The mother of a 37-year-old man with schizophrenia who previously went missing in Norridgewock and now is missing in Bangor expressed frustration this week with police efforts to find him.
Graham Lacher is seen in a recent photo provided by police. Photo courtesy of Bangor Police Department
Graham Lacher fled the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor on June 6 and although there were two reported sightings of him, Lacher remained missing Friday.
Tammy Lacher Scully is anxiously trying to find her son with help from Bangor police.
“He’s brilliant and creative, but not social,” Scully said. “He loves books.”
Scully is a Belfast resident who is Lacher’s legal guardian. In addition to his diagnosis of schizophrenia, she said her son is on the autism spectrum.
“The autism makes him nonsocial, the schizophrenia makes him scared of people,” she said.
Scully said Lacher is not violent but she could see how he could alarm people if he was wandering around or in someone’s yard.
She said she didn’t believe Bangor police took the missing persons case seriously in the days after Lacher went missing. She described initially being passed from one agency to another like a ping pong ball and not having clear communication about the state of the investigation. A delay in issuing a Silver Alert also upset Scully and her family.
“Early on that was tremendously frustrating,” she said. “I think right now they’re doing everything they can, but they should’ve been doing more in the beginning.”
Police have been more responsive ever since detectives were assigned to the case, she said. But there are few leads to pursue in finding Lacher.
Bangor police Sgt. Wade Betters said Friday that there was nothing new to report in the search for Lacher and that officers are continuing to inquire as to his whereabouts.
Although Maine State Police had previously said Lacher was from Norridgewock, Scully said he is actually from Waldo County, primarily Belfast. He’s spent most of his life in Belfast and grew up attending Winterport schools and Hampden Academy.
His last state ID listed Norridgewock as his place of residence because he had been living in a group home there. But he had been staying for about six weeks at the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor before running away when a staffer took him outside for a walk.
“It’s a total shock he ran away from Dorothea Dix because he felt completely safe there,” Scully said.
State police in November had issued an alert when he went missing from the group home in Norridgewock. He was found a few days later on College Avenue in Waterville.
When Lacher went missing the second time in Bangor, he had nothing with him except for the clothes he was wearing. In November, he had a jacket, flashlight and money.
A couple of groups have joined in the search for Lacher, including Down East Emergency Medicine Institute, known as DEEMI, which intends to conduct another search Saturday, June 18. A Facebook page called Missing Graham Lacher was created to spread information about the effort.
“We are completely open and frank about his condition, but we weren’t believed at the beginning,” Scully said. “We feel the more people who know, the more likely we are to find him.”
Authorities ask that anyone who sees Lacher, or has information about his whereabouts, call Bangor police at 207-942-8211.
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