Marilyn J. Lehan was a 47-year-old woman whose last documented contact is officially listed in NamUs as July 1, 2002, in Eastport, Maine, though other public sources describe the timing more broadly as the summer of 2002 rather than a confirmed exact day. She was White, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and approximately 160 pounds, with blond or blond-brown hair and brown eyes.
At the time connected to the case, Marilyn was living in Eastport, a coastal community in Washington County, and Maine State Police later stated that she was last known to have been living there with her husband.
The known story begins quietly, with family contact that did not immediately seem alarming. Marilyn’s relatives had last visited her in July 2002, and according to public case summaries, it was not unusual for her to go long periods without reaching out. That pattern appears to have delayed the moment when her absence was recognized as something more troubling. Her husband later reportedly told her family that Marilyn had gone to a Catholic retreat in the Montana area, and for a time that explanation existed alongside the family’s understanding that Marilyn sometimes lived with distance and privacy. But no confirmed new address, no clear later whereabouts, and no reliable sign of a continuing life elsewhere surfaced in the official information made public by investigators.
Marilyn’s life in Eastport had roots beyond a temporary stop. The Charley Project reports that she and her husband had lived at a residence off Clark Street overlooking Harris Cove, and Maine State Police identify Eastport as the town connected to her case. A later narrative account, citing family recollections and records, describes Marilyn as someone who loved animals, including her African grey parrot, and says she had purchased the Eastport property using money from an inheritance. That same account says a relative’s visit in summer 2002 appeared normal at the time, making the later silence even harder to understand; it also notes that family members believed there was at least some later contact or financial trace in 2003, but that Marilyn’s relatives ultimately could not establish where she was or what happened to her after the Eastport period.
Years passed before the concern became a formal missing person investigation. The Charley Project states that Marilyn’s family did not report her missing until the summer of 2013, after years in which her lack of contact had gradually become impossible to dismiss. Maine State Police later summarized the heart of the case in stark terms: Marilyn was last known to be living with her husband in Eastport, was last seen during the summer of 2002 by a relative, and investigative efforts had not produced alternate addresses or evidence that she was living somewhere else. Public reporting also noted that family members believed she may have moved away in 2004, but they had not heard from her since, leaving investigators and relatives with a painful gap between what was assumed, what was said, and what could actually be confirmed.
In May 2014, investigators returned to the Eastport property connected to Marilyn and searched for answers. Reports from News Center Maine, the Portland Press Herald, the Lewiston Sun Journal, and The Quoddy Tides describe a search of the 14-acre property off or behind Clark Street involving state and local police, dog teams, and cadaver dogs; the search did not turn up signs of Marilyn. The Charley Project similarly reports that authorities searched the land behind her former home and found nothing of interest, while noting that her husband, who later lived in California, was described by police as cooperative with the investigation. The lack of findings did not resolve the questions surrounding Marilyn’s disappearance; instead, it underscored how much of the case still depended on a narrow set of memories, statements, and missing records.
Marilyn Lehan’s case remains a story of absence more than certainty: a woman last connected to her Eastport home, a family that believed silence could be part of her normal rhythm until too much time had passed, a reported explanation that she had gone to a Catholic retreat in Montana, and an investigation that has not publicly established where she went afterward. The official and public records differ in how they frame the last known date, with NamUs listing July 1, 2002, while Maine State Police and other sources describe the last sighting more generally as the summer of 2002 or discuss uncertainty around 2004; because of that, the safest understanding is that her exact last confirmed date is not fully clear from public reporting. What remains consistent is that Marilyn was last known in Eastport, no confirmed alternate residence has been established publicly, searches of the former property did not locate her, and investigators have continued to ask that anyone with information contact Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - North.Last Seen: Jul 1, 2002
