Do you know who murdered Scott? In the pre-dawn hours of November 13, 1990, the city of Portland, Maine, was cloaked in the quiet chill of late autumn. On a sidewalk at 64 Pine Street, in front of the Pine Street Variety store, lay the body of 26-year-old Scott Sampson, a White male. At 1:53 a.m., a call about an unconscious male brought Portland Police officers to the scene. Bystanders had initially assumed the man on the ground was merely intoxicated.
However, upon their arrival, officers and paramedics discovered that Sampson was deceased.
The subsequent investigation by the Portland Police Department quickly determined that Scott Sampson's death was a homicide. To preserve the integrity of their investigation, authorities have not publicly released the official cause of death. However, family accounts and documents from the medical examiner's office indicate that he was stabbed and had bruises and scratches on his face, hands, legs, and knees, suggesting a struggle. At the time of his death, Sampson was a father to two young sons and was living with his mother in Springvale, Maine.
According to his family, on the night he was killed, Sampson had been at a woman's apartment in the West End but wanted to leave. He went to the convenience store at 64 Pine Street with the intention of calling his mother for a ride home. Inside the store, he ate a hot dog and spoke with the clerk. The clerk later told the family that when Sampson went outside, he appeared to be talking to someone he knew. What transpired in the roughly 90 minutes between that conversation and the discovery of his body remains a mystery.
Decades have passed, but no arrests have ever been made in connection with Scott Sampson's murder, and there are no publicly named suspects. The case remains one of Portland's unsolved homicides, a source of enduring pain for his family, who continue to seek answers and justice. They, along with the Portland Police Department, believe that someone holds the key to solving the case and periodically appeal to the public for any information that could finally bring closure to a tragedy that has haunted them for over thirty years.
