In Episode 355 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the Narrow Gauge Volunteer Trail in Randolph, Maine, searching for the ghost of a missing transient locals called Bicycle Larry. He went missing in October of 2004. In December of that year, a local man told his sister where they could find Larry’s body. Larry’s body was never found, but his bike-riding ghost has been seen on the old trail and around town.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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The Old Narrow Gauge Volunteer Trail in Randolph, Maine. A hotspot for sightings of the ghost of Bicycle Larry. Photo by Frank Grace.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[BICYCLE BELL]
JEFF: Come on, Ray! Keep pedaling!
RAY: I’m trying! I don’t think this tandem street bike is right for this trail out here in woods of Randolph, Maine, though!
JEFF: This is definitely NOT an off-road bike. But we’ll have to make due. So, we’re biking along the Narrow Gauge Volunteer Trail bike path that runs along the old Kennebec Central Railroad line.
RAY: What are we looking for out here?
JEFF: We’re looking for a ghost.
[BICYCLE BELL]
RAY: A ghost?! Why are we riding this thing, then?
JEFF: Because we’ve come to the woods of Randolph to search for the ghost of a man they call Bicycle Larry.
[INTRO]
JEFF: Hello, I’m Jeff Belanger and welcome to Episode 355 of the New England Legends Podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. And we can’t do it without you! We love when you share your story leads with us. When you join our New England Legends Facebook Group, download our free app, and post reviews for us. All of that helps the movement, and helps us bring you a From the Vault each Monday and new episode each Thursday.
JEFF: We’ll go searching for the ghost of Bicycle Larry in the woods of Randolph right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Woods are already scary places, especially as it starts getting dark.
JEFF: That’s true.
RAY: But then you add in a haunting.
JEFF: We do. And a true crime element with an unsolved mystery that doesn’t date back very far, and you’ve got something unique here in Randolph.
RAY: Randolph, Maine, is a small town situated on the banks of the Kennebec River, just south of Maine’s state capitol of Augusta. At one point this trail was a narrow-gauge railroad track that ran about five miles from near the bank of the Kennebec River in Randolph through Chelsea, and on to Togus. The sole purpose of the Kennebec Central Railroad was to transport passengers and goods to and from the National Veterans Home in Togus. It was about a 20-minute train ride. Today it’s the Togus Veterans Administration Medical Center—the nation’s first VA hospital. This railroad served the Veterans Home from 1890 to 1929.
JEFF: That’s very cool. I’m sure by the 1930s, roads with cars and buses made this train obsolete.
RAY: Pretty much. So the train was taken off the track, and the track slowly rotted away back into the woods. In 1985 some local Eagle Scouts made it a project to clear the old tracks in the roughly one and one-quarter of a mile of it that resides in Randolph to make it a trail for bikes, walkers, and runners.
JEFF: That’s a nice thing to have in town.
RAY: It is!
JEFF: We’re now standing by the entrance to the trail which sits just off of Water Street right next to an IGA grocery store. At the trail head there’s a sign next to the trail that runs by a small pond, and on into the woods of Randolph. Along this trail is the place where some witnesses claim they see a man on a bike who disappears. It’s a man some think they knew in life and they suspect he was murdered.
RAY: That would be Bicycle Larry.
JEFF: That it would. Others say the woods go strangely silent in places. No birds. No sounds… nothing. It can be an unnerving place. So let’s head back to the year 2004 and check this out.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s mid October of 2004. George W. Bush is in the White House, “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5 is the number one song on the radio, and Shark Tale is the number one movie in the box office. Here in Randolph, Maine, Autumn is getting colder, and some folks in town are worried.
JEFF: They’re worried because a local icon hasn’t been seen lately.
RAY: That icon of a man is Lawrence Farrell. He’s 55 years old, he can often be seen at the Bread of Life soup kitchen in Augusta, or you’d see him all around Randolph always riding his bicycle which is why everyone knows him as… Bicycle Larry.
JEFF: Bicycle Larry is a friendly guy. Always kind and offering a smile to his neighbors and those in town. People know him and are always happy to exchange a few friendly words when they see him around. On any given day, Bicycle Larry rides the eight miles to Augusta for some food, and on the first of the month he’ll go to the Kennebec Valley Mental Hospital to collect his social security check.
RAY: Bicycle Larry has always struggled with alcohol which is why he’s mostly transient and taking many of his meals at food pantries and soup kitchens.
JEFF: When he’s in Randolph, sometimes he’ll stay with his friend Norris Perry in Perry’s trailer home over on Fairview Avenue. Perry is 64 years old and often let’s Bicycle Larry crash at his place when he needs to.
RAY: Perry claims he hasn’t seen Larry recently either, but that’s not shocking considering sometimes Larry will go on a bender, or he’ll stay at a shelter in Augusta for a few days. It’s not unusual to lose track of him now and then.
JEFF: The days of October continue turning colder, the leaves have chaged colors and fallen, and pretty soon… it’s November. And now people are really worried about Bicycle Larry.
RAY: People like Rob Shore, the director of the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen. No one has seen Larry in a month, but he also found out that Larry hadn’t gone to pick up his social security check for November yet.
JEFF: That’s not like him at all. Pretty soon, an article makes the newspapers. Ray, go ahead and read this headline from the Morning Sentinel.
RAY: Okay, it reads quote “State police search for Bicycle Larry. State police are searching for a popular transient known to many as “Bicycle Larry.” The article ends with a phone number for the state police so people can call them with any tips as to his whereabouts.
JEFF: As November turns to December and the weather turns colder, now people are worried maybe Larry passed out somewhere and froze to death.
JEFF: It’s Sunday, December 13th when police respond to a phone call from Vickie Gill in West Gardiner. Gill is in a panic saying she just received a voicemail from her brother, Norris Perry…
RAY: That’s the guy who let’s Bicycle Larry stay at his place in Randolph!
JEFF: Right! Gill said she received a troubling voicemail from Perry that said he murdered Bicycle Larry. Perry finished the message by saying you’ll find Farrell’s body in the brook behind his property.
[POLICE SIRENS]
RAY: Police race over to Norris Perry’s home on Fairview Avenue.
[BANG BANG BANG ON DOOR]
RAY: When police don’t get a response at the door…
[WALKING IN WOODS]
RAY: They search the area around his house.
[OVER HERE!]
RAY: That’s when they discover the body of 64-year-old Norris Perry in a wooded area just a few hundred feet from his trailer. Perry took his own life.
JEFF: Given the circumstances, police believe they now have an answer as to what happened to Bicycle Larry.
[HEAVY TRUCKS AND BACKHOE]
[DOGS BARKING]
JEFF: Law enforcement bring in cadaver-sniffing dogs, and they start digging near the brook looking for the remains of Bicycle Larry.
RAY: For days the search continues, but police find nothing….
[WINTER WINDS BLOWING]
RAY: With winter getting close, and snow becoming more regular, they soon decide they’ll need to call off the search and then explore the area in the Spring when everything melts.
JEFF: It’s worth pointing out that the Perry property on Fairview Avenue is no more than two football fields away from the Old Narrow Gauge Trail. Police realize they’ll need to expand their search area.
[SPRING BIRDS SLOW FADE IN]
JEFF: When Spring melts all of the snow, police are back with the cadaver dogs and the search parties. However, they still find nothing. There’s no sign of Bicycle Larry’s remains or his bicycle. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: It’s been 20 years and the remains of Bicycle Larry have never been found.
RAY: That’s so strange! Considering Norris Perry confessed to the killing and then took his own life, you’d assume he was telling the truth.
JEFF: You would. Though the message claimed the body was buried. But those cadaver sniffing dogs are incredible. They can smell human remains up to ten feet deep in the ground. There’s no way someone is digging deeper than that if they’re quickly trying to get rid of a body.
RAY: You wouldn’t think so, no.
JEFF: So what remains is a haunting. Today the one-and-a-quarter mile Old Narrow Gauge Tral starts right next door to the IGS Supermarket on Water Street in Randolph. Then it runs northeast where it crosses Route 226 just about 600 feet from where the Perry property stood on Fairview Avenue.
RAY: So all of this is in close proximity to where Bicycle Larry lived, road his bike, and close to where he likely died.
JEFF: It is. And when no body was ever found, that haunts us. We need some kind of closure. Some answers. Here was this likeable transient guy who everyone knew by sight around Randolph, and one day he vanishes. Add in the confession of a dead man, it’s no surprise those out walking this trail sometimes connect with a man who peddled his bike around here 20 years ago. The woods of Randolph are spooky, and if we’re to believe some of the locals, they’re also haunted.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: That they are. And that takes us to After the Legend where we dig deeper into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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