MILFORD – Ernest Ross was finishing up a long week cleaning Milford’s athletic fields.

It was a Friday in August and it was raining, but it was still hot and in the 80s. All week long, it was even hotter, with temperatures in the 90s.

It was a week of sweaty labor for Ross and his co-workers getting the fields ready for the fall sports season.

Ross walked over
to the side of
the School District-owned truck he had been driving all week. He reached to open what he thought was an empty utility box attached to the truck.

When he looked inside, Ross jumped back in horror. The body of a woman, sitting with her knees up, was trapped inside.

“Oh, my God. It’s a girl. Call the cops,” someone shouted.

The first cruiser arrived two minutes later, at 11:25 a.m.

After a week of searching in vain, Lorinda White’s body was closer than anyone thought.

Details about White’s disappearance and the police investigation were revealed Friday with the release of 98 pages of police documents.

The documents puts to rest what had been a mystery surrounding White’s disappearance and death this summer.

White’s death was officially ruled accidental earlier this week. The state medical examiner determined her death was the result of exposure to the environment; the technical term is hyperthermia. Police found no evidence of foul play and have closed their investigation.

Police found White’s body on Aug. 10, five days after she was reported missing. Her body was seated with her knees up and she was wearing a bra, but no shirt. Her shirt, a peach colored tank top, was later found at Milford High School, where the truck is normally parked. Police believe she pushed it through a drain in the bottom of the utility box.

An autopsy of White’s body found no trauma to her head or any defensive wounds, nor any marks on her neck to indicate injury, according to the documents.

Police tried to re-enact White’s final hours. Detective Andrew Fowle, who stands 6 feet tall and weighs 190 pounds, was able to easily climb into the utility box and close the door. He was unable to unlatch the door from inside at first. But after looking at it in the light, he was able to figure out how it worked and escaped.

He also said he was sweating profusely after only a few minutes in the box, according to a report written by the case’s lead investigator, Milford Police Detective Sgt. Kevin Furlong.

The report also notes that it was warm during that week of August, with heat indexes ranging from 81-97 degrees from Aug. 5-10. Furlong put a thermometer in the utility box on an 82-degree day and the temperature inside rose to 140 degrees within 30 minutes, according to the report.

Reported sightings

Police interviewed White’s boyfriend of three years, William Pillsbury, multiple times before her body was found. Pillsbury was the one who first reported her missing. In the days that followed, he voluntarily gave police DNA samples and allowed police to search his home, yard and vehicles.

Pillsbury openly spoke with reporters on several occasions and directed volunteer search efforts in the woods around the couple’s Ford Street home. One witness described finding Pillsbury slumped over in his truck crying during the days-long search.

After police told him they found White’s body, Pillsbury said he stopped reading and watching media reports about White’s disappearance.

The documents also show that White, 51, had disappeared twice before Aug. 5, once showing up at home again quickly and another time returning home after a solo drive to a bed-and-breakfast in Kittery, Maine.

Police spoke with the owners of the Enchanted Nights Bed and Breakfast two days after White’s disappearance. Beth Bomsky said White had shown up there unannounced around 7 p.m. Aug. 3 and was acting strangely.

White told Bomsky, “I’m running,” and was rambling, Bomsky said.

At one point, White went outside to smoke a cigarette and left in a truck she had driven there, according to the documents.

There were several reported sightings of White before her body was discovered. One was near railroad tracks behind the Circle K gas station on Elm Street. A K9 found White’s scent there and followed it west into Wilton and toward Lyndeborough, according to the documents.

Another witness, Susan Bedell, told police on Aug. 8 that she had spoken with White the previous day on Temple Street in Nashua. Bedell said White had been smoking outside the old YMCA building at the corner of Temple and Spring streets, was barefoot and had asked to pet Bedell’s dog.

White seemed confused and seemed to be staring up and admiring the buildings nearby, Bedell said, according to court documents.

Al Jansen told police he had seen White behind the Irving Circle K on Aug. 8. She had been covered in dirt and mud and had been sitting on a curb drinking a bottle of water, he said, according to the documents.

She was never again seen alive.

Spiritual research

Police spoke with 30 witnesses as part of the investigation, including family, friends and co-workers.

White’s sons, Crawford and Victor Zetteberg, live in Maine. They told police their mother had been interested in unusual beliefs and was researching “new age physics” on the Internet.

Pillsbury told police White had been into “spiritual things,” had been watching Nassim Haramein
videos on the Internet and had phone numbers for Haramein and Robert Morningsky in her phone, according to the documents.

Police spoke with Morningsky and he said he teaches women to become “ladies of fire,” which he said was a term for female shaman leaders. He said he encourages women to demand respect and honor and to be leaders.

Police also learned that in the past, White had been involved with a group in Maine interested in finding aliens, as well as a group called Sunseekers, headed by Nassim Haramein, who claim to survive on the sun’s energy without food and water, according to the documents.

Haramein is a Swiss-born physicist denounced in many circles as a crank. To popularize his ideas, Haramein founded The Resonance Project, a website and nonprofit foundation that rose to prominence on the Internet. Haramein is featured prominently in the conspiracy theory movie “Thrive,” ranting about ancient aliens myths.

Steve Zetteberg, White’s ex-husband, told police White had been obsessed with the end of the world and that she would sometimes become “catatonic” when confronted with a stressful situation. She once spent four days under the covers in bed after an argument about her chasing aliens, he said.

He advised police to look in “dark places” in case she had crawled in one and become unresponsive, according to the documents.

Joseph G. Cote can be reached
at 594-6415 or jcote@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Cote on Twitter (@Telegraph_JoeC).