Spare Change: 43 years later, Diane Drake's family changes the narrative

Jim Gillis
·3 min read

This one took me by surprise.

And unless you were close to those involved, it probably had escaped your mind as well.

Diane Drake has been dead for 43 years.

That’s 43 years of family weddings, funerals, parties, landmark events and the mere process of friends and family growing old with you.

Diane experienced little of that in 19 years. At the time someone found her strangled body on Easton’s Beach in 1980, she was taking college classes and working in a Photo Patio store.

Whenever I feel like I have lived on Aquidneck Island forever, I realize the Diane Drake story was a few months before my time. But when I arrived here in November1980, it was still fairly fresh news.

Today it remains an open case but so cold it’s frostbitten.

Diane’s brother, Bob, has changed the narrative of late to focus more on his sister’s life than her death. That’s a wise move.

The nieces and nephews Diane, one of nine kids, never knew are surely familiar with the story of her death. But need to know a fuller picture.

Each of my parents lost a brother in World War II. Both served in the Army and were shot in Germany.

I know they mattered greatly to my parents. But I never asked enough about them. And so much about them is lost.

We all hold out some hope Diane Drake’s killer will confess or somehow slip up. It’s hard to imagine the pathology of someone who could hide that kind of secret for decades.

I said earlier that Diane’s nieces and nephews need a fuller picture of her. And Bob Drake is right … we all do.

  • R.I.P.: Retired Portsmouth Police Chief Dennis Seale. Dennis was up front, no BS, down to earth. So down to earth he opened a landscaping business after retirement swapping a squad car for a lawn tractor. He was an entertaining storyteller and a friendly guy. It can be a tense line between police and the press. Seale handled it with balance. Once he gave me the name of an officer who’d gotten in trouble out of town. “I might as well tell you,” he said. “You’d have to be pretty dumb not to figure it out.” I’ll meet Dennis Seale.

  • State Rep. Marvin Abney jumping into the battle royale for David Cicilline’s congressional seat just enlivened the race. The Newport Democrat may lack statewide recognition but his credentials jump off the page.

  • I think the Pell Bridge on ramp project will eventually pay off. But it will be “fun” for a while.

  • If only for entertainment value, please give us a trial in the Trump/Daniels case. He can’t hold his tongue forever.

  • Shouldn’t Stormy Daniels have her own reality show by now?

  • You probably never heard of Al Jaffe, who died this week at age 103. Jaffe was a mainstay at Mad Magazine in its Baby Boomer heyday. Jaffe created the fold-ins and crafted, “ Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. There was a time when my life stood still when a new issue of Mad hit the news stands.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Spare Change: Diane Drake's family right to focus on her life not death