For Olcncliuk' Slayer Police Press Search By DAVE SWEARINGEN Associated Press Writer OGUNQUIT, Maine (AP) --Its been almost a year since the crime, but police still have hopes of catching Mary Catherine Olenchuks killer. The body of the 13-year-old Army generals daughter was found under a pile of hay in a Kennebunk bam on Aug. 22, 1970. A rope was around her neck, and a medical examiner ruled the death a strangulation. . The blue-eyed, red-haired teenager was last seen alive 13 days before as she talked with a man in a maroon car near her familys summer home in this York County coastal resort. Her father is Brig. Gen. Peter Olenchuk,. commander of the Armys munitions procurement and supply agency at Joliet, III. We havent given up. Weve kept on this thing full-tilt and spent thousands of manhours and traveled hundreds of miles on this case, Capt. Millard E. Nickerson, director of the state police criminal division, said in his Augusta office Monday. One of the biggest problems -encountered is that this areas population, swelled by the annual tourist influx, goes from the hundreds in the winter to-( about 100,000 in the summer, he added. . Another drawback is that the killers trail was cold by the time Marys body was located and the 'usual wealth of physical evidence found at a fresh crime scene doesnt exist. Det. Sherwood K. Baston, a 15-year police veteran who resides here, is assigned to the case fulltime. He was one of a half dozen " detectives who worked on the investigation during the first few months. With the cooperation of other ; departments, Maine police have 'checked out suspects who live as far awav as Florida and California. The- Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating three homicides in the Maritime Provinces which are very similar to the Olenchuk case. The Mounties, have been here, and weve been there several times going over the details of these murders, said Nickerson. Hundreds - of persons have been interviewed,' and Baston has built an index file of those involved which fills one filing ' drawer. The older they get, the harder they are to solve. But, , we never got completely cold on this one, weve kept it going steady and plan to continue, said Lt. , Charles R. Bruton chief of a homicide squad . recently formed by the attorney generals office. Maine averages about 20 homicides annually. Nine murders in the nast 20 years are still unsolved. Nickerson, Bruton and their colleagues hope . they can someday remove the Olenchuk case from that list.
