Domestic violence support leader visits South Berwick after murder: 'Here for each other'

Yahoo

03-04-2025

SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — Dressed in yellow, Patrisha McLean entered the Early Bird Cafe early Thursday clutching flyers with the faces of domestic abuse survivors from across the state.
McLean, a domestic violence survivor, is the founder and chief executive officer of Camden-based Finding Our Voices, a domestic abuse and violence survivor assistance organization.
McLean was in town Thursday to spread the word about Sherri Sweet, who died at age 37 on March 23, a day after being shot in her South Berwick home on Brattle Street. Jeremiah Godfrey, her boyfriend, is charged with her murder.
McLean's larger vision is to support victims of domestic abuse throughout the state and put an end to violence against women and children.
'The beauty of the sisterhood (is that) we're here for each other. We believe each other. We're here for each other, and that's huge,' McLean said Thursday.
Fifty Maine women — all survivors of domestic violence and abuse — are photographed on Finding Our Voice's posters. McLean and Patrizia Marshall, a York resident and supporter of Finding Our Voices, traveled to South Berwick during a morning downpour to go across town and hang their flyers in businesses and municipal buildings.
'They're all survivors in that they've done a lot of healing,' Marshall said.
A former newspaper reporter in California and photojournalist, McLean snaps photos of the women her organization serves for Finding Our Voice's posters. The staff at Nature's Way Market and Cara Maxfield, owner of Early Bird Cafe on Main Street, agreed to hang the nonprofit's posters.
McLean said she escaped domestic violence herself. In 2016, her celebrity ex-husband, "American Pie" singer-songwriter Don McLean, was arrested. He later admitted guilt to domestic violence related offenses and was ordered to pay a fine as part of a plea deal. Domestic assault and terrorizing charges against the singer were dismissed the next year after he had met the terms of his plea deal, the Associated Press reported.
Finding Our Voices was established shortly after McLean's ex-husband's arrest.
'There's help out there and there's a better life,' Patrisha McLean said. 'You can get out, because I think a lot of women who are in it feel like this is their life, that this is what's happening, (that) they're stuck in this thing and they're never going to get out. You can get out. We're here with 50 women on these posters letting them know they got out, and you can, too. Just tell someone, please. Recognize it and then talk to somebody.'
Finding Our Voices offers victims financial assistance for car repairs, gas cards, apartment rental costs and security deposits, legal aid, home security technology, U-Haul and storage unit fees, food and clothing, in addition to a weekly online support group and dental care assistance.
The nonprofit has provided 43 women in Maine with $21,577 worth of financial assistance in 2025 so far, she said. The nonprofit provided $141,184 to 179 total domestic violence survivors in Maine in 2024, according to McLean, and worked with a total of 550 women last year across all its services.
Almost exactly four years ago, in early April 2021, McLean drove to York for a similar town-wide poster campaign following the beating death of Rhonda Pattelena on Short Sands Beach at the hands of her fiance. The man, Jeffrey Buchanan, bludgeoned her to death with a rock and was sentenced last spring to 40 years behind bars.
In January, Finding Our Voices led a protest in Sanford after state Rep. Lucas Lanigan was charged in October for allegedly strangling his wife. He has pleaded not guilty to domestic violence assault.
Fifteen of the 35 homicides recorded in Maine last year were tied to domestic violence, according to the state's Department of Public Safety. Including Sweet's killing, Finding Our Voices has counted 20 domestic violence deaths in Maine since February 2024.
Sweet's funeral was held Tuesday in Salem, Massachusetts, her obituary reads.
The 2005 Marshwood High School graduate is survived by her two sons, her mother and stepfather and is remembered as a dedicated member of the hospitality industry.
'She loved harder than anyone and will continue to do so from above,' Sweet's obituary says.
Jeremiah Godfrey, Sweet's 43-year-old boyfriend, was arrested by Maine State Police last week in South Berwick on a single count of murder in connection to her death. The charge is punishable by between 25 years to life in prison.
An affidavit filed by a Maine State Police homicide detective in Godfrey's case alleges the defendant admitted to pulling the trigger on the pistol that killed Sweet after an argument in their Brattle Street residence. Sweet was shot on Saturday, March 22 and died the following evening at Portsmouth Regional Hospital from her injuries after being placed on life support, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit states Sweet sustained major head trauma after a gunshot to the back of her head.
Last Friday, a York County Superior Court judge ruled Godfrey is to be held without bail at the county jail in Alfred.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Domestic violence support leader visits South Berwick after murder