Lewiston, Maine. October 1st, 2011. A beloved father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Frank Julian, passed away suddenly at 80 years of age. Like most families, his relatives were left with putting the pieces back together and taking care of the deceased man’s affairs. Among those affairs was a storage unit. This storage unit was rented by Mr. Julian for decades. His family opened up the unit and stood shocked at all the boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. This was going to be a difficult task, I’m sure they thought to themselves. As the task got underway an unplugged freezer was spotted in the 10-by-10 room. Someone was brave enough to open it. What could it be? Spoiled food, more junk, nothing? Turned out it was something no one in the family could have guessed. It was human remains.

Moore’s Self Storage was where Frank went on October 6th, 1992 when he first started renting the storage unit. He diligently paid his bill 3 months in advance continuously throughout the decades, ensuring his policy would not lapse and his secret would remain just that.

Once it became apparent human remains were found, authorities and friends of a missing woman already had an inkling as to who it was. The woman was suspected and later confirmed through familial DNA to be Kitty Wardwell. Kitty was the ex-girlfriend of Frank who was last seen in 1983 when she was just 29 years old. At the time of her disappearance Frank was 52 and the relationship didn’t seem to be going well. Frank told police that he had last seen Kitty after getting into an altercation with her in June of 1983. He claimed to have driven Kitty from Holden, Maine to a motel in Salem, New Hampshire. She was never heard from again. A friend would report Kitty missing after a month had gone by with no word. Her family would follow suit and report her missing 4 months later.

Kitty had been missing for 28 years. When finally discovered her remains were so badly decomposed the lab in Maine was not equipped to attempt to identify her and they were instead shipped to a Pennsylvania lab. Frank was immediately the number one suspect but authorities were never able to gather enough evidence or elicit a confession from the man. At one point authorities asked if Frank would be willing to take a polygraph exam and he refused. Detectives hit a brick wall and were unable to gather any further evidence.

One additional strange aspect to the already extremely strange case is that Frank started renting the storage unit in 1992. This is 9 years after Kitty had gone missing. The large question many have now is where was Kitty in the interim? Was she in his home? Was she buried somewhere and then placed in the freezer all those years later? Where was Kitty killed and what was the reasoning behind it? Frank was a small business owner, selling odds and ends for years. Could Frank have had the freezer in his workplace up until renting the storage unit? Unfortunately we may never know the true answers as Frank left nothing of the incident.

There seemed to be no end in sight for Frank in keeping his secret. He had paid up until his death and the unit would be covered through November. Frank was reported as being “A very nice guy” by locals. People describe him as appearing to be of great character and a caring father, but it just goes to show that we never know about all the skeletons hidden in peoples closets. Quite literally in this case.