Jury begins deliberating in trial of Alabama man accused of murdering
11-year-old girl in 1988
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[October 29, 2024]
By MICHAEL CASEY
LAWRENCE, Mass. (AP) — A jury on Monday begun deliberating in the case
of an Alabama man accused of the beating and stabbing death of an
11-year-old New Hampshire girl more than 35 years ago.
Prosecutors and the defense attorney for Marvin “Skip” McClendon Jr.
made their closing arguments Monday in a case that hinges in part on
whether the jury believes DNA found under Melissa Ann Tremblay’s
fingernails came from McClendon.
This is the second murder trial for McClendon, after a judge last year
declared a mistrial due to a deadlocked jury.
The body of the Salem, New Hampshire, girl was found in a Lawrence,
Massachusetts, trainyard on Sept. 12, 1988, a day after she was reported
missing. She had been stabbed in the neck.
The victim had accompanied her mother and her mother’s boyfriend to a
Lawrence social club not far from the railyard and went outside to play
while the adults stayed inside, authorities said last year. She was
reported missing later that night.
The girl’s mother, Janet Tremblay, died in 2015 at age 70, according to
her obituary. But surviving relatives have been attending court to
observe the latest trial.
After initially ruling out several suspects including two drug addicts
early on, authorities turned their attention to McClendon.
He was arrested at his Alabama home in 2022 based in part on DNA
evidence.
Essex County Assistant District Attorney Jessica Strasnick told the jury
that comments McClendon made during his arrest showed he knew details of
the crime and that he was “fixated on the fact that she was beaten,
ladies and gentlemen, because he knew that she wasn't just stabbed that
day, that was she was beaten.”
A left-handed person like McClendon stabbed Tremblay, Strasnick said.
She told jurors that the carpenter and former Massachusetts corrections
officer was familiar with Lawrence, having frequented bars and strip
clubs in the city. He also lived less than 20 miles (32 kilometers) away
at the time of the killing.
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Marvin C. McClendon Jr. stands in the prisoner's dock during his
arraignment in Lawrence District Court, Friday, May 13, 2022, in
Lawrence. (Tim Jean/The Eagle-Tribune via AP, Pool, File)
“He assumed he had gotten away with it after 33 years,” Strasnick
said.
“He assumed that if he left her beaten and stabbed body against the
wheel of a railroad train, it would look like she got run over,” she
said. “He assumed they wouldn't investigate. He assumed that he
would stay under the radar.”
Strasnick told the jury that the DNA evidence taken from under
Tremblay's fingernails excludes 99.8% of the male population.
“This 11-year-old girl used the last energy she had to fight for her
life by scratching him and clawing him,” Strasnick said. “Because of
that, she was able to get his DNA under her fingernails ... That’s
why, after all these years, his past finally caught up with him.”
But McClendon’s lawyer, Henry Fasoldt said there is no proof the DNA
came from under Tremblay's fingernails or was from McClendon. “Their
initial assumption that the DNA came from the murderer is a bad
assumption,” he said after the court hearing.
Fasoldt also said evidence shows that a right-handed person, rather
than a left-handed person, could have stabbed Tremblay. He also
argued that McClendon had “no meaningful connection” to Lawrence —
other than that he lived 16 miles (25 kilometers) away in
Chelmsford. He moved to Alabama in 2002 to a plot of land his family
owned.
“I'm concerned. He is 77 years old and in poor health and he has to
go through this again,” he said. “I don’t believe he did it.”
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