This week, a 65-year-old man was taken into custody by State Police investigators on suspicion of killing a woman whose body was discovered on the side of the road at the beginning of September.
Officers from the South Portland Police Department were sent to Clark’s Pond Parkway, which is next to a Home Depot, on September 5 at 4:11 p.m. after someone reported seeing a body on a drainage ditch near the sidewalk. When police got there, they discovered a dead female victim. Following a call from South Portland Police, Maine State Police assumed control of the investigation.
Nearly two months later, on November 4, the Maine State Police declared that Gary Mariner had been placed under arrest on suspicion of murder in the death of 52-year-old Danielle Goodwin. Her cause of death was not disclosed by the State Police.
Sex Offender Gary Mariner’s Prior Convictions and Sentencing
The Portland Press Herald reports that Mariner was found guilty in 2017 of committing a gross sexual assault while posing as a police officer. He was given a 12-year sentence, of which four were suspended, by the judge. He allegedly used the police badge that belonged to his late father to force a prostitute into giving him free sex. In 1978, he was also accused of assault. His father was the Cape Elizabeth Police Department’s chief of police at one point.
Mariner will be listed as an offender for the remainder of his life, according to the Maine sex offender registry.
It is alleged that Goodwin worked with clients who were addicted to substances. Shortly before she passed away, it is said that she relapsed.
In an interview with the Portland Press Herald, one of Goodwin’s neighbours said that she “could make anybody feel special just simply by being in her company.”