Husband and wife Douglas and Beryl Reed of Stonington went down in a plane crash over Penobscot Bay on July 2, 1997.

Then there are the missing fishermen.

Herbert L. Damon was 33 when he was last seen aboard a scallop dragger off Long Island on the evening of March 13, 1989.

“Damon is presumed to have fallen overboard,” his missing person record stated.

Allen L. Thompson was last seen at the Stonington Lobster Co-op heading out for a day of lobster fishing on Oct. 11, 1989. He was 38.

“His boat was found abandoned and circling,” the record stated.

Raymond Hodgkins was last known to be fishing for haddock, cod and flounder from his boat Joshua’s Delight about 25 miles off the coast in an area called Schoodic Ledges. Hodgkins was last seen May 1, 1990.

Two years ago, Russell D. Burnett of Franklin went missing.

Burnett was last seen leaving a residence on Eastbrook Road in Franklin on Feb. 21, 2017. The morning Burnett went missing, his dog Bev, also went missing, but the dog returned home two weeks later.

The Maine State Police last issued an advisory about Burnett on Oct. 31, 2017, asking Hancock County hunters “to report anything they think might be connected” to his disappearance.

The Office of the Maine Medical Examiner is the caretaker for all evidence of missing persons, including photographs and DNA evidence.

That includes the bodies of people found but unidentified.

“Maine has five unidentified bodies dating back to 1985 and 11 unidentified skeletal remains dating back to 1964,” Chasteen said.

If all methods of identification have been exhausted, the state buries the individual. However, if the person has recently died, the office may keep the body several months before burial in hopes of making an identification.

“We have kept unidentified skeletal remains at our office for years before being buried in the hopes we’d make an identification,” Chasteen said.

Advancements in DNA technology have been the biggest change, the researcher said.

“For people who go missing or are unidentified in 1971, DNA wasn’t considered. Now it is and we’re working to identify living relatives and collect DNA.”

Chasteen said the emergence of forensic genealogy has been helpful as well.

“Maine has worked with DNA Doe Project to identify an individual who had been missing for 13 years,” Chasteen said. “He was found deceased in Maine in 2014.”

“We have gotten physical descriptions and ancestry information for an unidentified individual,” she said.

“All of this helps paint the picture of who a person was and get them back to their family,” Chasteen said. “These individuals are somebody’s someone and can’t speak for themselves so it’s our responsibility to keep trying.”

Maine Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said the missing person day will include police presentations on resources available and practices surrounding missing person cases. There will also be a discussion on grief and loss.

Families are encouraged to bring a photo of their loved one for the missing person case file.

For more information, call Chasteen at 624-7188.