March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Sanford soldier, feared dead, arrested

PELHAM, N.H. — Police have arrested and returned to the Army a soldier who apparently faked his own death and was found wandering the streets of Pelham.

Jeffrey Smith, 34, was found picking through a mailbox on Route 38 Monday night. Police worked into the early morning hours Tuesday to learn his identity, after he gave officers a string of phony identification papers.

Smith, police said, is a staff sergeant at Fort Drum, a 10,000-soldier base in Jefferson County, N.Y., east of Lake Ontario and near the Canadian border. Police and Army officials said he is from Sanford, Maine, and his only connection to Pelham is a male acquaintance.

Smith has been missing from the Army since July 19, when a state conservation officer found an overturned canoe in the Black River near the base, said Maj. Robert Saxon, division public affairs officer. Smith’s sport utility vehicle was parked nearby.

The Army assumed Smith had drowned, Saxon said.

Three Fort Drum helicopters and about 80 soldiers helped the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department search the river. The search was called off July 29, but the case was not closed.

On Monday, employees at Martha’s Ice Cream Emporium on Route 38 called police to report a man they saw rifling the mailbox of a nearby business. The man ran into the woods when confronted by the employees.

“He’s a drifter,” said Detective Joseph Roark. “He was living off the land. He was desperate. He doesn’t have a job. He’s running out of money.”

The town police dog, Sergeant, found Smith in the woods and bit him in the buttocks to detain him.

The man told police his name was Brian Williams. He gave police a fake Social Security number, birth certificate and baptismal certificate.

Sgt. Andrew McNally said the man presented phony identification papers from six states.

The soldier spent the night at the police station. He was held on charges of prowling, resisting detention, giving a false report to law enforcement and falsifying government documents.

McNally said he tracked down a Massachusetts lawyer with the same Social Security number as the one Smith gave and “that’s when he came clean and told me who he was.

“I asked him, `Are you wanted?’ And he said, `I wouldn’t doubt it,”‘ McNally said.

“We had no idea it was somebody who would have faked his own death,” Roark said.

“Jefferson County was relieved and excited” and quite angry, McNally said. The county had searched for the soldier for 10 days by boat and helicopter, and on foot.

Police released Smith to the Army.


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like