During the past 12 months, Buxton’s police chief and her small-town department have been under extraordinary pressure and public scrutiny.

Under a media glare, the department, led by Chief Jody Thomas, has investigated three of the state’s highest-profile cases: a missing teenager found dead months later in the Saco River; a controversial fatality involving an elderly woman, which left family and friends confused and bitter; and Maine’s largest ever seizure of dogs. The cases stressed and stretched thin with overtime the small, Buxton department.

It was a year Thomas described, in typical reserved fashion, as “very challenging.”

Thomas oversees eight officers, five part-time officers, a full-time administrative assistant, eight dispatchers, including three part time, and a part-time animal control officer. Her department budget totals nearly $750,000. She is one of just three women now serving as full-time chiefs in Maine.

When Thomas pinned on the chief’s badge in Buxton in October of 1992, she began a task of building a department from an ill-equipped, constable service with two old cruisers. The budget at that time was just under $200,000.

The town itself has also grown during her time there. According to U.S. Census figures, the population increased from 7,452 in 2000 to an estimated 8,171 in 2006.

Selectman Bob Libby said recently that selectmen have little day-by-day involvement with the town’s police.

“She runs it independently by herself,” Libby said.

In the spotlight

The department’s first case to enter the media spotlight began in November 2006, when Coreen Wiese, 15, a Bonny Eagle High School sophomore, was reported missing by her parents. Her body was found some six months later in the Saco River. Police believe she committed suicide.

It marked the first time she worked with the FBI. “When they came through the door, they said ‘We’re here to work with you,'” Thomas recalled.

Buxton police worked around the clock with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, searching for the girl. “We ran scenarios by each other,” Thomas said. “We discussed it constantly.”

The agencies worked closely and shared information. “Each knew exactly what the others were doing,” Thomas said.

Officers followed up on every tip and investigated the smallest shred of potential evidence. Buxton officers often went out in their private vehicles.

“Everybody checked and double-checked,” Thomas said.

The Wiese case lit up the dispatch switchboard with tips, along with calls from other agencies and the national media. The case was highlighted on TV programs.

“It was such an exhaustive case, so emotional,” Thomas said.

The investigation into the death of Ethel Lewis, an elderly Buxton woman struck and killed by a car in front of her Long Plains Road house on Dec. 4, 2006, led to much criticism leveled at Thomas.

The incident was first reported as a hit and run, but then police said it wasn’t when they identified the driver. The district attorney later found no basis for any charges. “I feel our department did a good job with investigating the case,” Thomas said.

But the victim’s family and friends questioned the investigation.

“I feel police realize they screwed it up,” said Sylvia Young, sister of the victim. “I blame Jody more than anything else because she is the police.”

Thomas defended said her department, saying officers worked with state police in the investigation and the case was reviewed by both the district attorney and attorney general’s office. But she declined to discuss it in detail because, she said, the case could reopen if more information became available. She said the district attorney’s office doesn’t want details discussed publicly.

The most recent of the high-profile investigations taking its toll on Buxton’s department is the so-called puppy-mill case. Buxton police were flooded with calls following the August raid on the J’aime Kennel, in which the state seized 249 dogs and puppies.

Buxton police logged more than 100 hours in overtime pouring over evidence in the kennel case, Thomas said.

A warrant was issued for kennel owner John Frasca after he failed to appear in court last month to face animal abuse charges.

“We believe he’s in New Hampshire,” Thomas said.

The state was awarded custody of the dogs, which now are being adopted through animal shelters. But the case isn’t over for Buxton police.

“We’re still looking into additional charges,” Thomas said.

Colleagues’ confidence

Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, said this week both Thomas and the department she nurtured are well-respected in the law enforcement community.

“She’s done a great job with a police department,” said Schwartz, a retired South Portland chief.

Fellow chiefs in the association shared that confidence in Thomas when the group recently elected her sergeant-at-arms, the first woman to hold an elected position. She moved up the ladder from a previous appointment as secretary.

“She’s in line to be president in four years,” Schwartz said.

The current president of the chief’s association, Douglas Bracey of York Police Department, said the sergeant-at-arms handles formalities like setting up flags at meetings and organizing conventions.

“I ran for sergeant at arms and made it,” said Thomas, whose goal is to become president of the association. “Quite an honor to be elected sergeant-at-arms.”

Bracey has known Thomas for 20 years. “She’s gained the respect of chiefs statewide,” Bracey said.

John Rogers, director of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, said Thomas is “doing a great job” with the chiefs’ association.

A life in law enforcement

Thomas, who would not give her age, is a Portland native, a graduate of Deering High School and the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in 1982, where she was voted class treasurer. After working in restaurant management, she launched her career as a dispatcher for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and for part-time undercover duty.

“It was so interesting, something different every day,” Thomas recalled. “I felt I was doing something benefiting the community.”

She joined Gorham Police Department as an officer in 1982, when the late Ed Hagen was chief. “He was always supportive of anything I needed in my career,” Thomas said.

Thomas was promoted to corporal in two years and then sergeant a year after that. She easily recited a list of names of the Gorham officers that included the late John Reed. “The best group I ever worked with,” she said.

Gorham Chief Ron Shepard was promoted to lieutenant when Thomas was with the Gorham force. Shepard recalled her as smart and a hard worker. “She cared about the community quite a bit,” Shepard said.

Law enforcement has been her life, and she even married a policeman. Thomas and her husband, Dave Thomas, a police sergeant in Windham, observed their 25th wedding anniversary Nov. 27, with a trip to Hawaii.

“He’s so supportive and so understanding,” she said, even if she’s called to duty in the middle of the night.

At the end of each day, the two briefly talk police work, she said, before relaxing. “When we get home, it’s 20 minutes of download,” she said.

She has never pulled the trigger of her service weapon in the line of duty. “I’ve drawn it, but never had to fire,” Thomas said. “That’s something you hope you never have to do.”

Thomas is a survivor of some Buxton town hall political turmoil 10 years ago. She was rehired three months after resigning. Two of the selectmen serving when Thomas quit, the late Jonathan Jewett and Sylvia Young, were recalled by voters.

“She quit because she couldn’t get along with me and Jonathan Jewett,” Young said.

“What’s past is past,” said Thomas, adding only that it was a difficult time politically.

She and her husband discuss fatalities, especially if it involves a child. “We hurt just like they hurt,” she said about parents. “It’s so painful what families go through.”

Thomas knows grief, as two daughters both died in their cribs. “You never get over the loss of a child,” said Thomas. She also has two adult sons.

Thomas said the most difficult case in her career was the unsolved murder of Gorham teenager Theresa Duran in the 1980s. Thomas was a Gorham officer.

“I think about it every time I go to a call about a female,” Thomas said. “It’s so painful what the families go through.”

Thomas was on duty when Duran’s parents reported her missing. The girl’s unburied remains were found about a month later in the woods off Plummer Road in Gorham, according to a story that appeared in the American Journal at the time. She had died of multiple gun shot wounds.

“I sat in the area for the night to secure the scene,” Thomas said. “It always stays on your mind.”