By KEVIN WACK
Blethen Maine Newspapers Thursday, December 14, 2006

Blethen Maine Newspapers

Who is in her late 50s, lives in Falmouth and has access to a Cadillac?

Cyber-sleuths puzzling about that mystery came up with a famous name this week, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it spread across the Internet like wildfire.

To be clear, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe is not the woman who police said made an illegal U-turn on Interstate 295 last week, causing a seven-car pileup, and then fleeing the scene.

While Maine State Police were looking for the actual culprit last Thursday, Snowe was in Washington, D.C., voting on the nomination of the Food and Drug Administration's new commissioner.

Still, it's not hard to understand how this rumor got started. Snowe was a good match for the description released by police.

The suspect was identified as a Falmouth woman in her late 50s who was driving a light-colored Cadillac.

Snowe is 59, and she lives in Falmouth with her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan, who owns a Cadillac. "Maybe all of us has a doppelganger," said Snowe spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier, "and it sounds like Sen. Snowe has one of those doppelgangers out there."

Earlier in the day, the similarities were noted in comments posted to mainetoday.com, asmainegoes.com, and in an item on Wonkette, a popular blog dedicated to Washington gossip.

"We have received about 20 phone calls because of the Wonkette posting today," Ferrier said.

"And we certainly wanted to nip that in the bud and let no one think that she had anything to do with that tragic situation." Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, was also fielding phone calls Wednesday about Maine's senior senator.

McCausland said Snowe was not involved, but he still wouldn't release the suspect's name.

Five people suffered minor injuries in last Thursday's crash. Several vehicles were totaled, and I-295's northbound lanes were closed for about an hour. Police went to the suspect's home soon after the crash and got a call a short time later from her lawyer.

McCausland said Wednesday that the investigating trooper is still talking to witnesses and compiling data from the crash, but he doesn't expect the crash report to be completed this week.

Once the crash report is finished, the case will be turned over to the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office. Al Tompkins, who teaches media ethics and online journalism at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the case illustrates what happens in an information void.

"Anytime there is a lack of information, people tend to fill it in with their own versions of the truth," Tompkins said. "What happens on the Internet is not really any different than what happens off the Internet," he continued. "The only difference is you can spread rumors worldwide with the click of the mouse, instead of across a bar."