The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 37

i I THE ROBTON SUNDAY Gl.QlJ.'. 20. 198B 37 H.cv ii Probe of missing Maine woman ifocuses on personal advertisements showed pictures to store clerks. They've circulated more than 200 posters with Delano's picture and description 5 feet 10 inches tall, 140 pounds, medium build with dark brown eyes and short, wavy brown hair. And Piatt Monfort went to Newport, Maine.

10 days ago to check on a tip that his daughter had been seen there. A Massachusetts woman called the Monforts after seeing Delano's picture in a Maine newspaper and Monfort said a Newport waitress told him she had also seen a woman resembling Delano. By Denise Goodman Special to The Globe WESTPORT, Maine "Touch of class; fun-loving, unique, slightly crazy night owl." That's how 35-year-old Gail Delano described herself in the weekly Maine Times classified personal section, now the focus of an investigation into Delano's month-long disappearance. Police are interviewing 30 to 40 men Delano contacted through the personals, but haven't found the man she was to meet for a date on June 21 the day she disappeared. At a time when personal ads have become a popular and accepted way to meet, Delano's disappearance has prompted police to say that although personals may be a safe channel for social contact per-haps safer than chance meetings in bars certain common-sense precautions are a necessity.

It also has prompted the newspaper to rethink its advertising policy on personal ads. Police have not definitely linked Delano's disappearance to the ads but they sus- rcr "If KM VMW OUR RIDICOLOUSUV LOU) ORIGINAL PRICES! While the Monforts conceded "it could have been a look-alike." they said they were frustrated by the apparent absence of an immediate police check on the tip. "We're in the process of checking that lead," State Police Sgt. Rexford Kelley, who is supervising the investigation, said last week. Bradford termed the alleged sighting "not a real reliable piece of information." Her sister said she and Delano had used the m-m sri in mi! i i in in mm i sm yrctL.

i if 11 511 1 i'-p' riffa 11 nl -Zoo Wife 1 i oect foul olav. Thev are not sure X. i rH899 PINAL .1 1 11 1 11 11 11 ej 1 ififfifivi Mr w.m a WJt wm Mil a PC? RCT -turn, HOLDS 2 LITER BOTTLES UPRIGHT LJ Maine Times personals off and on for the last 18 months to meet people and that Delano had gone to Hawaii last fall with one man she met through an ad. "It's an accepted way of meeting people when you tire of bars," Blackman said. Police suggested last week it may even be a better way to make social contacts because those who place or respond to the ads have more time to check out a person before making a date.

"You should go slowly when you're meeting total strangers," Bradford said. "Get a good idea of who they are, where they work, meet in the daytime In a public place maybe taking along someone you trust the first time and always inform someone whom you're meeting, where and when you plan to return," he advised. Delano apparently followed that advice except that this time, she failed to tell her family whom she planned to meet. Bradford termed the Maine innocuous a newspaper to work Delano ever met her date. She was last seen sitting on a rail fence outside the Brunswick Howard Johnson's Restaurant where the meeting was to have taken place.

While authorities still term this a "missing persons case," Lincoln County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Bradford said the "scene" surrounding Delano's car, found locked in the restaurant parking lot, "indicates less than normal circumstances so we're Interpreting It as foul play." Police refuse to disclose why they suspect foul play and Delano's parents, Piatt and Betty Monfort, said last week they saw nothing unusual when they viewed the car. "Like Piatt says, it's like living with a hand grenade in your hand with the pin pulled," Betty Monfort said of the tense wait for news of their daughter, a divorcee with two teen-age sons who lived next door to them in this Sheepscott wn 3 'm 3 mm iOICE OF IN-STOCK SIZES PRESSURE TREATED KD SQUARE EDGE. RANDOM LENGTH. i. tgtm.it mm -aim, 9 n.

fit .1 'pw-' GAIL DELANO Missing since June 21 1 I 2 fj 1 tf' IK 3 EACH a Times "about as V7 1.. ta (A II U. 1 4x6x6 DiPPED iV2l TIMBERS SHORT HANDLE TfKltS I MILL TRIALS SANDED SHOP 5 a rz a a River island town about 45 miles northeast of Portland. The Monforts described Delano as a shy, almost reclusive and sometimes troubled young woman who felt more comfortable meeting people through the personal ads because she could "appraise" them through lengthy phone calls and correspondence. Delano was a licensed graphologist, her mother said, who analyzed potential dates' handwriting to spot anything "bizarre or weird." Sue Blackman, Delano's sister, added that Gail maintained records of when she responded to or received a response and noted the background of each man she contacted.

Although she infrequently stayed overnight at a date's house, her mother said, Delano always called her sons by midnight and usually told her mother whom she was meeting, where they were going, and where her date lived. This time, her parents were out when she left and didn't get that Information. Her mother worries that the publicity surrounding her daughter's disappearance, including that she had bouts of depression and once attempted suicide, has painted an inaccurate picture of Delano. Since their daughter disappeared, the Monforts have combed Old Orchard Beach, where they believe Delano planned to go on her June 21 date, and through as I can imagine very conscientious and above-board." Peter Cox, Maine Times editor, said the personals in his paper are "very different" from those placed in some big city newspapers. Maine Times allows no "code words" or ads with a "purely sexual objective." he said.

Cox said the ads seem to provide "a genuine service, especially in a rural state, a safer way to meet people than at singles bars." Me said the paper may review whether it wants to continue the personals and, If so. whether it will continue to promise to protect the privacy of those who place them. Because the newspaper's lawyers determined that the confidentiality promise constituted a "contract" with ad purchasers, authorities had to obtain a search warrant to secure names of persons Delano had contacted. Although Blackman said her sister's disappearance "makes me leery of doing this again answering a personals ad," her father doesn't blame the paper. "She may have had a date with a very nice guy, he brought her back and then something happened Even if it turns out she met a bum apple through this, you can run Into a bum apple anywhere," he said.

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