A Bangor arson happened before midnight on Feb. 17, 1981 (three people were killed in the Bangor arson) and was extinguished when an arson at Phillips Lake occurred sometime between 3 am and 3:30 am on Feb. 18. The news reported the Feb. 17 arson the next morning, but the Feb. 18 arson at Phillips Lake was not reported until one week later, the day after Mike was found, Feb. 25.  It was reported that an unidentified body had been found buried under a pile of six day old rubble. Fire chief Norman Herrin saw a man leaving the area through the woods according to the article. Ten days later, Feb. 28, A. Jay Higgins reporter for the Bangor Daily News (BDN) reported the two arsons and a drug sting that happened about 3 hours before the Phillips Lake arson where Mike lost his life. Higgins does not mention the fleeing man. He reported a pot bust that occurred in Holden a few hours before the Phillips Lake arson.  He said one possibility the police were questioning was that "the arson may have been a retaliatory action in response to a pot bust that occurred in Holden a few hours earlier." This article led me to be suspicious of Mike's death being an accidental death as I had been told.