Murder by the Book: The Amy St. Laurent Case

Amy St. Laurent

Amy St. Laurent, 25, was a hardworking and independent-minded New Englandera good Yankee striver. "She didn't want the menial life," her friend Katie Darneille told the Portland Press Herald. "She wanted more."

She was an industrious teenager, working at Dunkin' Donuts on Broadway in South Portland throughout high school. She was bright, but school left her uninspired. When she graduated with honors in 1994, college seemed pointless. "High school was easy and kind of boring," her mother told the Portland paper. "I think she thought college was going to be more of the same."

A few years after high school, Amy was hired as a third-shift assembler at the Pratt & Whitney aerospace manufacturing plant in North Berwick, Maine. She and her boyfriend, Richard Sparrow, moved to South Berwick so she could be closer to work.

St. Laurent's initiative and professional bearing helped her stand out, and she soon advanced to a junior administrative position. She was proud of her work at Pratt & Whitney. Her favorite sweatshirt, the one she was wearing that night in Old Port, bore the firm's name across the front.

St. Laurent and Sparrow had talked about marriage. But by the summer of 2001 their five-year relationship was on the rocks. She imagined a fulfilling lifestimulating conversation, travel, visits to art museums. Sparrow turned out to be a couch potato. "I couldn't keep up with her," he said. They split up but remained friends.