After a year of research into a 1987 unsolved murder, Mark Swett has his theories about how Alice Hawkes died.

“It’s always been in the back of my mind,” said Swett, who couldn’t help but think about Hawkes when he passed her former Westbrook apartment on his way to work or going to the mall.

Though he has no connection to Hawkes or her family, Swett, of Westbrook, has delved into the case, conducting interviews, reading letters and reviewing old newspaper articles.

“It’s a compulsion,” he said about why he needs to know what happened to 23-year-old Hawkes. He won’t tell you what he thinks happened, though. He said he’ll leave that part to police.

Last week, Swett launched a Web site with the hope of regenerating interest in the case. On Wednesday, www.alicehawkes.com had already been visited more than 5,000 times.

The launch comes within weeks of a recent review of the murder by the Maine State Police. According to Lt. Brian McDonough, a new detective has been assigned to the case and is doing a thorough analysis of the evidence.

“It’s kind of strange how everything happened at the same time,” said Rosemary Driggers, Hawkes’ eldest sister. “It’s quite wonderful really, after 21 years to think that there’s renewed interest and it could be solved.”

That’s what Swett hopes his Web site can help with – as well as telling the story of Hawkes’ life.

Swett has delved into research projects before. He spent years looking into the FBI siege of the Branch Davidian ranch in Waco, Texas. Last January, he decided he’d take on the Hawkes murder.

“When I go into something, it’s 110 percent,” he said.

Swett got permission from Hawkes’ family to post the information he’s collected about her life on his Web site.

He talks about her graduating from Bangor High School and attending the University of Southern Maine for two years, before dropping out to take a full-time position as a teller at Maine Savings Bank. She was promoted less than a year before she died.

Swett tells of the close relationship Hawkes had with her friend Andree, whom she wrote letters to after Andree moved to California and had a son. Hawkes was his godmother.

She was close with her family, too, according to Swett, and had been to a gathering at her mother’s house the weekend before she died. She had spoken to her mother the day before her body was found, and planned another trip to Bangor for the following weekend to do some holiday shopping.

According to Swett, Hawkes had been living in a Spring Street apartment with her boyfriend, Stephen Bouchard. The day before she was found dead, Hawkes had gone to Pratt-Abbott to do laundry and had tentative plans to go to a craft fair with a friend.

In his narrative, Swett writes that Stephen Bouchard had errands to do in the morning. He returned home to find the door dead-bolted, but didn’t have the key. He assumed his girlfriend had left for the fair and went to play golf at Twin Falls with a friend of his. After the game, the door was still locked, so he went back to his golf partner’s house in Portland and stayed the night.

When he returned the next day, he retrieved another key from his landlord, and opened the door to find Hawkes dead in the bathroom. According to Swett, she suffered slash wounds to her throat. There was no sign of forced entry or sexual assault.

“It was a personal crime,” he said.

Swett said Bouchard stopped cooperating with investigators and broke off contact with Hawkes’ family days after the murder.

According to Hawkes’ sister, the family is eternally grateful for Swett’s work and compassion.

“Everyone is pleased that Alice’s story is being told,” said Driggers. “We’re all just very thankful for Mark Swett.”

Driggers, who lives in Bangor, said her family thinks about Alice every day and has never given up on the fact that her murder would be solved and someone would be caught. However, she said, considering the new Web site and the review by the state police, it’s hard not to have a little extra hope.

According to McDonough, the Hawkes case is still considered an open, active homicide.

“There’s been fresh eyes looking at it and working at it and following up,” he said.

McDonough said police have a good idea of how Hawkes was murdered and who was involved, and that it’s just a matter of proving it, at this point. He said applying the latest technology to the evidence collected over two decades ago could provide police with the proof they’re looking for.

“I’m always optimistic,” McDonough said about solving homicides. “It’s tough to tell on cases like this, but you never know.”

As for Hawkes’ family, they’d just like to see someone held accountable for the murder of their beloved daughter, sister, aunt and friend.

“There will never be closure, but the person needs to be punished,” Driggers said.

Swett, an insurance adjuster, is out for justice, too. Though he said his intention isn’t to solve the case, he wants to give Hawkes a voice, tell her story and maybe even stir up some new information that will lead to an arrest.

“Someone out there may know something,” Swett said. “Someone may have a guilty conscience.”

Alice Hawkes was just 23 when she was found murdered in her apartment in Westbrook.