SKOWHEGAN — Donna Almeida Carter posted a picture on social media of her daughter, Tina Stadig, with Christmas lights circling her head, as she readied to spend another Christmas without her.
“I’ve been having a really hard time — it’s killing me,” Carter told a reporter on Christmas Eve Day.
Stadig, then-40, reportedly was seen last on July 10, 2017 at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter by a case manager at the shelter, Skowhegan police Chief David Bucknam said in July of that year.
She has been missing from Skowhegan since May 28, 2017.
“Having a missing child and not knowing anything is the worst grief ever, and it being Christmas without her is very hard,” Carter said. “She loved Christmas, decorating and putting up the tree; making construction paper garland.”
She said Maine State Police and game wardens, along with Skowhegan police, have done four searches with no leads.
Carter, of Biddeford, said in a Facebook message to the newspaper in July 2017 that Tina Stadig is her daughter and that she suffers from mental illness.
“We are really worried about her because she has (severe) mental illness and has been thinking there are people out to kill her,” Almeida wrote. “She does have warrants for her and I know the cops are thinking she’s probably just hiding out, but we do not believe that. She has not called any of her family members or her friend that she lived with since June.”
Police searches have centered on an area around a home on Route 150 in Skowhegan on the outskirts of town, where Stadig was last known to be staying.
Investigators in December 2017 were seen poring over debris and junk in and around an abandoned house near the roadside at the property about 3 miles from downtown Skowhegan. The primary residence is at the back of the property and is the home of a man who police say was known to Stadig, and she occasionally stayed there.
A state police evidence response team truck was at the scene as were several unmarked state police cruisers. Investigators took photographs of items in and around the abandoned house.
Police using an excavator also had searched the property over two days in June 2017.
State fire officials earlier this month investigated the cause of a fire that destroyed the abandoned house at 570 North Ave. in Skowhegan, the property where police earlier had searched for Stadig.
Skowhegan fire Chief Shawn Howard indicated a person might have been involved in the fire.
“Obviously, with no heat sources, no electricity, what that leaves is a human element to the fire,” Howard said on Dec. 1 of this year. “Whether that was accidental or done on purpose, that’s what we’re not sure of right now. Certainly, we would suspect that there was a human element.”
Skowhegan police Chief David Bucknam said earlier this month that he didn’t think there was any connection to Stadig’s disappearance and the fire.
Bucknam said that in June he and Skowhegan’s criminal investigation division, as well as the State Police Major Crimes Unit, searched there, did some digging with some heavy equipment and used cadaver dogs.
“We didn’t find anything,” he said. “We did a pretty thorough search up there and weren’t able to find any evidence that Tina is in the area, if she’s deceased.”
There has been no further information on that fire or the whereabouts of Stadig.
But her mother holds out hope at Christmastime for closure.
“I pray every day that she will be found and if someone knows anything they will come forward with any news and leads,” she said Monday. “If anyone hears anything or knows anything, contact Skowhegan police department before contacting me.”
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
Twitter:@Doug_Harlow
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