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Dive team searches for evidence in Godfrey case, but comes up empty

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Members of a Maine Dept. of Safety dive team relax in a staging area at the bottom of Prospect Hill after spending several hours in the waters of Milton Three Ponds on Wednesday.

WEST LEBANON, Maine - An eight-man dive team plumbed the depths of the south end of Milton Three Ponds Wednesday looking for any evidence in the disappearance of a Lebanon man indicted on domestic violence charges earlier this month.

Dale Godfrey, 52, of 167 Sam Wentworth Road, the subject of the search was last seen on April 26 around 4 a.m. after police say he got into a confrontation with his wife and began strangling her.

According to Maine State Police, Godfrey fled the scene and left his pickup truck a couple of miles away about 15-20 yards down a driveway near where a house is being built on Champion Street.

Police say the truck was found with a vast amount of blood covering the interior and later learned that Godfrey was known to carry box cutters in the truck. His checkbook was found in a nearby stream.

Dale Godfrey

Since then the case has been both a domestic violence case and missing persons case. It was turned over to the state's major crimes unit during the summer.

Police have theorized that Godfrey may have succumbed to self-inflicted wounds and that his body may be either in the woods near where the truck was found or somewhere in Milton Three Ponds.

Maine State Police Detective Chris Kennedy, who was in charge of dive team operations on Wednesday, said the team spent several hours in the water combing the depths from the trestle to the dam, but found nothing.

He said the dive team took the opportunity of the search to undergo continuing training for its members, adding that the diving conditions were perfect and the water at its lowest point this summer.

He said divers performed searches looking for signs of Godfrey during the spring, but the conditions then were more dangerous due to high water and spring runoff.

"We will continue to devote resources to the investigation," Kennedy said. "Unfortunately today we found nothing."

Kennedy added that police had conducted numerous land searches in the area as well, but with such thick woods and underbrush he said it was virtually impossible to cover every square inch.

He said there's always a possibility a hunter might find something this fall.

Earlier this month Godfrey was indicted on charges of aggravated assault, DV assault, reckless conduct DV, obstructing the reporting of a crime and leaving the scene of property damage.

Police and prosecutors have not ruled out the possibility that Godfrey survived, which is why he was indicted in the event he is found alive.

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