Jury begins deliberating in trial of Alabama man accused of murdering 11-year-old girl in 1988

By MICHAEL CASEY The Associated Press

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)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Tim Jean]

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.

“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.”