For three long years, the whereabouts of Joseph Savitch, a 58-year-old Caucasian male, and his associate Louis Alexander remained a troubling mystery. The two men, both from the Fall River area of Massachusetts, had vanished in 1994, leaving behind more questions than answers. The silence was finally broken on a summer day, August 15, 1997, when a bear hunter stumbled upon a shallow grave tucked away in a wooded area of Masardis, Maine.
Inside were the remains of the two missing men, their disappearance now reclassified as a double homicide.
An investigation by the Maine State Police determined that both Savitch and Alexander had been shot to death. The case was anything but straightforward, as both men were well-known to law enforcement in both Maine and Massachusetts. Savitch, sometimes known as "Joe the Animal," and Alexander, nicknamed "Miami Beach Louie," had extensive criminal histories. In fact, at the time they went missing, they were facing indictment for a series of brazen burglaries throughout Aroostook County, believed to have netted them around $1 million in cash and property.
Given their notorious reputations and criminal entanglements, speculation swirled that their murders could have been a professional, mob-style execution. However, investigators have never publicly confirmed this theory. Despite the passage of time, the murders of Joseph Savitch and Louis Alexander remain one of Maine's lingering unsolved homicides. No suspects have ever been officially named, and no arrests have been made in connection with their deaths. The case is a cold one, leaving family and investigators still searching for the clues that might finally bring a resolution to the violent end these two men met in the woods of northern Maine.
