Trial&Error -- News

In a logical world, after two renowned forensic pathologists staked their reputations on their findings that time-of-death evidence eliminated Dennis Dechaine as the killer of Sarah Cherry, the Attorney General’s Office would have consulted with the scientists in a search for the truth. Instead, the AG’s Office stuck with its smug claim of infallibility, disregarding the cause of justice and the future consequences of having continued what appears to have become a cover-up.

By so doing, the AG’s Office confirmed the observations of famed Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Dr. Daniel Kahneman: that decision-making commonly is based on biased, invalid, short-term considerations.

Good decision-making requires open-minded effort. According to Kahneman, decision-making by groups where everybody is “susceptible to similar biases” is inferior to that of individuals. And organizations do not invest in “trying to figure out what they have done wrong” because “they don’t want to know.”

Kahneman’s focus was on financial decision-making — explaining, in effect, why a dartboard can outperform Wall Street experts — but his conclusions are widely applicable.

Given the national flood of wrongful convictions, Kahneman’s writings should be required reading for all prosecutors. That people believe what they want to believe, despite clear evidence to the contrary — in the Dechaine case, 100 percent of the scientific evidence is exculpatory — has been proven, ad nauseum, by 23 years of tragically misguided official decision-making. And once again, the AG’s Office has decided to double-down its bet, just like an investor wedded to a plummeting stock.

October 30 2011

P.T. Barnum allowed there was a sucker born every minute and
another born to take him. Dennis Dechaine certainly has garnered
more than his share of suckers.

Andy Warhol allowed every one would enjoy 15 minutes of fame.
Unfortunately, there are those who cannot settle for that 15
minutes. Once they see their name in print or see it on television
they continue to spew forth the same garbage over and over and over.

If you totally ignore the evidence that convicts someone, then
everyone in prison is innocent and should be turned loose.

Any one, like letter writer William Bunting (Oct. 12) who thinks
the absolutely incompetent justice system in Italy is superior to
Maine's may leave for Italy post-haste.

Craig Elliott

Bristol

Maine is not immune to miscarriages of justice

Portland Press Hereld

October 22 2011

There has been a lot of public outcry over the state of Georgia
putting a man to death when there were many indications that he was,
in fact, innocent.

That can't happen here, right? Because we don't have the death
penalty, right?

But Dennis Dechaine is serving a life sentence for a crime that he
didn't commit.

Among other exculpatory evidence, such as time of death, false
testimony by detectives and lack of any physical evidence that the
victim was in Dechaine's truck, there was male DNA under 12-year-old
Sarah Cherry's fingernails that does not match Dechaine's (or that of
anyone involved with the case).

While the state solved an even older murder case in Fayette last year
using DNA under the victim's fingernails, it continues to insist that
it was just dirty fingernail clippers in the Dechaine case.

The state and the trial judge, Carl Bradford, turned down Dechaine's
request for DNA testing at his trial, saying it would take too long.
(Dechaine even offered to pay for it.)

After he filed an appeal, the state destroyed potential DNA evidence,
saying there wasn't room to store it.

In 2006 the Legislature changed the DNA appeal law in Maine to make
it more in line with that in other states.

Three years ago Dechaine filed a motion for a retrial under the
revised statute, which included a request for further DNA testing.
There can be no hearing on his motion until the testing is completed.

Obviously, if the state had also wished for this testing to be done,
it would have been completed years ago. Could the state be more
interested in protecting the process than seeking the truth?

Our deputy attorney general actually told two Maine legislators, "We
don't make mistakes in Maine." Really?

Jennifer Bunting

Whitefield

Maine's justice system makes Italy's look fair

Maine sunday Tele, Portland Press Hereld, Kennebec Journal

In Italy, prosecutors, seemingly on leave from a comic opera, insisted that "she-devil" Amanda Knox was guilty of murder no matter what science and common sense indicated. It took four years for justice to prevail. In Maine, supposedly a land of sober Yankee rectitude, Dennis Dechaine has been denied a retrial for more than 20 years, despite the fact that 100 percent of the scientific evidence supports his claim of innocence. With the discovery that the damning testimony of two detectives contradicted their original notes, the state's "mountain of evidence" is revealed to be a hollow shell. That a second jury, if allowed to hear all the evidence, would again find Dechaine guilty, is all but inconceivable. That an innocent man may have been imprisoned until death for the unspeakable crime of a psychopath who, in effect, has enjoyed the protection of the state, should impel our attorney general to seek the truth, not to try to bury it. Compared to Maine's, the Italian system of justice appears to be a shining model of efficiency, transparency, and fairness. Who would have guessed!

William Bunting

Whitefield

September 17 2011

Three years have now passed since Dennis Dechaine filed his motion for a retrial in order to present several forms of significant scientific evidence -- DNA, time of death, et al. -- of his innocence of the 1988 murder of Sarah Cherry.

It may help in understanding how long this has been to remember that Merriwether Lewis and William Clark took three years to explore vast areas of the continental interior in the 19th century.

Attorneys and judges cannot have forgotten the three years it took to complete their entire law school education.

Whatever one's frame of reference, the only one that matters to Dechaine is that three years is more than 1,000 days and nights spent in prison waiting for the wheels of justice to turn. That they are barely moving is especially ironic, considering that the reason the original trial judge, Carl O. Bradford, refused Dechaine's 1989 pre-trial motion to conduct DNA testing was that it would delay the trial by several months.

Given the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a speedy public trial, one has to wonder just what this delay in granting or denying a retrial motion is really about.

Anyone who has followed the developments in the case over the years might reasonably conclude that delay is simply the only tactic the state has left after virtually all of its evidence has been discredited.

Not only hope but the public's confidence in its justice system would seem to depend upon the state finally accepting that it is long past time for a jury to hear all of the evidence in this case, and to honor the spirit, not just the technicalities, of due process.

Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes has again resorted to his tiresome mantra about the "mountain of evidence" against Dennis Dechaine in his conviction for the murder of Sarah Cherry, but repetition does not make it so. The only significant evidence that remains in the state's case is that someone removed incriminating objects from Dechaine's truck. Not only has supposedly key damning testimony of two detectives been discredited by their own notes, but renowned forensic pathologists have determined to their satisfaction that Dechaine was in police custody when Sarah Cherry was killed. Given that 100 percent of the scientific evidence argues for Dechaine's innocence, one might hope that Attorney General William Schneider would wish to be certain that the real killer had been imprisoned. However, in the hearing on July 29, Stokes made every effort to block any search for the truth. Judge Carl Bradford deserves praise for keeping open doors for that search that the state wished to slam shut.

Praise to judge for keeping Dechaine case open

Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes has again resorted to his tiresome mantra about the "mountain of evidence" against Dennis Dechaine, but repetition does not make it so.

The only significant evidence that remains in the state's case is that someone removed incriminating objects from Dechaine's truck. Not only has the supposedly damning testimony of two detectives been discredited by their own notes, but renowned forensic pathologists have determined to their satisfaction that Dechaine was in police custody when Sarah Cherry was killed.

Given that 100 percent of the scientific evidence argues for Dechaine's innocence, one might hope that Attorney General William Schneider would wish to be certain that the real killer had been imprisoned. However, in court on July 29, Stokes made every effort to block any search for the truth.

Judge Carl Bradford deserves praise for keeping open doors that the state wished to slam shut.

Judge in Denis Dechaine case allows DNA comparisons

In this April 2005 file photo, Dennis Dechaine sits in a conference room at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine. A judge on Friday, July 29th, 2011 has allowed a DNA sample from a young murder victim's fingernails to be tested in a database of 21,000 other samples in Maine. Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford ruled Friday in a hearing in Dennis Dechaine's continuing effort to get a new trial in the 1988 death of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. He was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to life for the murder in Bowdoin. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach, File) - Pat Wellenbach

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A judge on Friday ruled that a DNA sample from a young murder victim's fingernail can be compared against a database of 21,000 criminals in Maine, a move sought by Dennis Dechaine's defense lawyers but described by prosecutors as potentially leading to a "wild goose chase."

Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford ruled during a preliminary hearing in Dechaine's continuing effort to get a new trial in the 1988 death of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin. Dechaine, now 53, was convicted in 1989 and is serving a life sentence for Cherry's kidnapping, sexual abuse and murder. Authorities say Cherry was randomly targeted.

Bradford, who presided over Dechaine's trial, declined Friday to recuse himself from the proceedings but left the matter open to be decided later.

Defense lawyer Steve Peterson told the judge that he ought to remove himself to avoid being put in the position of having to strike down his previous rulings tied to DNA evidence.

"It is very difficult for this court to sit objectively and decide whether it's going to overturn itself on a decision from 22 years ago," said Peterson, who described the latest motions in the case as "Dechaine's last and best chance of getting a new trial."

The DNA from the fingernail showed material from at least two people, matching the profile of Cherry as well as someone other than Dechaine, a state DNA expert testified Friday. At the time of the crime, only a few labs were capable of examining samples and the DNA was not tested.

Catherine MacMillan from the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory in Augusta testified that even using the latest technology, the sample was too degraded to be of use for identification. Half of the genetic material necessary to establish positive ID was missing, she said.

Nonetheless, MacMillan said she was able to get nine "hits" from 4,000 samples that were in the state criminal DNA database in 2004 after she lowered the generally accepted standards due to the poor quality of the sample. She said she was later able to exclude all nine samples belonging to eight people and one unknown sample.

A defense DNA expert disagreed about the value of the tests, and the judge ordered the sample to be compared again with the current larger state database. The names from any "hits" will be turned over to the judge, who'll assess whether they should be turned over to the defense.

Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes urged the judge not to open the door to a "wild goose chase" and said no court had ever allowed the type of testing used in this case.

"There's always a first for everything Mr. Stokes," the judge replied. "The motion is granted."

The judge didn't rule on a request by the defense to introduce additional evidence including testimony from experts establishing the time of Cherry's death. Peterson said his own experts, including high-profile coroner Cyril Wecht, contend Dechaine was in custody when Cherry died.

Stokes said the science that's used to establish time of death isn't as precise as the defense suggests, and said the medical examiner said just that at the original trial.

"This is not new evidence," Stokes said. "This is the defense finding an expert who'll say what they want them to say, and presenting it as new evidence."

After the hearing, the Rev. Robert Dorr, a friend of the Cherry family, said Dechaine fits the profile of a sociopath who continues to torment the Cherry family. "It's continued harassment of the Cherry family from Dennis Dechaine from the cell he occupies," Dorr said.

Dechaine gets DNA legal victory

PORTLAND – A judge has ordered the state's crime lab to compare a partial DNA profile – collected from the thumbnail of a 12-year-old murder victim in 1988 – against Maine's database of 21,000 DNA samples from convicted felons.

Related headlines

Friday's ruling by Justice Carl O. Bradford at Cumberland County Superior Court was seen as a rare legal victory for Dennis Dechaine, the Bowdoinham farmer convicted of kidnapping and murdering Sarah Cherry.

Dechaine's lead defense lawyer, Steve Peterson of Rockport, requested the DNA database comparison as part of Dechaine's latest bid for a new trial.

The pending appeal, filed in 2008, is based on DNA evidence that was not available at the 1989 trial. Analysts from the state crime lab and private labs examined part of Sarah Cherry's thumbnail, which was clipped during her autopsy. The labs discovered a partial, mixed DNA profile that was consistent with Cherry and at least one other person, an unknown male. The sample was not a match for Dechaine.

Peterson contends that the fragment of DNA belongs to the real killer. He wants a list of possible hits from the state's offender database, to allow investigators to vet those individuals for possible involvement in the crime.

Prosecutors the DNA could have come from anyone during incidental contact before Sarah Cherry died, or from nail clippers during the autopsy. They have no doubts that Dechaine was the murderer.

Cathy MacMillan, an analyst from the state crime lab, said the DNA from the thumbnail was "low-level, degraded," and contained less than half the genetic information of a full profile. It would be impossible to make a conclusive match of the sample to anyone, MacMillan told Judge Bradford Friday.

At best, the sample could be used to generate a list of possible matches, which would encompass a small percentage of the public.

MacMillan estimated that the database comparison ordered Friday would likely return 80 to 100 individuals whose DNA would match the thumbnail sample on at least one DNA location.

"Basically you're on a wild goose chase," said William Stokes, head of the criminal division at the state Attorney General's Office.

Stokes argued that the database comparison would rope in dozens of people, simply because they have a fraction of DNA in common with a profile that isn't reliable to begin with.

Also on Friday, Bradford denied Peterson's motion requesting that he recuse himself from the case. Peterson argued that because Bradford had not allowed DNA testing before the trial, it would be hard for him to allow Dechaine a new trial based on DNA evidence.

Cherry, a straight-A student at Bowdoin Central School, was kidnapped while baby-sitting on July 6, 1988. The mother who had hired her came home about 3:20 p.m. and found a notebook and a receipt bearing the name Dennis Dechaine in her driveway.

Police began a search for the missing girl and Dechaine. About five hours later, he was seen walking out of the woods about three miles north of the home.

He told police that he had been fishing and he couldn't find his truck. He denied having anything to do with the girl's disappearance. Later that night, police found his pickup truck on a discontinued logging road nearby.

A search team found the girl's body about noon on July 8 near where the truck was found. She had been stabbed about a dozen times and strangled with a scarf. The scarf and the rope binding her wrists had come from Dechaine's truck.

Dechaine says he went into the woods on July 6 to inject speed and wander around. He says he was alone the entire day, he got lost, and someone must have grabbed his papers, the rope and the scarf from his truck.

A victory in court this morning for convicted killer Dennis Dechaine.
http://www.wmtw.com/news/28705?137/detail.html

TRIAL AND ERROR JULY NEWSLETTER
PO Box 153 Madawaska Me. 04756
www.trialanderrordennis.org

Dear Supporters;

There are several reasons why so many months have passed since our last
newsletter. Thank you all for being patient. In addition to working 50 hours
a week, I have had various other responsibilities to attend to, one after
the other. However this does not mean that our efforts to help Dennis ever
slowed down. It seemed that every time we were about to put out a newsletter
there was about to be an agreement reached between the state and Dennis's
lawyers over what remaining evidence was going to be tested for DNA, and
also how and where it was going to be tested. At the end of March an
agreement was finally reached, and the evidence has now been, or is now
being, tested. The results could be of great importance if new DNA is
discovered. We in Trial & Error do not know the details of these past two
and a half years of negotiations, but we believe that if the state had
wanted these materials to be tested it would have been done years ago. But
better late than never.

BREAKING NEWS -- We have just learned that a preliminary hearing has been set for July 29th at 9:00am at the

Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland. This hearing will be about what evidence will be allowed at
the hearing on Motion for New Trial based on DNA. The hearing will be open to the public and we urge all

supporters to attend. The courthouse may be packed but please stay outside to show your support.

We ask that there are no banners, buttons, etc. We presume that a news conference will be held outside the courthouse afterwards.

For some months this past Spring we delayed putting out a newsletter because we
thought it would be best not to attract attention to two bills before the
legislature which were intended to correct some of the problems we saw in
the post-conviction DNA statute. We hoped that the hearings would not be
turned into a circus like there was in 2006.

The Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on LD824 Tuesday, 5/10/11.
This was the bill to amend certain provisions regarding evidence in the
state’s post-conviction DNA statute, and also to respond to Judge Bradford's ruling as to what evidence was allowable. Rep. John Martin, of Eagle Lake and the bill’s sponsor,
made a strong and balanced case for the bill, stating that it was needed to
help bring closure about the Sarah Cherry murder in 1988 for everyone on
both sides of the issue. WABI-TV was there, and used a clip from his
opening statement on the 6 pm news.

Presenting for the bill was Walt McKee, the legislative liaison for MACDL,
the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Walt walked the
committee through the technical aspects of the bill, at the same time he
advanced a clear and simple argument for why a broader consideration of
evidence relating to DNA test results would improve the existing statute.

Former Attorney General Jon Lund spoke next, pointing to the increasing role
and value of DNA evidence in criminal justice.

Bernie Huebner drew from Judge Carl O. Bradford’s ruling of last November
denying Dennis’s submission of evidence related to DNA evidence (time of
death; alternative suspects; law enforcement investigative notes
contradicting their trial testimony that Dennis confessed to them), and used
the judge’s own statements that his denial was required under the current
statute as a reason for this Legislature to amend the law.

Bill Bunting offered a comparison to the JonBenet Ramsey case as an argument
for amending the existing statute to give more weight to DNA evidence that
was not identified with a defendant.

Finally, Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties
Union, offered support for the bill, specifically for the provision to
broaden the scope of allowable evidence in a court hearing.

One part of the bill stipulated that DNA evidence material to a crime but not identified with the defendant should be treated as prima facie evidence, rebuttable by the state, that it belonged to the perpetrator, and that this presumption should be allowed as evidence in favor of the defendant. Similarly, DNA evidence material to the crime but which the state had not preserved was also to be so regarded. Jan. 1, 1988 was given as the retroactive date for the law to take effect because July 1988 was when the state first did DNA testing, even though the AG opposed DNA testing in Dennis's case in 1989.

Among those opposing the bill, Commissioner of Public Safety John Morris made a point of
saying how important it was not to rely completely upon DNA evidence, but
that it should be weighed in the context of other evidence, a position
remarkably similar to part of our bill’s proposed amendments. Assistant Attorney General Macomber told the committee that the AG also opposed the bill, but in explaining why, he, too, made our case for a
broadening of admissible evidence. His statement that the passage of the bill would "open the flood gates" indicated that he did not understand the many steps that are required before the post-conviction DNA statute can apply to a petitioner.

The rest of the hearing was devoted to members and supporters of the Cherry
family. Sadly, their testimony consisted mostly of a recounting of the
understandable pain and suffering they have endured for so long. Equally
sadly, their testimony did not really address either the existing statute or
LD 824’s proposed amendments. Instead, it continued to demonize Dennis
while offering no acknowledgement of all the new evidence developed over the
years.

LD824 was rejected on May 13, 2011. It would have been nice if the Judiciary Committee could have looked at
LD824 without sensationalism, but that was not to be. It is unfortunate that
news reports were very inaccurate. LD824 if passed would NOT have
automatically given Dennis a new trial, despite what the media said. Also,
it had nothing to do with allowing testing of untested DNA.

Trial & Error was also the source of LD373, which, unlike the revised post-conviction DNA statute, was intended to give the the petitioner equal rights of appeal with the
state. This bill received a unanimous ought to pass from
the committee. It was signed into law by Governor Paul LePage on June 6,
2011. So our legislative efforts did produce some positive results.

Our thanks to the sponsors and co-sponsors Rep. John Martin, Rep. Ken
Theriault, Sen. Troy Jackson and Sen. Stan Gerzofsky. Also to former AG Jon
Lund, who testified in favor of LD824, and especially to Walt McKee, the
lobbyist for the Maine Criminal Defense Lawyers Association who volunteered
his valuable time and great skill to give expert testimony on behalf of both
bills. Also, a super "Thank You" to Bill and Bernie for their continued
hard work and total dedication with the 2 bills, LD824 and LD373.

Please forward this letter to everyone on your mailing list and ask them to
attend the hearing on the 29th at 9am in Portland at the Cumberland County Courthouse. It may be a full house but please stay outside if you have to and show your support since the press may have questions for supporters of a new trial.

Also, please send letters to the press in support of justice and a new trial with ALL the evidence.

Sincere thanks for your continued support!

Carol Waltman, on behalf of Bill Bunting, Bernie Huebner, Steve Sandau, Don Dechaine and the membership of Trial and Error

If Dechaine were guilty, wouldn't he give up?

July 24 2011

I totally agree with Peter Sirois (letter, July 1). I have been following the Dennis Dechaine case for more than 20 years and have saved most of newspaper clippings.

I believe him to be innocent. Most people, if they were guilty, would give up trying to prove themselves innocent after all this time. Why won't they give Dechaine a chance to prove it? What are they hiding?

God will be their judge, and their punishment will be worse than that handed down by any court judge.

Stench of coverup in Dennis Dechaine case

July 18 2011

Webster's dictionary defines hubris as "wanton insolence or arrogance resulting from excessive pride," and defines complicity as "partnership in wrongdoing."

The Dennis Dechaine case illustrates how the Maine Attorney General's Office has demonstrated both for more than two decades. That office has seriously compromised its mission of "justice for all" and rendered its actions suspect, regardless of the attorneys serving in that office.

Starting with James Tierney in 1989, the year of Dechaine's trial, to William J. Schneider, the current attorney general, the AG's Office has been smug in its righteousness and self-granted infallibility.

"In Maine, we're different," asserted deputy AG William Stokes when I pointed out that in light of the frequent exonerations nationwide wouldn't it be possible that Maine has a few innocent people in jail?

The Legislature has long smelled the stench of coverup in the Dechaine case emanating from the fourth floor of the Cross Office Building. When that office steadfastly refused to open up its files on the case, the lawmaking bodies enacted legislation to open them up. The greatest find in the files was the flagrant altering of the notes of the police investigators to incriminate Dechaine.

When the Legislature discovered that deputy AG Fern Larochelle had incinerated possibly exculpatory evidence, it passed legislation ordering the AG's Office to keep all evidence in cases it prosecuted.

When I successfully sponsored a post-conviction DNA bill in 2006, that office was adamant in its opposition just as it was against a follow-up bill this year.

The only redeeming action was AG Andrew Ketterer's 1990's firing of prosecuting attorney Eric Wright in the Dechaine case.

Dechaine's jury didn't have all the evidence

July 18 2011

I believe that a jury of peers will examine the evidence presented and come up with a verdict as designed by our Constitution and penal code. In the Casey Anthony trial, however, I did develop an interest because of "grocery line chatter. "

It seems that many people already had the woman declared guilty long before the trial was over. Of course, the jury was required to listen carefully to all of the evidence and non-evidence. Though I was not in the courtroom, I gathered from news reports that there never really was any actual evidence as to the how, where, who and when the crime was committed. Those are critical factors necessary to assign guilt, particularly in capital cases.

On the NBC News of July 6, I even heard the prosecutor say that to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was a high standard, and that none of the evidence he presented reached that standard with the jury.

And why should our courts not be held to a high standard? Is this nation based on the rule of law? Without high standards, do we become a ship of fools?

At the local level: If Dennis Dechaine had a jury with the same high standards more than 25 years ago, he might not be in jail today.

In defense of Dechaine's jurors, however, if they had received all the evidence and truth from the prosecution and law enforcement, they also might have come to a "not guilty" verdict.

June 7 2011

Wikipedia states, "Proof beyond reasonable doubt is the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems (such as the United Kingdom and the United States). Generally the prosecution bears the burden of proof and is required to prove their version of events to this standard ... to the extent that there could be no 'reasonable doubt' in the mind of a 'reasonable person' that the defendant is guilty."

Is there reasonable doubt about the conviction of Dennis Dechaine? Let me count the ways:

Dechaine requested and offered to pay for DNA testing before the trial, but the court refused to allow it on grounds it would have delayed the trial. Yet both blood typing and later DNA test results from tissue under the victim's thumbnail exclude Dechaine.

Time-of-death analysis by two nationally renowned forensic pathologists indicate that Dechaine was already under police control when the victim was killed.

Police investigators' trial testimony claiming Dechaine confessed is contradicted by their own notes.

Far more plausible alternative suspects were ignored by police investigators at the time of the crime, and the existence of information about same denied to the jury by the prosecution.

Six weeks following Dechaine's filing a motion for retrial, the state incinerated the rape kit and other biological evidence without notifying either the court or the defense.

Surrounding all this is the implacable campaign by the Attorney General's Office to thwart any attempt to resolve these doubts. Meanwhile, Dechaine languishes in prison, the victim's family is prevented from gaining real closure, and the public's confidence in its justice system keeps eroding.

All this would -- no doubt -- end with a retrial, if only citizens would insist upon it.

1988 murder investigation wouldn't be bungled today

Bill could have freed an innocent man

Kennebec Journal

There used to be a standard of justice here in the United States. There was a time that it was better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to languish in prison. Now we hear that the judicial committee of the Legislature has put the kibosh on a bill that could have freed an innocent man.

Whether Dennis Dechaine is innocent is really irrelevant. The ability to introduce evidence after a conviction, especially evidence of innocence, should be something that we all want.

I am appalled that Sarah Cherry's family is willing to keep in prison a man who may not have committed this atrocity.

I remember when she was murdered, and I have children of my own now. I would want justice if something happened to one of my precious little ones.

Dechaine isn't asking to be released from prison; he is asking for evidence that would possibly point to another killer to be seen and heard. I think that is a reasonable request.

I find it very sad that the Legislature hasn't the strength of will to defy the unreasoned and self-serving request by the attorney general and the impassioned yet sadly understandable request of the family of the victim.

Maine Voices: The state can resolve the Sarah Cherry murder case once and for all

Posted: May 18
Updated: Today at 7:52 PM

The only fair answer to all of the questions about this crime is a new trial for Dennis Dechaine.

BRUNSWICK — This controversy over the Sarah Cherry murder has gone on for 22 years. Enough is enough!

James P. Moore of Brunswick is a retired federal agent and the author of “Human Sacrifice,” a book that argues Dennis Dechaine is innocent.

Prosecutors used circumstantial evidence to convince a 1989 jury that Dennis Dechaine was guilty. Regarding hard evidence that would have been present if Dechaine was guilty -- any trace of him on Sarah; any trace of her on him or in his truck -- prosecutor Eric Wright told jurors, "The point as we tried to make to you with regard to this kind of evidence, whether it be fingerprints or fibers or hairs or what have you, sometimes you have it and sometimes you don't. I can give you no better answer than to say that's the way God made it."

So God intervened to remove the evidence that would have proved a bestial killer's guilt? That doesn't work for me.

If Sarah came in contact with Dechaine or his truck, something would have been found. State lab technicians tried everything possible to find something, and came up empty.

Prior to trial, Dechaine requested (and offered to pay for) DNA testing. Ever hear of a guilty man wanting DNA testing before his trial? Prosecutor Wright prevented that.

Since the blood under Sarah's nails wasn't even Dechaine's blood type, DNA couldn't help Wright's case. And he obfuscated time-of-death evidence.

Two nationally recognized forensic pathologists state that Sarah couldn't have been murdered until hours after police began interrogating Dechaine about a missing girl. The state medical examiner said nothing beyond a vague possibility to dispute that conclusion.

Dechaine was with the cops for many hours before and after the crime was committed. Being with the cops when a crime is committed is usually considered an airtight alibi.

Wright presented testimony by two detectives that's proved false by their own handwritten notes. Those notes were also concealed at Dechaine's trial. It took three lawsuits to pry them loose from the state, and prosecutors still won't talk about them.

Wright told jurors there were no other suspects. Untrue! One was already under indictment for sexually molesting his stepdaughter; the other, a neighbor to whose door detectives were literally led, was already under investigation for (and later convicted of) having sex with a 12-year-old girl.

Wright told legislators and others that Dechaine confessed, "and we have it on videotape."

Untrue! Look at that tape yourself -- anyone can see it since the Legislature forced the AG to open his secret file on this case. Fingerprints (not Dechaine's) from the crime scene have been "lost."

Wright guessed the blood under Sarah's nails was her own. Deputy AG William Stokes guessed it was from the infant girl Sarah was babysitting. But later tests proved it's male DNA. Stokes then guessed it came from one of Sarah's relatives. They were tested and eliminated.

Then Stokes guessed it was from a cop or medical examiner who handled the body. They were tested and excluded.

Possible? Do we convict people because they might be guilty? It's possible that Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well, raising goats in Oxford County, but I don't think so. Do you?

Shortly after Dechaine filed an appeal, the AG's men incinerated evidence they had that most likely contained DNA -- vaginal swabs, more bloody fingernails and the never-identified hairs found on Sarah's body.

Now our new AG's personal plea has killed LD 824, a bill that would have given hope for justice to any Mainer in this predicament, including Dechaine. The AG men's position: The bill would have created a "flood of appeals." Where do they find these people?

The only thing Dechaine's supporters ask for is a trial where jurors hear all the evidence. Is that too much to ask?

It's too much for the AG's men. The idea of letting a jury hear all the evidence scares them silly.

It's time we halt this never-ending debate that keeps reminding Sarah's family of their tragedy -- as if they'll ever forget, anyway. End it! Give Dechaine a trial where a jury of honest Mainers hears all the evidence and, win or lose, it'll be over.

Until then, no matter how many lies, technicalities and phony arguments anybody comes up with, this case will never die. Never!

Proposed Bill Could Grant Convicted Murderor New Trial

Augusta - The statehouse hosted a public hearing on Tuesday on a bill that could grant a new trial to convicted murderor Dennis Dechaine.

The bill would amend current laws regarding post-judgment DNA analysis.

Dechaine was convicted back in 1989 of murdering 12-year old Sarah Cherry. Since then he has been claiming they got the wrong man.

Representative John Martin says he sponsors this bill so that this case can finally be closed for good.

"It seemed to me that both sides could bring this issue to a close so that the family of this young girl would no longer have to read about this every 6 months or every 3 months. And the Dechaine family could also get it over with and decide whether or not this person is innocent or guilty. And then we can all move on," said Martin.

Opponents of this bill say this would place too much weight on DNA evidence alone without considering all other evidence.

Though much discussion focused on the Dechaine case, the bill would affect all cases that meet certain criteria.

Dennis Dechaine’s drug case temporarily postponed

ROCKLAND, Maine — Dennis Dechaine, who is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin in 1988, will not have his first court appearance Monday as planned for a new drug crime.

Dechaine, 52, was indicted last July by the Knox County grand jury on a charge of trafficking in prison contraband. A hearing on the drug charge that had been scheduled for Monday, May 2, in Knox County Superior Court has since been postponed. It was not clear Friday when and where the hearing would be rescheduled.

Dechaine’s attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport, also indicated Friday that new DNA tests of crime-scene evidence are being conducted in a pending bid to get a retrial on the murder case.

According to Peterson, the judge initially assigned to the contraband-trafficking case recused himself and a new one had to be found.

“It was assigned to another judge because of potential conflicts of interest,” Peterson said Friday. “There are so many judges who are familiar with his underlying case.”

Dechaine was taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland on April 5 for a drop in blood pressure and a high heart rate. The indictment alleges that on that day Dechaine was found in possession of the painkiller morphine and-or the anti-anxiety drug Klonopin, according to Knox County District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau.

Dechaine was in the Portland hospital for more than two weeks. At the time, Dechaine told the Portland Press Herald that he was hospitalized after he tried to kill himself by overdosing on prescription drugs.

Dechaine, a former Bowdoinham farmer who has served the last 22 years in the Maine State Prison for murdering Cherry, maintains that he is innocent. He and his attorney are pressing for a new trial based on DNA evidence.

Cherry was kidnapped, stabbed and strangled in the woods of Bowdoin on July 6, 1988, and Dechaine was found wandering in the woods nearby. His truck was found 450 feet from where her body was found, and rope inside in the truck matched rope that bound her wrists.

Dechaine was convicted of Cherry’s murder in Knox County Superior Court in March 1989.

Peterson also indicated Friday that new DNA tests of crime-scene evidence are now being conducted. He has received preliminary results, but could not share them Friday, by order of the court.

“They’re doing a new kind of testing than they had done before. We are using newer techniques to retest items that had been tested earlier,” Peterson said.

It will likely be several months before Dechaine’s next hearing on his appeal, Peterson said. By that time, the DNA testing will be done and reports from the tests will be filed, according to the attorney.

If Dechaine is guilty of the new drug charge, he will face up to five more years in prison. Peterson has previously stated that the drug case would not affect the bid for a retrial in the murder case.

Playing Trial & Error by the Bonfire

Jesse Pilgrim and the Bonfire do a couple things pretty well on their debut record, Trial & Error, that are hard to do well: create an album with a sense of place, and create an album with something to say. Combining those attributes makes for a pretty sharp piece of cowpunk and old-time folk that evokes the long musical tradition that manages to link Woody Guthrie to Joe Strummer and Shane MacGowan.

Pilgrim likes Portland pretty well — except when he doesn't. Coming just a bit more than half-way through this 11-song, half-hour full-length, "Love/Hate" is in many ways its heart. The distorted and fuzzed out guitar paired with the quick country strum (Pilgrim and Andy Barbo) and walk in the bass (Mica Jones) is pretty indicative of the cow-punk feel record, somewhat akin at times to No Depression, other times more of a mix between Johnny Cash and Soltero's Tim Howard.

On the one hand, Pilgrim refers to Portland as "this godforsaken town." On the other, he notes that if he and his gal left, "we'll both miss our home and have to wipe away our tears." Personally, I'm a Portland fanboy. I can't imagine it being godforsaken in any way. But everyplace sucks when you're unhappy, right? And everyone is unhappy sometimes. The stompy and off-kilter way Pilgrim brings the song to a halt is pretty unhappy-sounding.

Same with the opening and title track, which is ballsy in its take on the Dennis Dechaine case. Trial & Error is actually the title of the book and blog that focuses on Dechaine's innocence (go Google Dechaine and Sarah Cherry if you don't know what I'm talking about) and Pilgrim makes no bones about whom he stands with, finishing the song with "Dennis Dechaine, you should be free/But sadly the judges and courts don't agree."

I'm not educated enough on the case to have an opinion worth putting forth here, but I will say it's nice to see a musician write something political, and not just national big-picture stuff. We need more of this, and we need more acceptance of it as valid material that's not "corny" or "just politics." Putting some importance back in music is a good thing.

"Sawed Off" goes after our state's well-documented prison culture, focusing on an armed robber doing time and who "got stabbed in Warren state pen." Here Pilgrim takes on the prisoner's lament — what if I just didn't do it? Why did I do it? "His mind raced back to being 24/He could have had a wife, and he could have had a son/But he robbed a liquor store with a sawed-off gun." It's fairly punky, but the resonator-sounding guitar and the whining pedal steel effect keeps it grounded.

In addition to the rest of the Bonfire (Derek Gierhan gives the album a reckless feel on drums; Zach Pilgrim is on mandolin and has a piercingly pretty solo on "Whiskey"), Pilgrim also gets help of note from Aly Spaltro and D Gross. Spaltro's verse on the charming, bluegrass-pop "Lead Me Down" is typically self-assured and playful: "Don't you worry/I'll be just fine." Meanwhile, D Gross lends a lilting fingerpick to the old-timey "Now My Darling," which wins for bringing texting into a verse without seeming forced.

There are times where this disc is rough around the edges, but that's mostly on purpose; Eric Bettencourt and Jim Begley have combined to help Pilgrim do well in creating the rootsy-punk feel he's going for. Maybe he doesn't hit all the notes here with his singing voice (especially when he reaches up), but the record as a whole hits the mark for vision and feel.

Thank God, after all these years, someone is finally doing something about Dennis Dechaine asking to have a DNA test.

Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, has crafted a bill to consider a trial for Dechaine using the DNA testing he has been asking for to prove his innocence.

It is hard to believe that the people with the power to get a trial for him have allowed him to sit in jail for 22 years when a simple test could prove his innocence. How do they sleep at night?

Dechaine's frustration must be unbearable, knowing that he is innocent and being denied every opportunity to prove it. It is understandable why he tried to commit suicide; one person can take only so much disappointment, agony and hellish conditions.

The same can be applied to the family of Sarah Cherry, every time a new trial or testing is discussed, they have to relive the whole thing over again. They will now know for sure whether Dechaine was the one who brutally murdered their daughter, or if the guilty one is still out there, perhaps reoffending.

When Dechaine is proven innocent, it will be a difficult job to find out who did do this heinous act and find out how many other innocent little girls he has brutalized in the 22 years he has been free.

Former Attorney General Janet Mills sees a problem with proving Dechaine's innocence because she feels it is going to step on too many toes. I believe she is right, and I also believe the time has come to find out the truth.

Attorney general should reopen Dechaine case

http://www.kjonline.com/opinion/letters/Attorney-general-should-reopen-Dechaine-case-.html

In Colorado’s JonBenet Ramsey murder case, unidentified DNA on her pants eliminated her parents as suspects.

In Maine’s Sarah Cherry case, however, the girl’s pants, along with other evidence, were incinerated by the state after Dennis Dechaine filed an appeal, and the state refuses to act on the possibility that the unidentified male DNA found under Cherry’s thumbnail belongs to the killer.

The testimony of detectives regarding alleged admissions by Dechaine is contradicted by their notes, and two world-renowned forensic pathologists have concluded — as have other experts — that Dechaine could not be the killer.

The same judge who denied Dechaine’s 1989 request for DNA testing is still in charge of the case, and five Democratic attorneys general, perhaps fearful of being accused of being soft on crime, have evidently permitted a psychopathic killer to remain free.

Hopefully, Attorney General William Schneider will demonstrate his independence, intelligence, courage and dedication to the cause of justice by dropping his office’s opposition to a retrial, and, at long last, restore honor to the state of Maine.

William Bunting

Whitefield

Here are 25 stories that really clicked with readers

Last Sunday, the Maine Sunday Telegram published readers' picks for the 10 most significant news stories of 2010.

A group of women and men who had shed their tops march down a Congress Street sidewalk from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park. They were promoting the freedom of women to be topless in public. The group attracted many amateur and professional photographers.

Paul LePage speaks to supporters at the election results party at Champions in Waterville Tuesday night.

Today, we invite you to remember the 25 news articles and columns that were the most-read on pressherald.com.

With the exception of Gov.-elect Paul LePage's victory, there wasn't much overlap between the two lists. For one thing, news online can get picked up and shared with readers around the world. That's what happened with most of the top stories on the list.

On April 3, about two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park in an effort to raise awareness about what they said was a double standard on male and female nudity. The news update posted soon after the march ended attracted international attention -- and more than 742,000 views.

The more lengthy version of the topless march story, which appeared in the Maine Sunday Telegram print edition and was posted online early April 4, also attracted readers from all over the world. It garnered an additional 125,000 views.

Readers waited throughout election night to see who would be Maine's next governor. This story, which was viewed more than 42,000 times, was the final word from early Wednesday morning. Republican Paul LePage, while expressing optimism, had not yet claimed victory and runner-up Eliot Cutler, an independent, had not yet conceded.

Bill Nemitz's May 12 column discussed the controversy that erupted when a King Middle School teacher said that someone took a poster depicting the history of the labor movement from his classroom while Republicans were caucusing there during the state party convention. National websites linked to the column, which picked up more than 33,000 page views.

This story, which attracted more than 30,000 views, initially was posted only minutes after reporters learned that Cutler would concede to LePage and was updated throughout the day.

Police said that an Arundel woman was apparently trying to avoid a porcupine when she lost control of her car and hit a pole on Nov. 2. The story was viewed nearly 30,000 times.

Two young women, a Peaks Island summer resident and her visiting college friend, died in Casco Bay in a May kayaking accident after they apparently capsized. The story was viewed more than 23,000 times.

A Scarborough High School senior was killed and three other teens were hurt, one critically, when their car was hit by a tractor-trailer. The two couples were on their way to the Gorham High School prom when the crash occurred. The story was viewed nearly 22,000 times.

Bill Nemitz in October told the improbable story of how a minister's wife recovered a diamond that flew from her engagement ring when the couple's motorcycle crashed on Interstate 295. It was widely shared through social media and received more than 21,000 page views.

Portland police said the man, who had recently moved to Portland, had committed suicide. The story was viewed just over 21,000 times.

Food writer Meredith Goad got a sneak peek at the hotly anticipated Trader Joe's on Marginal Way a few days before it officially opened in late October. Curious and possibly hungry readers viewed her story nearly 19,000 times.

Sussman, the fiance of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, was revealed as the anonymous benefactor who provided a private jet to fly a dying man home to Maine from Kansas so he could be near family. The story was viewed more than 18,000 times.

The death of a young man in Monument Square after a confrontation with another man was one of the year's most-read stories. This article, viewed almost 18,000 times, detailed the arraignment of William Googins, who faces manslaughter charges. He told police that he had no idea his single punch would injure Eric Benson so badly.

The King Middle School-GOP convention controversy continued to flare, with a Portland School Committee member calling for an investigation and review of the district's policies on outside groups using schools. This story was viewed nearly 18,000 times.

Mainers apparently take an interest in their coffee, with this initial announcement drawing lots of attention -- and more than 17,000 page views. (The closed locations turned out to be in Westbrook and Windham.)

Anne McNaughton Farley of Westbrook died after jumping in to save her granddaughter from a strong current off Old Orchard Beach in July, a story that was viewed more than 17,000 times.

In a freak accident, a child was killed by a tree. He had been playing in the hole left by tree when it suddenly snapped back upright as his grandfather trimmed branches away. The story was viewed nearly 17,000 times.

This story, which was viewed more than 16,000 times, detailed the arrest of William Googins in connection with the Monument Square assault that left Eric Benson dead.

A two-car crash in Standish left one woman dead, her body found in a tree 40 feet above where her car came to rest. The story was viewed more than 16,000 times.

Portland High students complained after their principal announced a crackdown on suggestive dancing in advance of the school's homecoming dance, and the story attracted more than 16,000 page views.

This poll in the governor's race found a dramatic surge by Eliot Cutler, who ended up finishing second, and Democrat Libby Mitchell, who wound up third in the race. The story attracted just over 16,000 page views.

A father and son from Saco were found dead in early August at their camp in Sangerville. In November, the state Medical Examiner's Office announced that the men had cocaine, painkillers and alcohol in their bodies. The story received just under 16,000 page views.

This story, which was viewed almost 16,000 times, described how some rural Maine establishments were turning to exotic dancers at night to augment their business.

This story, which was viewed more than 15,000 times, focused on how students from several southern Maine schools were mourning after the prom night crash that killed a Scarborough High senior.

Convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine pins his hopes for one final shot at a retrial on new DNA evidence from Sarah Cherry's body. Courts reporter Trevor Maxwell examined the case and both sides' arguments in this July investigation published in the Maine Sunday Telegram, which was viewed more than 15,000 times.

DNA clears Texas man who spent 30 years in prison

DALLAS – Prosecutors declared a Texas man innocent Monday of a rape and robbery that put him in prison for 30 years, more than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

DNA test results that came back barely a week after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was paroled in July excluded him as the person who attacked a Dallas woman in 1979, prosecutors said Monday. Dupree was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980.

Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any DNA exoneree in Texas, which has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001 — more than any other state.

"Our Conviction Integrity Unit thoroughly reinvestigated this case, tested the biological evidence and based on the results, concluded Cornelius Dupree did not commit this crime," Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said.

Dupree is expected to have his aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon conviction overturned Tuesday at an exoneration hearing in a Dallas court.

There have been 21 DNA exonerations in Dallas since 2001, more than any other county in the nation. Only two states — Illinois and New York — have freed more of the wrongly convicted through DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center representing Dupree that specializes in wrongful conviction cases.

Dallas' record of DNA exonerations is unmatched nationally because the county crime lab maintains biological evidence even decades after a conviction, leaving samples available to test. In addition, Watkins has cooperated with innocence groups in reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates for DNA testing. Watkins, the first black DA in Texas history, has also pointed to what he calls "a convict-at-all-costs mentality" that he says permeated the DA's office before he arrived in 2007.

Dupree's 30 years in prison will surpass James Woodard, who spent more than 27 years in a Texas prison for a murder that he was cleared of in 2008.

Nationally, there are at least two other DNA exonerees who spent more time in prison, according to the Innocence Project. James Bain was wrongly imprisoned for 35 years in Florida and Lawrence McKinney spent more than 31 years in a Tennessee prison. Phillip Bivens was locked up for more than 30 years in Mississippi, but it wasn't immediately clear whether he or Dupree were in longer.

The DNA testing in Dupree's case also excluded a second defendant, Anthony Massingill, who was subsequently convicted in another sexual assault case and sentenced to life in prison. Massingill remains in prison but maintains his innocence. DNA testing in that second case is ongoing.

Dupree was charged in 1979 with raping and robbing a 26-year-old woman and sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for aggravated robbery. He was never tried on the rape charge.

According to court documents, the woman and her male companion stopped at a Dallas liquor store in November 1979 to buy cigarettes and use a payphone. As they returned to their car, two men, at least one of whom was armed, forced their way into the vehicle and ordered them to drive. They also demanded money from the two victims.

The men eventually ordered the car to the side of the road and forced the male driver out of the car. The woman attempted to flee but was pulled back inside.

The perpetrators drove the woman to a nearby park, where they raped her at gunpoint. They debated killing her but eventually let her live, keeping her rabbit-fur coat and her driver's license and warning her they would kill her if she reported the assault to police. The victim ran to the nearest highway and collapsed unconscious by the side of the road, where she was discovered.

About five days later, two men whose descriptions did not match Dupree tried to sell the rabbit-fur coat at a grocery store two miles from the liquor store, according to court documents. The car stolen from the victims was found abandoned in the parking lot.

Dupree and Massingill were arrested in December because they looked similar to two suspects being sought in another sexual assault and robbery. The 26-year-old woman picked both men out of a photo array, but her male companion did not identify either defendant in the same photo array.

Dupree was convicted and spent the next three decades appealing. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.

The Innocence Project, which took on his case in 2006, obtained DNA testing last summer on biological evidence taken from a vaginal swab. In July, shortly after Dupree's release, the test results cleared Dupree and Massingill.

The hearing is happening now because authorities needed additional testing to confirm that the 30-year-old biological material was a DNA match to the victim.

Since January 1989, when Dennis Dechaine was first denied his request for DNA testing on the evidence surrounding the gruesome death of Sarah Cherry, this case has been massively tilted in the state's favor.

In the 22 years since, a plethora of new evidence has been unearthed and/or substantiated that both the state and the courts do not want considered in new proceedings that surely should result in a new trial for the 52-year-old Madawaska native.

The evidence, some of it sealed in the state's lockboxes for years, includes perjury on the part of testifying police officers; officers who were allegedly reading from their notes at the first trial but when those notes were finally unsealed we learned they said something very different than what the jury heard as revealed in trial transcript.

The time-of-death questions raised are clearly the most evocative, but so are the mathematically highly improbable statistics of Dechaine's identifiable possessions being discovered at and near the crime scene as they allegedly were. The odds against that were greater than 99 to 1.

And why did the state incinerate evidence, including hairs found on Sarah's battered body that would have exonerated Dechaine and perhaps identified her killer? As we now know, the male DNA found under her thumbnail did not belong to Dechaine.

Why is the state so reticent to have all the facts on the table, side by side, at the same time? Why does it want a potentially innocent man to remain in prison for life for a crime a massive amount of evidence says he did not commit? Why do the judge and the state insist on playing loophole games to keep information from a potential jury?

Understand, Dechaine is not looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card. He is only seeking a new trial -- a fair one.

Why was evidence proving Dechaine innocent withheld?

On Nov. 18, the political cartoon on the the newspaper’s opinion page pictured four large knives and a little pair of nail clippers.

I immediately thought of Dennis Dechaine. His life is being cut up by the big justices, but a little pair of nail clippers could save his life. The justices refuse to allow the fact to be heard that the DNA on the nail clippings of Sarah Cherry is not that of Dechaine, but is that of another male, who very well could have been the murderer.

In the same issue, Justice Carl Bradford refuses to allow the opinions of two highly respected pathologists. Their opinions are that Dechaine was in police custody at the time of the murder.

Bradford says the new evidence is exculpatory. Webster’s Dictionary says that means “free of blame or declare or prove guiltless,” but it should have been argued in earlier proceedings.

The problem with that was that all the evidence that would have proved him innocent was withheld. This tells me that Bradford believes Dechaine is innocent, but doesn’t want that to be proven, which makes me wonder what is being hidden. Why are they trying so hard to suppress evidence that could prove Dechaine is innocent?

In the Dec. 4 issue of the Morning Sentinel, there is an article about the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, trying to have a rock star pardoned of a 1963 charge of indecent exposure. Bob Butterworth, a past state attorney general, says, “It is very important to prosecute the guilty, but it is more important to exonerate the innocent.”

Gail French
North Belgrade

It is encouraging to read Dennis Curley’s Dec. 8 letter about Dennis Dechaine. Not a day passes that I do not think about Dechaine and the suffering and humiliation he underwent and must still undergo.
Some time ago, I watched a one-hour program about the Dennis Dechaine case. The program was broadcast in the middle of the night. The investigation was thorough and complete. In this program, two investigators followed the Dechaine case, speaking with him and others until they arrived in Florida to the home of the person they believed killed Sarah Cherry. He did not come out when they called to him. In this program, the investigators proved Dechaine is innocent. Check out this website: www.trialanderrordennis.org for more information and updates.

I, too, cannot understand why Dechaine does not get a new trial. It was found that the DNA at the scene did not match his DNA. Yet, he is not given another trial. I wonder if the trial is about winning instead of justice.

This reminds me of a television movie I saw quite a few years ago and will never forget. At the end of the trial, the judge reprimands both lawyers, telling them that their interest must be focused on justice and not on winning. Let’s keep this case at the forefront until Dechaine gets a new and fair trial and is finally set free. The real murderer may finally be caught, brought to trial and convicted of the murder of Sarah Cherry.

‘Stink of injustice’ hangs around Dennis Dechaine

http://www.kjonline.com/opinion/letters/Stink-of-injustice-hangs-around-Dennis-Dechaine-.html

There’s a smell around Maine’s judicial system, and it’s hung in the air around here for quite some time.

It’s the stink of injustice and its lingering, rancid odor that corrupts the independent minds of those who are so easily swayed to believe that their jobs are more important than the life of someone who is begging to prove his innocence. And you have to beg in front of the same judge who convicted you in the first place. What chance do you have? But that’s Maine law.

Dennis Dechaine has been in prison now for 22 years. He would like a retrial where all the evidence that the first jury never heard will finally be. Some being DNA evidence which in many other states, would have already exonerated him. Why are we in denial? Do we want to have a system that turns a blind eye to truth and scientific data?

Some say, “There are no innocent men or women in Maine jails.” Will Dechaine be our first? Certainly more could follow.

We do not have the perfect system; other states have already admitted this. In Pennsylvania, where nine men have been proven innocent by DNA testing in recent years, the state Senate created an Innocence Commission in 2006. California, Connecticut and Wisconsin also have created commissions to study the causes of wrongful conviction. In 2003, the Illinois Legislature passed into law 85 recommendations by a special commission that studied capital punishment and created safeguards against all wrongful convictions.

People who haven’t seen the movie “Conviction,” should see it. This story happened in Massachusetts, a place where “things of this sort never happen,” either.

Sandy Weston
Madison

The Kennebec Journal’s opinion of Nov. 19, “Judge right to limit scope of Dechaine hearing” held several mistakes, one being there are two books out, not one.

I disagree about not looking at every aspect. If I were on a jury deciding a person’s life, I’d want every piece of evidence, every blood sample, every DNA result in order to make a decision that I would have to live with.

Leave no rock unturned. Our justice system doesn’t allow that, and it makes you wonder why? What are they afraid of? A cover up? Why not hear the opinion of not just one but two forensic pathologists.

Why weren’t the local sex offenders questioned? There were several in the area. Why can’t the medical examiner fix a time and date of death?

It all reeks of something not adding up. Let’s let it all be heard. It’s been too long now for all concerned. We all need closure. We all need the truth.

More than 21 years ago, Judge Carl Bradford decided that he didn’t want to waste time on DNA testing in the original Dennis Dechaine trial. Dechaine had asked to have the DNA testing done and even offered to pay for it. Then, after Dechaine appealed his conviction, the state incinerated likely DNA evidence including the rape kit, unidentified hair, and the victim’s pants, but kept items deemed evidence for the prosecution.
Soon this same Judge Bradford will be deciding whether Maine’s revised DNA statute will allow a new trial for Dechaine based on DNA of a male who is not Dechaine found under the victim’s thumbnail. Bradford has refused to consider new time-of-death findings by two renowned forensic pathologists that puts Dechaine in police custody well before the murder, and the fact that testimony given at the original trial by detectives is contradicted by their own notes.
But let’s all hope, for the sake of justice, that Judge Bradford makes a correct decision this time on the DNA evidence. Last year the state used DNA found under a victim’s fingernail to solve an even older murder case. It could also solve this case and set an innocent man free at last.
Jennifer Bunting
Whitefield

November 28 2010

Judge doesn’t seem to want to learn the truth

It comes as no surprise that Judge Carl Bradford has declined the opportunity to consider the merits of new evidence arguably bearing on the significance of the DNA found under Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail, male DNA that was not Dennis Dechaine’s.

At the upcoming DNA hearing — hopefully it will be held soon — Bradford will, in essence, be deciding whether he erred 21 years ago when he denied Dechaine’s request for DNA testing.

Evidently, Bradford would prefer that this decision, which could end Dechaine’s last hope for a retrial, not be complicated by the awkward findings of two world-renowned forensic pathologists that Dechaine could not be the killer.

Although Bradford’s narrowly construed ruling is backed by precedent, in the bigger picture it would appear that the search for the truth in this tragic case is not Bradford’s foremost concern.

William Bunting
Whitefield

            So, now Judge Carl Bradford has ruled that even though forensic evidence could well prove that Dennis Dechaine was already talking to police when Sarah Cherry was murdered, he will not consider it in his upcoming decision whether grant a retrial.
            Clearly, the letter of the law (or, more accurately, Bradford's interpretation of it) is trumping the spirit of the law.
Also trumping the spirit of the law is placing the power to determine Dechaine's fate in the hands of the same judge whose work on the original trial is questionable.
            I believe justice will not be served until all the evidence in the Dechaine case is finally heard, and I call on the governor or the Legislature to finally order a reinvestigation and retrial.

What does the state have against a fair trial for Dennis Dechaine? I can find very few people who think the first trial was fair. We know there was evidence that was never heard, and we know that some of what was heard was incorrect.     So what's up?
            I hear that the Attorney General's Office said, "We don't make mistakes like that here," but that can't be true. As our governor-elect says, we all make mistakes. I agree. The Innocence Project agrees, as do the more than 200 convicted people they have exonerated.
            Who is so afraid of the possibility of being wrong that we can't look again at a case that may have the wrong man in prison for two decades while the real perpetrator is still free?

Judge Carl Bradford is technically correct in the narrowest legalistic sense: Maine’s statute governing a post-judgment conviction motion does not explicitly provide for Dennis Dechaine to present other than DNA evidence to support his motion for a re-trial.

This is a little like a drowning man whose cry “Throw me a rope!” is ignored as technically impossible by someone on shore surrounded only by life preservers.

Set aside that Bradford, having denied Dechaine’s pre-trial request for DNA testing, is now caught in an obvious conflict of interest and should not even be ruling on Dechaine’s motion for a re-trial.

The state would have the public believe that the pre-eminent purpose of the courts is to establish the truth. Why, then, is Bradford not interested in the recent reports of two world-renowned forensic pathologists, Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman, demonstrating Dechaine was already in police custody when Sarah Cherry was killed?

Why is the judge not concerned that the sworn testimony of two detectives claiming Dechaine confessed to them is contradicted by their own police notes, which were withheld by the state until forced open by a lawsuit and an act of the Legislature?

And why is Bradford not disturbed that the state avowed to the jury that there were no other suspects, when tests now clearly show the presence under the victim’s thumbnails of DNA belonging not to Dechaine, but to some other male?

With or without the courts, the truth will out. In fact, it is already out in the minds of many of Maine’s citizens. The question for Bradford is whether he is only a lawyer, dancing on the head of a legalistic pin, or someone capable of living up to the meaning of the word “judge.”

Bernie Huebner

Waterville

By Lucy L. Martin

The attorney representing Dennis Dechaine, convicted in the 1988 murder of Sarah Cherry, said this week he was "hugely disappointed and not at all surprised" by a recent setback in Dechaine's steps toward a new trial.

The upcoming hearing on that bid, most likely to take place early next year, will be limited to DNA evidence only, Judge Carl Bradford decided.

An order filed in Knox County Superior Court by Bradford, who presided over the original trial, denies defense attorney Steven C. Peterson's motion to allow testimony from forensic pathologists Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D., and Walter Hofman, M.D. Earlier this year, both experts concluded that the 12-year-old Bowdoin babysitter died after Dechaine was in custody that July night in 1988, when the heinous crime was committed.

Bradford also refused to consider contradictory testimony by two detectives investigating the case. Peterson sought to challenge police officers' statements that Dechaine, now 52, made admissions of guilt after taken into custody.

On Tuesday, Peterson said, "The import of the decision is that unless something is tied explicitly or otherwise to the DNA evidence, (Judge Bradford) won't allow other evidence," even if it that evidence, such as time of death, supported Dechaine's claim of innocence.

Similarly, if the theory of an alternative suspect "can't be tied to the DNA, we won't be allowed at the next hearing to talk about it," the attorney said.

Peterson described the order as "a narrowing of what can be talked about at the hearing."

He said Bradford had a choice - to be strict in his interpretation or to take "a more liberalized approach, recognizing that items [related to the crime] have been destroyed and Dennis Dechaine asked for DNA testing before his trial and was denied."

Dechaine supporters organized as Trial and Error reacted with a statement prepared by member Bill Bunting, of Whitefield, who underscored the judge's refusal to allow DNA testing 21 years ago. "When the tests were later done the DNA was proved to belong to a male who is not Dennis Dechaine," Bunting said. Other evidence that might have contained additional DNA, notably the rape kit, was incinerated.

During the trial, the judge also rejected letting the jury hear any testimony about alternative suspects, said Bunting. Bradford's refusal to consider new evidence now, while strictly adhering to the statute "as he has chosen to interpret it," hobbles the search for truth, Bunting maintained.

In his order, Bradford wrote, "The State contends that the defendant is attempting to relitigate issues that were or could have been litigated in prior proceedings and effectively obtain a new trial in the guise of a DNA hearing."

In a WGAN news radio call-in program Nov. 20, prominent criminal defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who in 2009 agreed to join Dechaine's defense team as a consultant, said, "I'm uncomfortable that the jury never heard expert testimony about the victim being alive when Dechaine was already in custody." The defense attorney at that time "went along with what the state's expert said," Bailey commented.

A decision that a defendant had inadequate counsel would have to come from a federal court ruling, and that process would take at least a year, he said.

Speaking of Dechaine's offer to pay for DNA testing before he went to trial, Bailey remarked, "The State said no, even though it had used DNA testing

F.Lee Bailey interview on WGAN Radio on the Dennis Dechaine Case

Our Views: Judge right to limit scope of Dechaine hearing

Posted: November 19
Updated: Today at 8:26 PM

The purpose is to determine whether there should be a new trial, not to retry the case.

No criminal case in Maine history has been talked about more than the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Twenty-one years ago, a Maine jury convicted Dennis Dechaine of the crime, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole. Instead of ending the story, however, that just got it going.

Since his conviction, Dechaine has steadfastly maintained his innocence, and so has a group of advocates, beginning with his friends and family, but growing over time to include people who have studied the case and become convinced of his innocence.

The case has been the subject of newspaper and magazine stories, a book, television documentaries and thousands of online postings and letters to the editor of virtually every publication in the state.

But just because every aspect of this case has been discussed at some time or another, it does not follow that it's always appropriate to look at every aspect all the time. Especially in court, it is right to focus on only the issues that could factor into a decision and not get distracted by the mountains of fact and opinion that have piled up over time.

At issue now is a decision by Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford to disallow opinions by two forensic pathologists offered in support of a motion for a new trial based on DNA evidence. The experts reach a different conclusion about the time of Sarah Cherry's death than the state's medical examiner, which is a key pillar in Dechaine's claim of innocence.

But the upcoming hearing is to decide whether Dechaine should get a new trial based on DNA evidence -- it is not a new trial itself.

The subject of the hearing should be the male DNA discovered on the victim's bloodstained fingernail, which did not come from Dechaine.

The proper focus of the hearing should be the DNA itself, how it got there and what it might tell us about the murder. Did the victim scratch her killer while fighting for her life? Were the fingernails contaminated over time? Is there proof that a jury that had seen the DNA would have reached a different verdict?

That's the important question now, and that's the one that should be answered by this hearing. Bradford is right to keep the focus where it belongs.

Exclusion of opinions a blow to Dechaine

November 18

Only DNA evidence will be admitted at a hearing to determine if the convicted murderer gets a new trial.

In a major blow to Dennis Dechaine's bid for a new trial, the judge in the case will not consider new forensic opinions offered by the defense that suggest Dechaine could not have murdered 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in July 1988.

Dechaine's lawyer, Steve Peterson, obtained the opinions earlier this year from two forensic pathologists, Cyril Wecht and Walter Hofman, regarding Cherry's time of death. Peterson hoped to persuade Justice Carl O. Bradford to consider those reports, along with DNA evidence, at an upcoming hearing to determine whether Dechaine will get a new trial.

In an order filed last week in Knox County Superior Court, Bradford said state law strictly limits the hearing to DNA evidence and other evidence directly related to DNA. The opinions from Wecht and Hofman do not fall into that category, the judge ruled.

"New evidence that is exculpatory but not directly relevant to the interpretation of the DNA evidence will not be admitted," Bradford wrote. "To do otherwise would allow the defendant to relitigate issues that were or could have been argued in earlier proceedings."

Dechaine, 52, is serving a life sentence in state prison for the kidnapping and murder of Sarah Cherry in the Sagadahoc County town of Bowdoin. Through four unsuccessful appeals at the state and federal levels, Dechaine has maintained that he is innocent. A large group of vocal supporters continues to lobby state officials and legislators on his behalf.

Bradford's ruling leaves Peterson with only one key piece of evidence to present at the hearing for a new trial.

That evidence is a fragment of unidentified male DNA, extracted by scientists from a thumbnail that was clipped from the girl during her autopsy. The partial DNA profile was not a match for Dechaine, law enforcement officers who handled the body, or the girl's family members. Peterson says the thumbnail DNA holds the key to finding the killer.

Prosecutors say the right man is behind bars, and the DNA could have come from any incidental contact the girl had leading up to her death or from contaminated clippers used in her autopsy.

Prosecutors also note that the thumbnail clippings were kept for more than a year by Dechaine's trial lawyer, Tom Connolly, at his office in Portland.

To get a new trial, Peterson must convince Bradford that the thumbnail DNA evidence is reliable, and that jurors probably would find Dechaine not guilty of murder if they knew about it.

Peterson said the order denying admission of the Wecht and Hofman reports "seriously hamstrings us."

"I can't say that it was unexpected, the way this case has gone. The court adopted a very narrow construction of the statute," Peterson said. "We're going to forge ahead in whatever circumstances we're in, and try to get him a new trial."

William Stokes, head of the criminal division of the state Attorney General's Office, said he was pleased with the decision.

"It is the position we have taken all along," Stokes said. "The judge has made it clear that those opinions are not going to be heard at any DNA hearing in this case."

The opinions by Wecht and Hofman were provided at the request of the renowned defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who has longstanding business ties in Maine and recently moved to Yarmouth.

Bailey heard about Dechaine's case a few years ago. He met with Dechaine at the Maine State Prison in April 2009 and agreed to serve as an unpaid "ombudsman" in the case.

Bailey sent a packet including Cherry's autopsy report, portions of the trial testimony, weather reports and other case data to Wecht, a longtime friend. Wecht agreed to provide an opinion for free. Bailey sought a second opinion from Hofman, whose $1,000 fee was paid by Dechaine's advocacy group, Trial and Error.

Both forensic pathologists gave opinions that the earliest possible time of Cherry's death was sometime on July 7, 1988. Dechaine was detained by police on the evening of July 6.

Ronald Roy, the deputy state medical examiner who did the autopsy, testified at Dechaine's trial that he could not pinpoint a time of death, and that the girl probably was killed in the afternoon or evening on July 6, 1988.

On Wednesday, Bailey expressed frustration at Bradford's order. He said the opinions should be admitted at Dechaine's hearing for a new trial because they dovetail with the thumbnail DNA.

"The tragedy is, in my view, that there is a good chance that the state of Maine is going to ignore some powerful evidence that is totally exculpatory, without putting on paper the sworn testimony of these eminent forensic pathologists, two of the best alive, who arrived at their conclusions without discussing the matter with one another," Bailey said.

Cherry, a student at Bowdoin Central School, was kidnapped while baby-sitting on July 6, 1988. The mother who had hired her came home about 3:20 p.m. and found a notebook and a receipt bearing the name Dennis Dechaine in her driveway.

Police began a search for the missing girl and Dechaine. About five hours later, he was seen walking out of the woods about three miles north of the home.

Dechaine testified at his trial that he went into the woods on July 6 to inject speed and wander around. He said someone must have framed him by grabbing his papers, the rope and the scarf from his truck.

http://www.pressherald.com/news/hearing-delayed-on-dechaines-bid-for-new-trial_2010-10-21.html

Talks between the state and defense on DNA testing mean the motion likely won't be heard until next year.

A hearing, tentatively scheduled for this fall, to determine whether Dennis Dechaine will get a new trial has been pushed back until at least December, and is more likely to be held next year.

Through four unsuccessful appeals at the state and federal levels, Dechaine has maintained that he is innocent. A large group of vocal supporters continues to lobby state officials and legislators on his behalf.

Dechaine's latest motion for a new trial was filed in August 2008, but the sides have been bogged down for much of the past year in discussions about how to do additional DNA testing on some of the evidence, which is now more than 20 years old.

"There have been some delays, but now we're seeing progress," said Steve Peterson of Rockport, Dechaine's lead attorney.

Peterson said the rope, bandana and scarf that were used in the girl's murder will be analyzed at a private laboratory in Dallas, where scientists will search for DNA using an advanced scraping method. Sticks that were used to sexually assault the victim will be tested at the Maine State Police crime lab in Augusta. Previous testing on those items in the past decade failed to detect the DNA of anyone other than the 12-year-old victim. Peterson wants to be sure that nothing was missed.

The Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services recently approved $4,500 for the tests.

"I don't believe any of the actual testing has been done," but it could begin any time, Peterson said. It will take several weeks for the labs to issue reports. "We're hoping we can come up with some new DNA evidence."

William Stokes, head of the criminal division of the state Attorney General's Office, said he has tried to move the process along by facilitating discussions between scientists at the crime lab in Augusta with staffers at the private Orchid Cellmark laboratory in Dallas.

Dechaine's latest bid for a new trial is based primarily on a mysterious fragment of unidentified male DNA found during analysis of one of Cherry's thumbnails. The partial DNA profile was not a match for Dechaine, law enforcement officers who handled the body, or members of the girl's family. Peterson says that evidence holds the key to finding the killer.

Prosecutors say the right man is behind bars, and the DNA could have come from any incidental contact the girl had leading up to her death, or from contaminated nail clippers used in her autopsy.

To get a new trial, Dechaine's lawyers must convince Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford that jurors likely would have acquitted Dechaine if they had known about the thumbnail evidence.

The defense team recently obtained two new forensic reports suggesting that Dechaine could not have committed the crime. They will ask Bradford to consider the reports.

Cherry was a straight-A student at Bowdoin Central School. She was kidnapped while baby-sitting on July 6, 1988.

The mother who had hired her to baby-sit came home about 3:20 p.m. and found a notebook and a receipt bearing the name Dennis Dechaine in her driveway. Police began a search for the missing girl and Dechaine. About five hours later, he was seen walking out of the woods about three miles north of the home where Cherry had been baby-sitting.

He told police that he had been fishing and gotten lost and he couldn't find his truck. He denied having anything to do with the girl's disappearance. Later that night, police found his pickup truck on a discontinued logging road nearby.

A search team found the girl's body about noon on July 8 in the woods near the spot where Dechaine's truck was found. She had been stabbed about a dozen times and strangled with a scarf. The rope binding her wrists and the scarf had come from Dechaine's truck.

Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at: tmaxwell@pressherald.com

What is happening with the Dennis Dechaine case. The man hasn't been given a new trial yet? The state says Dennis lied.

I know the state has deceived us. So, if I take out all the words, what would be left. Tire tracks, one similar and the rest not

in the driveway of the house where Sarah was taken and none of Dennis' fingerprints at the house tells me Dennis couldn't

have been there. Easy enough for a paper and notebook to have been dropped in the driveway. The unknown fingerprints

they found at the house are "missing." Not a single bit of evidence of Sarah being in Dennis' truck, as well as the tracking

dog not being able to pick up her scent tells me she couldn't have been in his truck. Knots tied in the rope that bound Sarah's

hands, not knots Dennis used. Hair and fiber found on Sarah's body and DNA under her thumbnails not Dennis' and a time of

death that makes it impossible for Dennis to be the one who murdered Sarah tells me Dennis needs a new trial and the state of Maine

GOP gubernatorial hopeful Paul LePage this week made some interesting comments about capital punishment and

convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine.
LePage, answering questions about the state's judicial system, said, "On the record, and I'll be very candid, I do think Maine

should have the death penalty."
Maine abolished the death penalty in 1887, becoming one of the first states to do so.
LePage wasn't asked about his stance on capital punishment. His view was unsolicited, as were his statements about Dechaine,

who is currently serving a life sentence for killing 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in 1988.
LePage was addressing transparency within the state judicial system when he brought up Dechaine.
LePage: "If you suspect you made a mistake, don't be ashamed to reopen (a case) and double-check yourself. There have been several

cases in the last couple of decades that the press has written about."
Reporter: "Are you referring specifically to the Dechaine case?"
LePage: "Yes, that's one case I've been hearing about. ... I keep reading that there's doubt, there's doubt, there's doubt. Well, if there's

doubt, why don't we go open it up and look at it? Why is the (Attorney General's Office) completely unwilling to go look at it?"
To be clear, LePage said he didn't have knowledge of the case, nor did he proclaim that Dechaine was innocent.

It was 1977, early in my ill-fated candidacy for Governor. In an effort to learn more about
our prison system, I made an appointment to visit Maine Correctional Center in South Windham.
I was met at the front lobby by the Superintendent. After a long conversation, he made a
statement thatI never forgot: "96% of the people in this institution should be taken out back and
shot. It is the other 4% that we are here for."

At the time, I thought well of that statement. Maine's state prison population was about 1/3
of what it is today (around 800), and I shared in the public perception that only the worst of the
worst were incarcerated. The fact that an entire prison staff was dedicated to saving 4% of Maine's
incorrigibles was impressive to me at that time.
The problem is that the statement, ´96% of the people in this institution should be taken out back

and shot,' remains a key obstacle to prison reform after 3 decades of nepotism, favoritism and political patronage.
The walls of the system, however, are beginning to crumble.
The recent disclosure by the Attorney General's Office that the State is investigating the
possible Nov. 27th homicide by prison staff of prisoner Victor Valdez at Maine State Prison in
Warren is a departure from past deflections of information by State government. The whereabouts
of Valdez's demise, whether in Solitary, the Infirmary or the hospital, is indeterminate at present,
but that he was declared dead without a medical examination and was cremated without an autopsy
is confirmed. The evidence having been destroyed, confirmation of what happened to him is now a
matter of the word of witnesses ² primarily other prisoners.
Valdez was the second of three suspicious deaths within the prison system over the period
of a year. Sheldon Weinstein died of a ruptured spleen in Solitary at Warren on April 24, 2009,
within two hours of my request that he be given toilet paper. He had been using his pillow case, but
it technically didn't matter because he had no pillow either. His death has been attributed to an
assault received four days earlier in suspicion of which Prisoner Sean Higgins remains in Solitary but
uncharged with the crime. The investigation drags on, while Weinstein's widow and family reel
from receiving his ashes with the official word that he died of natural causes, not to be corrected for
six weeks.
George McGee died in solitary at Androscoggin County Jail by hanging himself with torn
bed sheets on April 10, 2010. He had been placed there in full view of staff for his own protection.
Meanwhile, officials have suddenly become aware of drugs being carried into the prisons and
jails by staff, a long-standing tradition. Several guards are reported to have been released at Warren.
Maine's most notorious prisoner, Dennis Dechaine, attempted suicide in April with an overdose of
prescription drugs. From where, one might ask, was he able to obtain those drugs? It is doubtful
that the answer to that question will be soon forthcoming, as Dechaine is confined to the mental
health wing of Solitary for the foreseeable future. He has been charged with ´trafficking in
contrabandµ for carrying drugs within his system, while whoever provided the drugs thus far
remains anonymous. The notion that they came in through the mail or visitors is absurd in light of
such policies as the banning of a child's crayoned picture to Dad because the wax might be laced
with drugs.
The public will not long permit the Department of Corrections to make such blanket
statements as ´drugs are rare in the prison systemµ or ´our investigation will support (that Valdez
died of medical issues).µ The Shroud of Secrecy that has heretofore kept information from getting out
of Maine·s prison system is slowly being shredded. Along with that, we hope as we look forward to
a new Governor in January, will be the hiring of professionals with no ties to the Old Boy's
Network that passes judgment on who should and should not be taken outside and shot.

Rev. Stan Moody, Ph.D.
POB 240
Manchester, ME 04351
207/626-0594
Cell: 207/607-3055
www.stanmoody.com

I am baffled about the motives of Maine's attorney general and local prosecutors for deciding to indict Dennis Dechaine for "drug trafficking."

No drugs were found on Dennis or in his cell. There is no evidence that he bought or sold drugs. He ingested drugs in order to try to commit suicide. Had Dennis tried to hang himself with a sheet, would he have been indicted for trying to commit suicide or perhaps trafficking in bed linens?

I can only suspect that state government is concerned that Dennis will in fact be granted a new trial and be acquitted. Do they want to make sure then, that even though he would have served 22 years for a crime he did not commit, that they can stick him with five more years?

Or do they just want to try to make him look bad to a potential jury pool? If these are not their fears, why are they wasting their time and our money indicting a man for trying to commit suicide who is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole?

As for Bob Dorr's Aug. 7 letter to the editor, he only gives credence to someone's opinion who heard trial testimony about Dennis' drug use.

What is more important is what was not heard as trial testimony: DNA evidence, alternate suspects and the truth about investigators' notes. One can only ask why people who are convinced Dennis is guilty are so afraid of a new trial where all the evidence is finally heard.

Open the channel x radio link, go to CX NEWS and click on the upper left hand link to "Open Letter to Maine's Attorney General".

Dennis Dechaine is a native of Madawaska, one of the communities to which we are licensed. Members of his family continue to reside in the Saint John Valley. Many facts, some new, some old, continue to produce pivotal, but unanswered questions. I have outlined below some of the facts various members of our audience find troubling:

2. A microscopic search of that vehicle by lab technicians did not find a single trace of Sarah Cherry: not blood, sweet or tears, not hair, urine, or salvia, not skin, fabric or fiber; nor were Sarah’s fingerprints or DNA found there.

Dechaine; not from police or medical personnel, or family members, or any of the

cadavers autopsied just prior to Sarah’s. Some of this DNA belongs to a male (not

(conducted at 2:30PM on Friday, July 8, 1988), although he did add that “it could have been longer.” That would mean Sarah expired between 2:30 and 8:30 Thursday morning—five-hours after Dechaine was in police custody.

7. That 36-hour time span has been reconfirmed recently by two extremely experienced and competent forensic pathologists: Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman, both of Pennsylvania.

9. At that time, Dechaine weighed 135-pounds; Sarah, 93. Is it realistic to think he could have abducted this athletic young girl from that second floor home without some sign(s) of a struggle? Police found no evidence of a struggle in or around that structure. Does that fact, combined with the lack of forensic evidence, and more recently the mismatched DNA, create any doubts, any at all, for the State? We are asked that repeatedly.

10. The AG’s office incinerated evidence on June 18, 1992: the rape kit and hairs found with Sarah Cherry’s body and did so even though a motion for a new trial had been filed 44-days earlier, on May 5, 1992. Investigators were unable to match those hairs with Sarah or Dechaine.

baby-sitting, and in the woods off the Hallowell Road in Bowdoin between Sarah’s body

and Dechaine’s vehicle, while still others were with her remains. We have been asked time and again how Dechaine could have been so “out-of-it”, so careless to do that, while not transferring any forensic evidence to or from her body? This question takes on added importance when one understands that Sarah ultimately died of strangulation—after she was cut—a murder method requiring extremely close and somewhat prolonged personal contact, contact that would reveal the transference of some forensic traces (hair, blood, DNA) from one to the other.

Another question our listeners have raised is about the objects found in the Henkel driveway: It seems odd to some that of the eight-score items in Dechaine’s truck, only two of those items “fell out;” the only two which bore his name. Mathematicians in the University of Maine system tell us the odds of that happening are: <1.6 in 10,000.

The State contends Dechaine’s truck was locked, and it might have been—but it wasn’t locked tight. Trooper Thomas Bureau has no difficulty opening the sliding rear window, reaching into the cab to lace the seatbelt through the steering wheel prior to towing. In addition, a report submitted by Detective Hendsbee a few days before the trial stated that the truck’s doors could be locked without a key.

Dennis and Sarah had never met, never knew each other, and the State has never established or even suggested they were previously acquainted. Thus Dechaine’s knowledge of her whereabouts was,.zero.

Now faced with Dennis Dechaine’s attempted April, 2010, suicide, another set of questions is being raised by those who would like to know:

Given the number of unresolved serious issues in this case, we believe in would be in the public interest if the Attorney General asked the court to grant a new trial where jurors would hear all the evidence and the above questions could be answered publicly once and for all.

New Zealander chimes in with opinion on Dechaine

After looking at the evidence presented recently in the Court TV documentary shown here in New Zealand, I am amazed that the great United States of America, which is undoubtedly a world leader in civil justice, has allowed such a disgrace as the Dennis Dechaine situation to exist, let alone continue for so many years.

Surely a people with a heart for truth and justice would want all of the evidence in a case such as this fully examined, leaving no possibility for error. That an innocent man is condemned to death by stealth is unkind enough without beginning to factor the injustice possibly dealt to the tiny innocent victim and her family by not properly resolving the identity of her assassin.

I pray that the real perpetrator, when finally discovered, is not found to have quietly continued his perverted ways for more than 20 years, undetected.

Please give Dechaine a proper opportunity to present in court the unclouded version of events surrounding the murder of little Sarah Cherry, including all of the forensic evidence, and restore some of the former faith we all had in your American system of law.

Clint Pearce

Auckland, New Zealand

Dechaine pleads not guilty to prison trafficking charge

Morphine and an anti-anxiety drug were used in his suicide attempt.

More letters to the editor, Aug. 7, 2010
Dechaine case keeps readers involved

http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/letters/commentary_2010-08-07.html

Nowhere is the need to avoid judicial conflict of interest more pressing than when it may affect the very freedom of an individual imprisoned for life or the certainty due a murder victim's family that the real murderer is no longer at large.

Dennis Dechaine listens to questions from a reporter during an interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren on March 22.

We are fast approaching the two-year mark since Dechaine filed his motion for a re-trial, based primarily but not exclusively on DNA test results unavailable at the original 1989 trial.

Remarkably, not even a hearing date has been set by Judge Carl Bradford, the original trial judge who, by statute, holds the authority to rule on the motion

It is not too late, therefore, for Bradford to recuse himself in the public's interest of avoiding an apparent conflict of interest. I'm not questioning Bradford's integrity; I'm confident he made all his trial decisions believing they were right in terms of due process and fairness.

Among these are his ruling against Dechaine's pre-trial request for DNA testing (the results of which now strongly suggest his innocence), and his prohibiting testimony regarding alternative suspects, leading the jury to believe there were none (though now we know clearly there were).

But the public's confidence in its judicial system requires there be not even the appearance of such a conflict. And yet, to rule on Dechaine's motion, Bradford will have to choose between approving it, thus implicating himself in having obstructed due process, or rejecting it, even more damaging in its suggestion of his serving the personal interest of his judicial reputation.

The solution, of course, is to remove himself from this moral dilemma, with its appearance of a paralyzing conflict of interest.

In response to the letters to the editor July 27, I find it interesting that only one of the four respondents has firsthand knowledge of the Dennis Dechaine trial and appeals, Christine Beckwith-Hout. The others respond out of speculation and emotion.

Christine heard court testimony of Dechaine's drug history that started in his early high school days. Evidently it continues today. This last overdose was not his first. Staff writer Trevor Maxwell should have had that information and included it in his article. He would have painted a much truer picture of Dechaine for his readers.

Christine speaks of Sarah Cherry's family's pain. She is right. But yet each year in July near the aniversary of Sarah's murder, The Press Herald reruns all the old file information as if it is new information.

Maxwell quotes me and includes pictures, most of which came from old files. His focus when talking to me was "the strong faith of the family."

I believe the indictment of Dechaine for drug trafficking is true based on his history. He wasn't the only one indicted. He isn't the victim here -- nor has he ever been. His claim of attempted suicide is just another Dechaine spin.

How about a real story on his drug history from this paper? Let's finally be honest.

There aren't many mysteries here. Dennis Dechaine is in prison for the rest of his life, no parole. Prison life cannot be that great, so it's not hard to accept that after 22 years he might have had a moment in which he wanted to give up.

I can also accept that in prison one can "get things" that should not be available, i.e. enough prescription drugs to commit suicide.

What I really want to know is, in these tight budgetary times and state belt-tightening, who in state government put "indict Dechaine on drug trafficking charges" at the top of his or her to-do list, and why?

I worked for the state last year. We all had to prioritize our work carefully. Don't these guys have any real work to do? What is really going on here?

The letters July 18 concerning the Dennis Deschaine case by Emily Paine, Zach White and Genie Nakel ("Dechaine case, coverage disturbing") have, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head.

Conscientious jurisdiction should be of primary concern. Does Maine continue to condone incarceration of a man whose innocence or guilt is debatable, not proved "beyond a reasonable doubt"?

Taking new evidence and past inefficiencies into account, could this state's jurisprudence make the error of committing a possibly innocent man to life behind bars -- especially considering the magnitude of the crime?

Is it, perhaps more convenient and empowering for our law enforcement, lawyers, judges et al. -- however irritating and/or inconvenient it may be -- to mitigate our residents' fears by claiming, "We found the criminal. See? Problem solved. We've done a good job. Now you can safely go on with your normal daily patterns"?

I intend no slur on our police forces, litigators, judges and penal system. I appreciate the comfort they offer and admire many of them. However, people of any occupation can be fallible. Every human being should keep in mind the need for justice.

During this period of economic hardship, environmental disasters, green concerns and seemingly perpetual wars, it would be uplifting to know that at least one traumatic experience is handled with accurate, thorough examination, philanthropically: It's the American Way.

Is Dennis Dechaine a murderer or a scapegoat? After following this case for years, I'm still in doubt whether he's guilty or not.

1. Dennis was found under the influence of drugs in the vicinity of Sarah Cherry's body.

3. Rope that was supposed to be the same as Sarah was tied with was found in the truck along with some of Dechaine's papers that were on the ground.

4. Sarah was beaten and tied and strangled and bloody. But Dennis had no blood on his person or scratches anywhere, There was no evidence of Sarah being in his truck.

5. At Dennis' trial, the prosecutor and the detective lied under oath (why weren't they charged with perjury?).

Dennis is found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. How many other murderers got 25 to life and were let out of prison early?

The judge has kept him from getting a new trial. Why? The investigators have burned all the evidence. Why?

I feel that Judge Carl Bradford should step down and let a new judge hear this case, as he has been too involved in this case where he has refused Dennis a new hearing.

If I'm correct, Judge Bradford has said Dennis must prove he had new evidence. What ever happened to a case being proven without a doubt -- that a man was innocent until proven guilty?

Whatever happened to our Attorney General's Office? Did it drop this case like a hot potatao?

Let's give Dennis a new trial and stop this once and for all, without Judge Bradford sitting on the bench.

Poor old Bob Dorr. This former member of the AG's staff heard the bits of circumstantial evidence prosecutors fed the jury and can't get his mind around the evidence they concealed, nor the facts (like false testimony by police) unearthed when our Legislature forced the attorney general to open his "confidential file" on the case, nor the scientific (DNA and time of death) evidence discovered in recent years. Now he's whining that reporter Maxwell didn't offer him a forum for his out-dated perceptions of this case. Well, as Lincoln once said, "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."

Justice.

Webster’s Dictionary defines it as : a)“the quality of being just, impartial, or fair b)(1) the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2): conformity to this principle or ideal.”

In a world where we see a known terrorist who murdered hundreds released by Scottish officials on “humanitarian” grounds, where we hear of admitted murderers get plea-bargained sentences that allow them to see the light of day a few scant years after their crimes, it is no wonder that the public has no appetite for going “soft” on criminals.
Justice is a joke when these abuses are made known.

But what about those wrongly accused?

Dennis Dechaine has been behind bars for over 22 YEARS for a crime he could not possibly have committed. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened to you or me.

An enormity of evidence—both denied to the jury at trial and discovered after the conviction—have, in my opinion, cleared Dennis Dechaine from any involvement in the abduction and murder of 12 year old Sarah Cherry back in 1988.

Despite this evidence, including DNA—Dechaine and his lawyers have been thwarted at every turn in their quest to gain Dennis a new trial. Legal procedure delays, petty maneuvering and the Maine “good ‘ol boy” legal community have conspired to deny a man with a compelling case for innocence the chance at a new trial.

Why?

Simple, really. The ego investment of the prosecutor, the judge and those police officers who failed to follow ANY OTHER leads or suspects would have their incompetence or obstruction of justice become completely exposed in a new trial.

The original prosecutor Eric Wright, in his zeal to satiate the public’s thirst for a suspect and a conviction, made a series of decisions that obscured the time of death (something defense attorney Tom Connolly acknowledged was a failing on his part to explore) This piece of critical evidence alone would have exonerated Dechaine. While finding the TRUTH should be the charge of the Prosecutor’s office, instead it was merely about finding someone to convict—and making the circumstantial evidence conform to sway a jury already predisposed by intense media exposure—to punish someone.

The judge?

Justice Carl O. Bradford. Many believe he made a series of errors in the original trial. I won’t assume his motives were suspect, but clearly the legal tradition of having the ORIGINAL PRESIDING JUDGE decide the fate of appeals is simply ludicrous!

Judge Bradford is semi-retired but still active enough to be the JUDGE WHO WILL DECIDE whether Dechaine gets a new trial in September?

Are you kidding me?

It’s been said that only judges have bigger egos than lawyers—and this judge has turned a blind eye to the JUSTICE principle defined above—to hide behind a stream of legal mumbo-jumbo, anything at all to divert attention away from the blunders he made that have ruined an innocent man’s life. Dennis actually pushed for DNA testing prior to his trial. Does this sound like the request of a guilty man?

Prosecutors opposed the introduction of this DNA evidence—and it was denied by Judge Bradford. One can speculate on WHY the state would oppose a method that would definitively isolate the true killer. Or, why, before Dechaine’s appeal could come to court, why the state INCINERATED all potential DNA evidence, save for a thumbnail, which, through an error of the court clerk, was placed in the possession of the defense counsel.

State laws were painstakingly changed to allow for the presentation of DNA evidence. Here’s another suggestion for a state law:

FORBID THE APPELATE REVIEW OF ANY CASE FROM BEING HEARD BY THE ORIGINAL PRESIDING JUDGE.

Yeah, I know that judges are SUPPOSED to be unbiased, but they are also human—and the last thing that Justice Carl O. Bradford will ever do is admit that he screwed up.

He did.
He probably knows it.
And he doesn’t care…….or does he? Does he really care for this concept called “justice”?

While we certainly can suspect the prosecutor’s office in the withholding and/or destruction of critical evidence, we will ASSUME the judge was not at all aware of these shenanigans. Revelation of these irregularities ALONE should compel the good judge to err on the side of…JUSTICE…and allow a new trial on this basis solely.

Judge Bradford’s upcoming decision on whether or not to grant Dechaine a new trial will define his career on the bench. Should he take into account the mountain of evidence that points in another direction, evidence that makes Dechaine’s guilt physically impossible and takes into consideration the criminally irresponsible behavior of the prosecutor’s office in the conduct of its investigation and subsequent trial, he will rule for justice, a forum where ALL of the evidence can be heard by a jury. Should he continue to hide behind the manipulation of words that lawyers use to distort the truth, he will concoct a lengthy document that, while filled with impressive legalese, will say nothing—other than the system he presides over is corrupt—and he is a part of that corruption.

Which will it be, your honor?

This case has haunted me ever since I read the excellent book by James P. Moore (no relation), entitled “Human Sacrifice”. It reads like a novel—gripping and astonishing, but to those connected to both the victim and the accused, it is nothing short of a real-life horror story. A retired law enforcement officer with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Moore attended a meeting of “Trial and error”, the group of Dechaine supporters who believe in his innocence and have, for over two decades, sought legal avenues toward gaining Dennis a new trial.

It is difficult to imagine living in prison, but to do so knowing that you didn’t commit the crime is beyond my ability to comprehend.

For those not familiar with the case, here are the basics.

On July 6, 1988, 12-year old Sarah Cherry was abducted while babysitting. Her body was found two days later in the woods. She had been strangled and tortured. Dennis Dechaine was picked up by police after leaving the woods. He was injecting drugs and had become disoriented, losing awareness of the location of his truck. He emerged from the woods around 8:45pm on the 6th.

After Sarah’s body was discovered on the 8th, Dechaine was arrested and charged with murder. He has not been free since.

I remember the case well. I also remember being convinced by news reports—ones that I myself delivered on the radio back then---that the police had arrested the right guy. I am about the same age as Dechaine. In 1988, I was 30 years old and living in Ellsworth, Maine. In the 22 years since then, my life has changed profoundly. Three children, two of whom are in college now. Advances in my career, moving to Portland, buying new houses and cars. Countless vacations, dinners out, family celebrations, holidays and excursions and simple pleasures have filled my days and nights. My wife and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary. It has truly been glorious.

For Dennis Dechaine?

Those same 22 years—losing his wife (a mutually agreed upon divorce to protect her assets from a civil trial), no family, no such simple pleasures—and the crushing boredom of endless days in the hell that is prison. No end in sight. Every hope, every wisp of a chance to introduce JUSTICE is delayed, blunted and thwarted by players in a legal system that’s more concerned with “following procedure/precedent” than finding truth. How Dennis has maintained his sanity and seemingly has come to terms with the bitterness of his situation is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Author James Moore was intrigued by the case—enough to conduct his own investigation—but warned members of “Trial and error” that if he found evidence to CONFIRM Dechaine’s guilt, he would make it public.

In fact, Moore, in his own telling of the circumstances, entered his investigation convinced of Dechaine’s guilt. After all, Dechaine was seen stumbling out the woods near where Sarah Cherry’s body was later found. Items from his truck were found in the driveway where Sarah was abducted. Police reports told of “confessions” by Dechaine-which was used as evidence in the trial, despite the absence of these so-called confessions in the police notes-and Dechaine’s denial of ever confessing to the crime.

The evidence that exonerates Dechaine (in my opinion) but at the VERY LEAST should gain him a new trial is overwhelming, but contains these highlights:

1) According to the medical examiner’s report—given huge windows on either side of the time of death of Sarah Cherry, Dennis Dechaine could not POSSIBLY have committed the crime-----because he was either in custody, being questioned or at home following his initial release by police—and under surveillance. Sarah’s throat was constricted in such a manner that she could not possibly have lived more than about 2 minutes from the time she was strangled. Dechaine was in custody when she died. It’s my opinion that Prosecutor Eric Wright was also aware of the problematic nature of the timing and thus, glossed over it at trial. Had the defense made this an issue, there could have been a different result.

2) DNA evidence from Sarah’s fingernails contain blood that is hers, but also blood from a man who is NOT Dennis Dechaine.

3) Forensic evidence concluded that Sarah Cherry was NEVER in Dennis Dechaine’s pickup truck. No fiber, no hairs, nothing. She was never there.

4) A known child molester with a history of violence was ignored as a suspect. Police notes outlining a set of footprints to this persons trailer—one adult and one barefoot child (Sarah was barefoot when abducted-her shoes left at the home of the people she was babysitting) were never followed up on.

5) Dennis Dechaine had absolutely no record of violence in his past. None. The mutilation that occurred to Sarah suggests a sociopath. Additionally, her panties were missing. Psychologists say that perpetrators of crimes like these often take a “souvenir” such as this. Dechaine had nothing like this on his person, in his truck or in his house. They have never been found—because the killer took them. A killer who is not Dennis Dechaine.
6) Of the nearly 200 items found in Dechaine’s truck, the only two that contained his name (and were part of the damning evidence that convicted him) where the ones that “fell out” of his truck during the abduction. The odds that only these two would be left behind is astronomical. This was a frameup. Remember, Sarah Cherry was NEVER in this truck that supposedly abducted her.

7) Dennis Dechaine did not know Sarah Cherry and would have had no reason to know that she would be at that house, at that time.

8) Dechaine himself pressed for examination of his house, his truck and his person, confident that an honest investigation would clear him. His mistake was in believing in the system, believing that his innocence would be evident.

9) There were multiple alternate suspects in the vicinity, men with criminal records of violence—and violence towards children. Dechaine’s arrest effectively halted all subsequent investigation into these more likely killers. Dechaine’s arrest was reasonable—he should have been a suspect, but certainly NOT the only one—and, as it turns out, the exclusive attention paid to him allowed the real killer to escape investigation and arrest.

There are many other pieces of evidence, circumstances—and just plain common sense that would point towards the notion of a new trial being a good idea.

Here is some video of Dennis himself, being interviewed in prison 6 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVIb2qplq_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KslcRNuk9iQ&feature=related

Dennis Dechaine tried to take his own life in April. It was not successful—and new charges of trafficking in the drugs he used may be pending. Who could blame him? If you ask: how someone with a new trial decision pending could possibly take his own life, my only response would be that after over two decades of one legal disappointment after another, it’s likely that Dennis is just about out of hope.

So what about the victim’s family?

Many believe that Sarah’s family has been short-changed in all of this—and I cannot disagree. While at least one juror who voted for conviction has publicly said that the introduction of this new evidence would have been grounds for acquittal, I have yet to read or hear from a family member of the victim who believes Dechaine is innocent.

Sarah Cherry, were she alive today, would no doubt be a beautiful and vibrant 34 year old woman. Judging from the details we know about her as a 12 year old, she would likely have graduated college with distinction, perhaps have been an athlete and would likely now be a mother herself.

Perhaps the only “witness” to the abduction of Sarah Cherry was the infant who was being cared for—and who would be about 23 years old today. Apart from the killer, this infant was likely the last person to see Sarah alive.

This brutal murder cries out for justice, not merely “closure”. The conviction of the wrong person does not constitute justice or closure, only retribution.

If you’d like to know more about this case, I highly recommend the book “Human Sacrifice” by James P. Moore. I also encourage you to visit the website of Trial and error: www.trialanderrordennis.org

The tragedy of Sarah Cherry’s death is the ultimate one.
The tragedy of Dennis Dechaine’s wrongful conviction is second in line---and vies with the knowledge that the TRUE killer got away with it (and did God knows what to others since)

Let’s not compound this series of tragedies by allowing Dechaine to be denied a new trial by a judge who has NO BUSINESS being involved with this case any longer. Judge Bradford has the final say, whether he deserves it or not.

It’s not about who made a mistake—or who may have concealed evidence.

It’s about justice.

If you’d like my blog in your box, just let me know: tim.moore@citcomm.com

Dechaine pleads not guilty to drug charges

Rockland — Convicted murderer Dennis J. Dechaine pleaded not guilty Aug. 4 to a charge that he was in possession of prohibited materials, in the form of drugs, while incarcerated at the Maine State Prison.

Dechaine, who attended the hearing at Knox County Superior Court by way of a video hearing from the prison, was represented by attorney Jeremy Pratt. District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau represented the state at the hearing, which was heard by Judge John David Kennedy.

Dechaine, 52, has been at the Maine State Prison for more than 21 years for the murder in 1988 of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoinham.

Dechaine was indicted in mid-July for trafficking in prison contraband. The indictment alleged that Dechaine had morphine and/or klonopine on April 5 at the prison.

At the Aug. 4 hearing, Pratt said Dechaine's attorney in the Cherry case, Steve Peterson, had expressed willingness to be retained to represent Dechaine on the drug charges.

Rushlau said he was not seeking bail because Dechaine was not a flight risk while he remained at the prison. The district attorney said he would ask to revisit the question of bail if a new trial in the Cherry case, currently being sought by Dechaine, were to be granted. Rushlau asked to be notified if Peterson was assigned to the drug case.

Dechaine has maintained his innocence in the murder of Cherry who was last seen alive while babysitting at a Bowdoinham home. Attorneys for Dechaine are attempting to introduce DNA evidence to try to win a new trial.

The Herald Gazette reporter Shlomit Auciello can be reached at 207-236-8511 or by e-mail at sauciello@villagesoup.com.

Who named Bradford as Dechaine hearing judge?

When I read that the presiding judge in the court hearing for Dennis Dechaine was Carl Bradford, the same judge who convicted him 22 years ago, I was puzzled and uneasy.
Certainly the state of Maine has many judges, and it would look better if the judge were someone else.
Why Bradford? Who named him as the judge for this case? Isn’t he retired? Won’t there be questions?
It seems that with the national publicity this case has received, the judicial system would not leave itself vulnerable to questions such as mine.

Gail Schade
Hallowell

In his first interview since trying to kill himself, Dennis Dechaine reveals his state of mind.

Prisoner Dennis Dechaine, in his first interview with the media since his suicide attempt in April, said Friday he believes prosecutors have charged him with trafficking in prison contraband as payback for his outspokenness about his case, and also to undermine his pending motion for a new trial.

Joined by his attorney Steve Peterson, left, of Rockport, Dennis Dechaine speaks to a reporter at the Maine State Prison in Warren in March. Dechaine, incarcerated since his arrest and subsequent conviction for the 1988 slaying of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin, has a court hearing in September which his attorney has described as his “last, best chance” at a new trial.

"This is nothing more than a political ploy," Dechaine said in a 30-minute telephone interview from the mental health unit at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

Chris Fernald, an assistant district attorney for Knox County, declined to comment specifically about the trafficking charge against Dechaine, which was handed up by a grand jury July 15. But Fernald said it is not uncommon for prisoners serving life sentences to be charged with other crimes during their incarcerations.

"If we didn't prosecute these individuals, then basically the message would be sent to the inmates that if you are serving a life sentence you can do anything you want," Fernald said.

Dechaine, 52, was convicted by a jury and sent to prison for life for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in the small Sagadahoc County town of Bowdoin. He claims that he is innocent, but four court appeals at the state and federal levels have failed.

His latest motion for a new trial, filed by his attorney in August 2008, is tentatively set to be heard by a judge in September.

Dechaine said he tried to commit suicide on April 4 by overdosing on a combination of morphine and Klonopin inside his cell. The next morning, guards found him unconscious, with an extremely low pulse rate and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to a Portland hospital, where he spent the next two weeks recovering before being sent back to the prison.

The Department of Corrections investigated the incident and Knox County prosecutors sought charges against him. No date has been set for his arraignment.

Until Friday, Dechaine had been off limits to the media since his hospitalization. A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections has said there were several reasons for prohibiting interviews of Dechaine in that time frame, but she said those reasons are confidential.

The suicide attempt raised questions about why Dechaine would try to end his life when he is just months away from a court hearing that has been described by his attorney as Dechaine's "last, best chance" at getting a new trial.

On Friday, Dechaine explained that by early April the cumulative impact of his years in prison had pushed him to a state of despair. Also, he came to believe that his appeal could not succeed, particularly because it will be heard by the same judge who sentenced him.

But even more than his doubts about the court proceedings, Dechaine said he arrived at the suicide decision because he felt that the life he could have had outside of prison had already been lost.

"Even if I do overturn my case, the best years of my life have been taken from me," he said. "I can't start a family. I'm too old to start a business. That is depressing."

"Oddly enough, what I sensed when I made the decision (to kill myself) was a sense of relief," Dechaine said.

He said he was devastated when he regained consciousness at Maine Medical Center. Dechaine said his outlook on life improved during his hospital stay thanks to the kindness of the medical staff, but that outlook deteriorated when he was returned to the prison. He said he has never attempted suicide before, and this is the first time that he has been housed in the prison's mental health unit, which consists of two areas of 16 cells.

For the first two weeks back, Dechaine said, he was on a strict suicide watch and he was not allowed to have any items in his cell except for a thin pad on the floor on which he slept. He said he now has a bunk and has been provided some reading and writing materials. He is allowed one hour per week for approved visitors such as family members, he said.

Dechaine said he was not taking any medications before his suicide attempt. He declined to say how he obtained the drugs he used on April 4, and said he has not answered questions about that from Department of Corrections investigators, because he is concerned about retribution.

In the mental health unit, Dechaine meets for one hour a week with a counselor, he said, and the only drug he is taking is a blood thinner to treat the effects of a clot suffered in the suicide attempt.

Dechaine said he has asked to be returned to the general prison population, but so far the request has been denied.

Dechaine's pending motion is based on a state law originally passed in 2001 and revised in 2006 that allows prisoners to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.

The evidence in question is a fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry's clipped thumbnail five years after Dechaine's conviction. His attorney says the partial DNA profile discovered by scientists holds the key to finding the real killer. Prosecutors say the right man is behind bars, and the DNA could have come from any incidental contact Sarah Cherry had leading up to her death, or from contaminated nail clippers at her autopsy.

Sarah Cherry, a straight-A student at Bowdoin Central School, was kidnapped while baby-sitting on July 6, 1988.

The mother who had hired her to baby-sit came home around 3:20 p.m. and found a notebook and a receipt in her driveway, bearing the name Dennis Dechaine. Police began a search for both the missing girl and Dechaine, and about five hours later he was seen walking out of the woods about three miles north of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting.

He told police that he had been fishing and had gotten lost and he could not find his truck. He denied having anything to do with Sarah's disappearance. Later that night, police found his pickup truck on a discontinued logging road nearby.

A search team found Sarah's body around noon on July 8, in the woods near the spot where Dechaine's truck was found. She had been stabbed about a dozen times, and was strangled to death with a scarf. The rope binding her wrists and the scarf had come from Dechaine's truck.

Dechaine says he went into the woods on July 6 to inject speed and to wander around. He claims he was alone the whole day, got lost, and someone must have grabbed his papers, the rope and the scarf from his truck.

Dechaine sounded despondent during the interview Friday, and while he did not expressly say that he was still suicidal, he indicated that his will to live was not strong.

When asked if he meant the prison's Special Management Unit, or if he meant he did not want to be alive, he said: "I'd rather not be here. I'll just leave it at that."

Maine Voices:
Dechaine story converts a skeptic

A close look at the claims of his defenders carries considerable weight for an online editor.

GRAY - As a news editor myself, I'm always reading for the "editorial slant." I found the Dennis Dechaine series quite balanced, yet intriguing. In Maine for only three years, and hailing from New Jersey where Megan's Law originated after an equally heinous murder of an innocent child, I've been a proponent of the death penalty for certain crimes. I bear no sympathy for perpetrators of such unthinkable crimes.

James Moore’s account of the case for Dennis Dechaine’s innocence was impressive to this Maine writer.

Tracy Scheckel is editor and half-owner of Maine Hometown News LLC, publisher of the Gray and New Gloucester Gazette, an online journal (www.gnggazette.com).

Reading Trevor Maxwell's stories, I pondered, "If Maine had the death penalty, we wouldn't have been supporting this guy for the last 22 years."

I reflected on the horror that both Sarah Cherry's parents and Megan Kanka's family in New Jersey continue to endure. I became intrigued at the Trial and Error group, so convinced of Dechaine's innocence. They couldn't be right and not have prevailed after 22 years.

I really wanted to read James Moore's book, "Human Sacrifice," mentioned in Maxwell's stories. Aware that the proceeds from the sale went to the Dechaine defense fund, I was reluctant to "contribute."

Curiosity becoming the victor, I ordered the book. In two days I devoured all 418 pages. I re-read and thumbed back and forth, getting more incensed by the page. Moore portrays a miscarriage of justice that would be unbelievable in a John Grisham crime novel.

Recently, a reader from Waldoboro commented that he thought the Dechaine series running on Independence Day was inappropriate. In some ways he's correct; this must be a horrid time for Sarah's family, the state is brimming with summer tourists, and "Vacationland" is supposed to be a happy place.

His comments explain the zeal with which the police worked in July 1988 to see that justice was done. "It's the height of the tourist season, this is the worst crime ever committed here, and this is 'Vacationland,' crimes like this don't happen here, and, above all, the family of this child needs closure. This crime needs to be solved ASAP!"

Dechaine was an easy suspect. His truck, belongings and drug-impaired self, all in the vicinity of the crime, created an open-and-shut case for police. Based on trial transcripts, notes and police reports, the entire Dechaine saga is reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, Good Ol' Boys, and Catch 22 all rolled into one giant nightmare.

Everybody makes mistakes, but our legal system, through its appellate process and other legal mechanisms, is designed to assure that justice is ultimately done. In spite of numerous efforts by the Dechaine defense team, it is obvious that our judicial system has failed repeatedly.

The lack of hard evidence against Dechaine is far more compelling than the prosecution's circumstantial evidence. The judge disallowed evidence of the existence of two other viable suspects, both known child sex offenders.

The time of death, per the testimony of the state coroner -- if one could decode the rhetoric and do the math -- places Dechaine in the custody of police while Sarah was being murdered. There's DNA evidence that doesn't match Dechaine's. I could go on ...

The point is that the system has failed Dennis Dechaine and the family of Sarah Cherry. Her murderer is still out there, and an innocent man is imprisoned. One can't begin to imagine the eternal pain felt by little Sarah's family. In spite of the need for closure, one has to conclude that they would want the real murderer incarcerated.

"Human Sacrifice" brought mixed emotions. My assumption of fairness in our judicial system has been obliterated, yet I am glad to have provided even some support for Dechaine's defense. I now wonder if the death penalty should be abolished nationwide. I'm sure the judicial ineptness doesn't stop at Maine's borders.

I commend the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for having the courage to tell the story and inspire readers like me to look at all the facts, not just what the jury saw and heard.

The Dechaine team will seek a retrial in September based on DNA information. I contacted Moore regarding his book and to see what might be done in support of Dechaine.

To my suggestion of a pardon request, he replied, "Dennis has consistently rejected suggestions that he apply for a pardon, since that would imply he'd done something to be pardoned for. He and some Trial and Error members have urged the governor to commission an honest, objective, bona fide inquiry into the case but to no avail."

Dechaine does deservea new trial, at least

Posted: July 25
Updated: Today at 7:20 PM

"Did Dennis Dechaine kill Sarah Cherry?" was the headline in the July 4 Morning Sentinel. It referred to a more than 22-year-old case in which a man was convicted of a crime for which he has always maintained his innocence.

Upon reading it, I was reminded of an interview I conducted three years ago for an access TV show I was producing. I interviewed retired federal agent James P. Moore and several people who had studied transcripts of the trial. At the end of the interview, I was convinced Dechaine at least deserved a new trial.

Moore drew an actual police investigative time line. This time line showed Dechaine to be in a lengthy police custody. Forensics by experts determined that Sarah Cherry died in the middle of that custody. It was even determined that there was a scuffle in the woods, 'in the same spot where Sarah Cherry's body was found.' At the time, the detective holding Dechaine refused to let police dogs investigate the scene. Had that search been allowed, the real killer might have been apprehended, and Cherry might still be alive.

Another troublesome fact was that one of the detectives changed the wording of his original notes. The new version implied guilt, while the original notes implied innocence. During the trial, another of the detectives actually testified in conflict with his own crime- scene notes. Again, the court version implied guilt, whereas the original notes implied innocence.

The position of Dechaine's truck also bothered me. According to the detective's version, Dechaine abducted Cherry, drove her to a location, killed her, walked way past his truck and exited the woods.

The desperate act of a self-destructive system

Moved by news of Dennis Dechaine's attempted suicide, I've just studied that part of Maine law that pertains to "trafficking in prison contraband."

It's clear that Knox County (and AG's office?) officials are risking mental dislocation in their over-reaching attempts to stifle the growing awareness of the injustices visited upon MSP inmate #1725 by responding to his suicide attempt with an indictment for criminal possession of prescription drugs.

Forget the lawyers with their jargon and the bureaucrats their stone walls. In the court of public opinion, it's finally the straight face test that must be met.

* While the indictment uses the inflammatory word "trafficking," the only drugs found were in Dechaine's blood stream. There were none in his cell or on his person.

* After 22 years of frustrated effort to present DNA and other new evidence of his innocence in a new jury trial, Dechaine's desperate but "reasonable response to an intolerable situation" (his words) is being twisted to conform to a section of the law code (Maine Revised Statutes Title 17-A, Part 2, Chapter 31, Section 756) whose heading, ironically, is "Aiding escape."

* Even though Dechaine is working out two hours a day and is reinvigorated, he is being kept in solitary confinement indefinitely, presumably because he is a risk to himself.

* Anyone who has visited prisoners knows how difficult it would be to smuggle in drugs. Likely Dechaine obtained them from prison staff, yet he is the only one being charged.

* Why go to the trouble and expense of trying to convict someone who is already serving a life sentence without parole?

Why, indeed. Unless it is the equally desperate act of a justice system trying to destroy itself.

Since it is not against the law to attempt to commit suicide, Dennis Dechaine is to be persecuted, er, prosecuted for having traces of prescription drugs in his blood.

Traffficking" makes great headlines, even though legally the charge is a real stretch, and morally it is indefensible -- talk about kicking a guy when he is down!

No matter. The Maine Attorney General's Office -- and until told otherwise we can assume the local district attorney is a puppet for the state -- has shown no shame over having sealed the records on the Dechaine case; incinerated evidence; opposed DNA testing and the findings of its own psychological experts; presented perjured testimony; obscured the time of death, etc.

If Dechaine receives five years for trying to commit suicide, but is later exonerated on the wrongful murder conviction, do you suppose our attorney general will insist that he serve the five years before being freed? It's a fair question.

In the Dennis Dechaine case, DNA proves the wrong man has been in prison for 22 years.

I applaud Trevor Maxwell for his in-depth investigative story about the Sarah Cherry murder case and owner Richard Connor for publishing it. The two-part special report in the Maine Sunday Telegram and the multimedia information presented on The Portland Press Herald website are outstanding.

DNA technology has been used successfully by the Innocence Project to exonerate over 250 wrongfully convicted individuals. The Innocence Project lawyers believe the DNA profile found in the Cherry case is significant enough for Dechaine to be granted a new trial.

How can Maine prosecutors say that DNA in the Dechaine case is irrelevant? How can the head of the Criminal Division of the Attorney General's Office, William Stokes, say with a straight face that the DNA evidence from the 1988 Cherry case came from "dirty" nail clippers?

Stokes recently argued and won the case against Thomas Mitchell for the 1984 murder of Judith Flagg of Fayette using DNA evidence extracted from Flagg's fingernail clippings. The AG's office felt that DNA technology was relevant enough in the Flagg case to send material for testing in the summer of 1988, yet it opposed DNA testing to be done in 1989 in the Cherry case, saying that the technology was too new. Then-Judge Carl Bradford denied Dechaine's request.

I commend the AG's office for the conviction of Mitchell; however, the same degree of importance concerning DNA evidence should be used when it proves a wrongful conviction.

It is becoming abundantly clear that the Attorney General's Office can no longer be objective when it comes to the Dechaine case. For prosecutors, it is no longer about finding the truth but about upholding the jury's verdict.

With all the passion, facts, fiction and misinformation around the guilt or innocence of Dennis Dechaine, it's hard to keep one's eyes on the prize -- certainty about the perpetrator without doubt.

My fervent hope is that Justice Carl Bradford will allow a new trial so that all the evidence -- old and new -- can be laid on the table.

I believe the citizenry, the law enforcement community, the family and friends of Sarah Cherry, those of us who have followed this case since 1988 and certainly the AG's office and the judiciary want justice -- a fair, impartial, honest conclusion reached from consideration of true events and scientific data.

I believe there is more than reasonable doubt as to Dechaine's guilt. Once that is recognized, we can get on with following other lines of investigation and maybe find a child's killer.

Trevor Maxwell has done a stellar job again reporting on the Dennis Dechaine case. With all the facts of the case so thoroughly laid out, only questions remain.

The state's case is based solely on items from Dechaine's truck. Would the state have incinerated hairs, clothing and swabs if they showed any evidence whatsoever that Sarah had contact with Dennis or his truck?

If Sarah Cherry's hands were bound in front of her and had her own blood on them, how could Dennis emerge from the woods without a drop of blood on him?

If no forensic evidence was found in Dennis' truck, how could he drive her three miles from where she was babysitting to the woods?

How could he have carried her 350 feet into the woods without any trace evidence on either of them? Why was no missing article of Sarah's clothing or a knife found on Dennis, or anywhere else?

What guilty person asks for DNA testing to be done? There are potentially thousands of people worldwide whose DNA would match the partial profile in this case. But Dennis Dechaine is not one of them!

William Stokes, the head of the Criminal Division of the Attorney General's Office, states that DNA on a murder victim's fingers doesn't automatically identify the killer. But it certainly rules one out! The state would have relied heavily on this DNA evidence had it been a match for Dechaine.

Stokes states: "With partial profiles, you have to be careful because you may actually implicate a lot of innocent people."

Is Mr. Stokes more concerned about implicating an innocent person whose DNA does match the profile than he is about implicating an innocent person whose DNA does not match the profile? Let's have a new trial where all the evidence is presented. Let's finally have a fair trial.

Thank you for publishing Trevor Maxwell's piece on the Dennis Dechaine case. It's journalism like this that makes me optimistic that local newspapers can survive.

Like most Mainers I've been somewhat aware of this case over the years but only in snippets or fragments. It was very helpful see the sad story from its beginning to the present. With a case this of this magnitude I can't understand why the authorities have fought a retrial for so many years, especially with the science of DNA being so much more developed.

The fact that Dechaine was denied the use of DNA testing from the beginning is grounds for a new trial. It's not like he's asking for a pardon.

July 21 Letters to the Editor

Emmet Meara’s July 9-10 BDN column expressing his certainty of Dennis Dechaine’s guilt in the murder of Sarah Cherry would have been more convincing if his listed evidence had dealt with a thorough investigation of two factors that have left me questioning Mr. Dechaine’s guilt over the years.

Why hasn’t the government deemed it important to know who the DNA found under her fingernails belongs to and provided a clear reason why tha DNA hasn’t been compared with an extended family member who had been charged with child sexual abuse of other family members at the time of this murder?

When convictions are the result of circumstantial evidence, no matter how prolific, and hard evidence is ignored, doubts will remain.

I cannot imagine the pain that the Cherry family has endured over the years and they have my profound sympathy. But if Mr. Dechaine is not guilty, a murderer is still walking free among us.

There aren’t many mysteries here. Dennis Dechaine is in prison for the rest of his life, no parole. Prison life cannot be that great, so it’s not hard to accept that after 22 years he might have had a moment in which he wanted to give up.

I can also accept that in prison one can get things that should not be available, i.e. enough prescription drugs to commit suicide.

What I really want to know is, in these tight budgetary times of state belt-tightening, who in state government put “indict Dechaine on drug trafficking charges” at the top of his or her to-do list and why?

I worked for the state last year. We all had to prioritize our work carefully. Don’t these guys have any real work to do? What is really going on here?

I was saddened to read in the July 17-18 BDN that Dennis Dechaine had attempted suicide this past April. He obviously felt such despair from having lost faith in the Maine state justice system that even while waiting for a decision about a retrial, he didn’t have faith that the justice system would know what we all know would be right: a retrial.

Having been let down countless times before, from having concrete evidence that proved his innocence brought forward over the years and ignored by the AG’s office, it’s no wonder he felt the way he did. He’s only human. A wrongly convicted human.

Why would he be charged with “drug trafficking” for having it for the sole purpose to use to try to take his own life?

In Maine a life sentence isn’t 25 years, as in some states. It’s for life, unless you were wrongly convicted and can prove it. Why charge him for using something for the sole purpose of committing suicide? What’s to be gained from that? Tack on more years to a life sentence? That doesn’t make any sense.

In my opinion, these are very suspicious actions by an office that has fought to try to prevent Dennis from receiving a fair trial with all of the evidence that was not brought forth in the initial trial.

Add this indictment to the growing list of suspicious actions of that office, where Dennis and real justice is concerned.

In the Dechaine case, DNA proves the wrong man has been in prison for 22 years. I applaud Trevor Maxwell for his in depth investigative story of the Sarah Cherry murder case and Richard Connor for publishing it. The two part special report appearing in the Maine Sunday Telegram and the multimedia information presented on the Portland Press Herald website are outstanding. DNA technology has been used successfully by the Innocence Project to exonerate over 250 wrongfully convicted individuals.

The Innocence Project lawyers believe the DNA profile found in the Cherry case is significant enough for Dennis Dechaine to be granted a new trial. How can State of Maine prosecutors say that DNA in the Dechaine case is irrelevant? How can the head of the Criminal Division of the state Attorney General’s Office, William Stokes, say with a straight face that the DNA evidence from the 1988 Cherry case came from “dirty” nail clippers? William Stokes recently argued and won the case against Thomas Mitchell for the 1984 murder of Judith Flagg of Fayette using DNA evidence extracted from Flagg’s fingernail clippings. The AG’s office felt that DNA technology was relevant enough in the Flagg case to send material for testing in the summer of 1988 yet opposed DNA testing to be done in 1989 in the Cherry case citing that the technology was too new. Judge Bradford denied Dechaine’s request.

I commend the AG’s office for the conviction of Mitchell, however, the same degree of importance concerning DNA evidence should be used when it proves a wrongful conviction. It is becoming abundantly clear that the state Attorney General’s office can no longer be objective when it comes to the Dechaine case. For them, it is no longer about finding the truth but about upholding the original jury’s verdict.

A man serving time for a high profile murder has been indicted on charges of trafficking in prison contraband.

NEWS CENTER'S midcoast media partner Village Soup dot com reports that a Knox County grand jury has indicted Dechaine.

The indictment alleges that on April fifth, Dechaine had morphine and / or klonopine. That was the week that he was rushed to the hospital, reportedly near death after his heart rate and blood pressure dropped. Dechaine was hospitalized for two weeks.

Letters to the editor, July 18, 2010
Dechaine case, coverage disturbing

What madness is this, that state officials, including prosecutors and judges, bound by some of the oldest and most revered oaths in U.S. history, would willfully ignore evidence that may not only prove that an innocent man has been imprisoned for a horrible crime, but also serve to lead investigators to the person who is truly responsible for the unimaginable atrocities committed against 12-year-old Sarah Cherry?

Dennis Dechaine, right, and his attorney Steve Peterson listen to a question asked by reporter Trevor Maxwell during an interview at the Maine state Prison in Warren on March 22.

As an American citizen and citizen of the great state of Maine, it is inconceivable to me that the men and women we trust to uphold our values, defend our liberties and protect us from harm could be so casually dismissive in their attitude toward the overwhelming evidence that has come to light pointing toward Dennis Dechaine's innocence.

I do not know who killed Sarah Cherry in 1988, but I'd like to find out. I would like to be shown undeniable proof that some terrible monster who has been lurking around snatching up little girls has been caught and dealt with.

I'd like to think state officials would like this, too, and will finally leave their egos at the door and do their jobs as they swore an oath to do and listen to what forensic experts and witnesses to events surrounding the case have been trying to say:

They say there's more to this story, more facts to consider and suspects to pursue, and that there may still be a monster out there somewhere, free to take more innocent lives.

Professional integrity. Doing the right thing in the face of public humiliation. Officials owe that much to Sarah Cherry. They owe that much to Dennis Dechaine. They owe that much to you and me, and they owe that much and more to whoever destroyed that little girl.

Hats off to?Trevor Maxwell and the Maine Sunday Telegram for such extensive coverage of the Dennis Dechaine case.

I do want to comment on a few points: What does state prosecutor William Stokes mean that Dennis "does not deserve a new trial"? How does he define "deserve" and under what circumstances would someone "deserve" a new trial?

As for being given "so many opportunities to make your case and you haven't done it," I would hope Mr. Stokes knows that appeals are based on procedural issues, not evidence.

Secondly, Mr. Stokes complains about how much the state has spent on the case. Think how much the state might have saved on incarceration expenses had Dennis been allowed to be tested and present DNA evidence that would have excluded him back in 1988.

Lastly, Mr. Stokes is quoted as saying Dennis said, "It must be somebody else inside of me." This statement comes from the trial testimony of Detective Alfred Hendsbee who claimed, under oath, that he was reading this statement from his notes.

However, when Jim Moore gained access to those notes, he discovered that no such quote is in those notes.

Webster's Dictionary defines "deserve" as "to have a right to because of acts or qualities; be worthy of." I always thought any person in America deserves the right to a fair trial.

If a defendant does not receive a fair trial, then he deserves a new trial. Dennis did not receive a fair trial because the investigation was incompetent, evidence was concealed and police gave false testimony.

I think those are grounds for "deserving" a new trial and Dennis is most certainly worthy of one.

Morning Sentinel

July 17 2010

Dennis Dechaine, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a 12-year-old girl in 1988, says he tried to kill himself with prescription drugs earlier this year.

In a letter sent this week to The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Dechaine said he "ingested a combination of prescription drugs in an attempt to end my life" in early April at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

A grand jury in Knox County indicted Dechaine this week on a charge of trafficking in prison contraband. Dechaine wrote in the letter to the newspaper that he acknowledged the suicide attempt publicly because he is being charged in the case.

Dechaine, 52, was convicted in 1989 of killing Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin. The Madawaska native has maintained his innocence through four unsuccessful appeals, and the case has been the subject of intense legal and media interest over the years.

This fall, the judge who presided at his trial is expected to hear arguments on whether Dechaine should get a new trial, based primarily on a fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry's clipped thumbnail.

Dechaine was hospitalized on April 5. His brother said Dechaine was near death, but prison officials have refused to comment, citing confidentiality laws.

According to the indictment issued Tuesday, Dechaine had morphine and Klonopine, a drug that's used to treat seizure and panic disorders. No one else was indicted in connection with the incident, according Geoffrey Rushlau, Knox County's district attorney.

Dechaine wrote in his letter, dated July 10, "I have been imprisoned 22 years and the soul crushing monotony, boredom, institutional food, pervasive violence, 24 hour lights, near constant noise, harsh treatment, myriad petty rules, lack of resources, loss of potential, separation from family and friends, along with a raft of other negativity, simply conspired to erode my will to live."

Dechaine's letter detailed frustration with his case and called his suicide attempt "a reasonable response to an intolerable situation."

Dechaine's attorney, Steve Peterson, said he doesn't expect the indictment to affect his client's push for a new trial.

If Dechaine were convicted of trafficking before his hearing on the request for a new murder trial, it could be brought up at the hearing, Peterson said, but a rapid conviction is unlikely.

"I don't know how much sense it makes to indict someone who's already serving a life sentence," said Peterson. "I've seen it happen before."

Asked if some might see the suicide attempt as an admission of guilt, Peterson said he has seen the letter his client wrote and doesn't think so.

"What it is, is a venting of how frustrated he is about being in jail and being wrongfully convicted," said Peterson. "Trying to get this righted has been a very frustrating thing for him."

Peterson said Dechaine is now in an exercise program at the prison and appears to be stable. "Whatever depression he was in that caused this to have happened seems to have passed," he said.

Dechaine's friends and family in Madawaska said they took the news of the attempted suicide hard.

"It was devastating for us," said Carol Waltman, a friend of Dechaine's since high school and the founder of Trial and Error, an advocacy group that maintains his innocence. "We've got to understand where he's coming from. Being in a place like that, it's a hellhole."

Both Waltman and Don Dechaine, Dennis Dechaine's older brother, were upset that he got prescription drugs in the first place.

Don Dechaine said people who visit inmates go through an intensive search. He said he believes the drugs had to have been smuggled in by a prison worker.

"They search, scan, there's no way to receive any drugs," said Don Dechaine. "It has to come from within the prison."

Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Department of Corrections, said the department is continuing to investigate the circumstances.

"We're concerned if drugs are coming, or are in the facility inappropriately or illegally," said Lord. "We're definitely looking into it."

Dechaine indicted following suicide try

July 16

A Knox County grand jury has indicted convicted murder Dennis Dechaine on trafficking in prison contraband following a suicide attempt at the state prison in Warren.

In a letter sent this week to The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Dechaine said he had “ingested a combination of prescription drugs in an attempt to end my life.”

Dechaine, 52, is serving a life sentence for the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin. The Madawaska native has maintained his innocence through four unsuccessful appeals – as have a number of friends, family and others – and the case has been the subject of both legal and media interest over the years. This fall, he is expected to get a hearing before the judge who originally convicted him on whether Dechaine should get a new trial based primarily on a microscopic fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Cherry’s clipped thumbnail.

Dechaine was hospitalized on April 5. His brother said Dechaine was near death, but prison officials have refused to comment, citing confidentiality laws. According to the indictment handed down July 13, Dechaine had in his custody morphine and Klonopine, a drug used to treat seizure and panic disorders.

Dechaine wrote in the letter that he was acknowledging the suicide attempt publicly because he was being charged criminally in the case.

“I have been imprisoned 22 years and the soul crushing monotony, boredom, institutional food, pervasive violence, 24 hour lights, near constant noise, harsh treatment, myriad petty rules, lack of resources, loss of potential, separation from family and friends, along with a raft of other negativity, simply conspired to erode my will to live,” Dechaine wrote in the letter dated July 10.

Dechaine’s letter detailed frustration with his case, and called his suicide attempt “a reasonable response to an intolerable situation.”

To read more about the Dechaine case and watch a video interview with Dechaine, visit our multimedia package.

Can a trace of DNA
change this man’s fate?

In prisoner Dennis Dechaine’s latest bid for a new trial, the key piece of evidence is actually old news.

Accompanied by his attorney Steve Peterson, Dennis Dechaine listens to a reporter's questions during an interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren on March 22. With a new appeal more than two decades after his conviction in the death of Sarah Cherry, no other case has been litigated in Maine's court system for so long.

Thomas Connolly, the Portland lawyer who represented Dennis Dechaine at his 1989 trial, says he regrets not pushing harder for pretrial DNA testing. "I wasn't hanging my hat on the DNA at the time," Connolly said this spring. "It was only after the verdict that I realized the enormity of it.'

It is a fragment of unidentified male DNA, extracted by scientists in 1994 from a thumbnail clipping of 12-year-old murder victim Sarah Cherry.

Dechaine was convicted of the murder in 1989 and is serving a life sentence. He says he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that another man set him up.

Although the mystery DNA was discovered 16 years ago, an upcoming court hearing would be the first time for that evidence to be considered by a judge. It took a new state law in 2001, a revision of that law in 2006, additional genetic tests on the thumbnail by the state and the defense, and a great deal of legal wrangling to reach this point.

At the hearing, tentatively scheduled for September, Dechaine’s legal team must convince a judge that jurors in 1989 probably would have acquitted him if they had known about the thumbnail DNA.

His lawyers also will ask Justice Carl O. Bradford to consider other evidence in the case, such as recently obtained opinions about Sarah Cherry’s time of death, and information about alternate suspects.

But the crux of the motion is the DNA, whether it will be deemed credible by the judge, and whether it raises enough doubt for a new trial to be granted in one of Maine’s most notorious homicides.

“That is overwhelming evidence, in our view, that it was not Dennis Dechaine who did this,” said his attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport.

Sarah Cherry was abducted while baby-sitting at a home in Bowdoin on July 6, 1988. Her body was found two days later, in the woods about three miles north of the home.

Her wrists were tied together in front of her chest. A gag had been placed in her mouth and a scarf was wrapped around her neck. The killer sexually assaulted her with sticks, and tortured her with a small blade before strangling her.

Papers belonging to Dechaine were found in the driveway of the house where Sarah had been baby-sitting.

His truck was found about 450 feet from the body. The rope and scarf used to commit the crime had come from Dechaine’s truck. He walked out of the woods on the night of July 6 in the general vicinity of his truck and Sarah Cherry’s body.

Dechaine maintains that he went into the woods that afternoon to inject drugs and to wander around. He says he was alone the whole day, got lost, and someone must have grabbed his papers, the rope and the scarf from his truck.

“I offered up my truck willingly for them to go through,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

“They went through it microscopically. There was absolutely no proof that Sarah Cherry had ever been in my vehicle.

“And there is no doubt in my mind that whoever took Sarah Cherry knew who she was and where she was. This can’t possibly be random.”

Dechaine hopes his defense team will be able to obtain DNA samples from a number of people, including a list of alternate suspects put together by private investigators who have worked on his behalf.

State prosecutors say Dechaine murdered Sarah Cherry, the evidence proved it, and the DNA is irrelevant.

The thumbnail was subject to possible contamination both during the autopsy and during the year it was in the custody of Dechaine’s trial lawyer, Tom Connolly, said William Stokes, head of the criminal division at the state Attorney General’s Office.

“Our position has been that the most likely source of that DNA is contamination at the time of the autopsy, since nail clippers were reused from autopsy to autopsy at that time and were stored in a way that was conducive to contamination,” Stokes said.

Clippers, blades and other equipment used by medical examiners in 1988, he said, were stored in a toolbox lined with a towel.

While scientists have confirmed the existence of the DNA on Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail, they cannot say what type of material it is. It could be from blood, saliva or even a particle of skin. The only other biological material found on the thumbnail was her own blood.

Stokes said there was no evidence suggesting that Sarah Cherry had scratched her killer; state chemists found no tissue underneath her fingernails.

Even if the unknown DNA somehow got transferred to the thumbnail before her death, that doesn’t prove someone else killed her, Stokes said. Unlike a rape case, where a sperm sample can identify or clear a defendant, DNA on a murder victim’s fingers doesn’t automatically identify the killer.

“What does the DNA prove? From our perspective, it doesn’t show anything.”

The male DNA profile found on Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail is incomplete; there is enough genetic material to rule out most people as the source, but there is not enough to conclusively identify an individual.

In 2004, the state crime lab ran the partial profile through a database containing DNA profiles of convicted felons in Maine. Seven possible matches were identified.

Crime lab officials reviewed the histories of the men, and conducted further analysis on the DNA profiles, and ruled them out as potential suspects.

The list of the convicts whose DNA matched the partial profile on the thumbnail remains under seal by an order of the court.

“With partial profiles, you have to be careful because you may actually implicate a lot of innocent people,” Stokes said. “We just don’t have enough of a profile to make a perfect match.”
Dechaine criticized the Attorney General’s Office for not doing more to determine the source of the DNA.

“Is that really why we hire prosecutors? Is that why we hire police?” he said. “It would seem to me that anything that could be examined and investigated should be. I would obviously put DNA at the top of that list.”

Although neither side has determined whose DNA is on Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail, they have ruled out more than a dozen people who had contact with her.

Lawyers who handled the evidence envelopes, police officers and members of the Medical Examiner’s Office were all tested and excluded. Family members of Sarah Cherry also were ruled out.

Peterson said the defense also reviewed some autopsies that were performed before Sarah’s body was delivered to the Medical Examiner’s Office. None of the autopsies reviewed provided a match.

After Sarah Cherry’s fingernails were clipped during her autopsy in July 1988, a state chemist used up all of them – except for the thumbnails – while testing for blood types.

Chemist Judith Brinkman determined that the blood found on her fingernails was a match for Sarah. Because her hands had been bound in front of her body, the blood likely was transferred as Sarah groped at her upper chest and neck, where she had been stabbed repeatedly.

About three months before his trial was set to begin, Dechaine asked for a continuance and for DNA testing of the bloodstained thumbnails.

DNA profiling was considered pioneer science at the time. In 1988, an appeals court in Florida was the first U.S. court to admit DNA findings as evidence. Courts around the country were developing standards for how DNA evidence would be handled by lawyers, judges and juries.

While DNA findings had not yet been admitted in a Maine court, the state Attorney General’s Office was using the technology by the summer of 1988. Several months before Dechaine made his request, the state sent out items for testing at a commercial lab in New York in connection with a homicide in Fayette.

A hearing on Dechaine’s request for DNA testing was held in front of Justice Bradford on Jan. 27, 1989.

The judge relied primarily on input from Brinkman, who had spoken with staffers at a lab in California. They thought the chances of getting usable results were remote, because of the small amount of blood on the nails.

In light of Brinkman’s testimony and the other evidence in the case, Bradford denied the request for testing, which would have delayed the trial for at least a few months.

“I have never gotten over the fact that the judge ruled against me,” Dechaine said. “My personal feeling is that there was one overlying reason, and that was that it was simply inconvenient to the court schedule.”

Connolly, Dechaine’s trial lawyer, blames himself for not pushing harder for pretrial DNA testing. Connolly said he failed to bring in his own expert to argue against Brinkman and the state prosecutors.

“I wasn’t hanging my hat on the DNA at the time. I thought we were going to win with or without it,” Connolly said during an interview at his office in March.

But Connolly did one thing that has essentially kept the case open ever since: During the trial, he placed a defense exhibit sticker on the sealed envelope that contained Sarah’s thumbnails, even though they technically belonged to the state.

Then he got a letter from court officials in 1992, saying the exhibits would be destroyed if the lawyers did not pick them up. After writing back to make sure there was not some mistake, Connolly picked up the envelope.

Connolly sent the package for DNA testing at CBR Laboratories in Boston, using money raised by Dechaine’s supporters.

State prosecutors found out that Connolly had the nails, and he returned them to state officials under an order from Bradford in late 1993. The results from the lab came back in 1994, showing a mixture of Sarah’s blood with DNA from an unknown individual, not Dechaine.

Dechaine filed two court appeals in the years following the discovery of the thumbnail DNA – a petition for post-conviction review with the state supreme court in 1995, and a federal habeas corpus petition in 2000 – asking the court to decide the legality of his imprisonment. Connolly resigned as Dechaine’s lawyer in 1995 because the appeal focused on the claim that Connolly had provided ineffective counsel.

In both appeals, judges determined that the case did not merit any new hearings.
State supreme court Justice Donald Marden and U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cohen, in written opinions, said that even with knowledge of the thumbnail DNA, a reasonable juror could have found Dechaine guilty.

“The presence of a DNA profile inconsistent with those of either Cherry or Dechaine does not in itself undermine the weight of the evidence against Dechaine,” Cohen wrote.

Just as it seemed that Dechaine had exhausted all of his legal options, the Maine Legislature in 2001 passed a law giving prisoners the right to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.

Dechaine’s new lawyer, M. Michaela Murphy of Waterville, filed a motion for a new trial in May 2003.

She got help from the Innocence Project, a national organization founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who became famous as members of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team.” The project is dedicated to the exoneration of wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. Six staff lawyers are currently working on about 300 active cases, including Dechaine’s.

According to statistics compiled by the Innocence Project, 255 people in 34 states have been exonerated through DNA evidence in the past 21 years. None of those exonerations has been in Maine. In New England, Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only states to have adjudicated DNA-based exonerations, with nine and three respectively.

The majority of the exonerations have occurred after a full DNA profile was obtained from testing of evidence such as blood or semen found on a victim, and the profile did not match the person convicted of the crime, the Innocence Project reports. The group does not keep data on exonerations based on partial DNA profiles, such as the one extracted from Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail.

Murphy and state prosecutors agreed in 2003 to a new round of DNA testing for the thumbnail clippings. The results confirmed those from the 1994 test: One of the thumbnails contained a mixture of Sarah’s blood with unidentified DNA. The new tests also showed the unidentified DNA belonged to a male.

A hearing was scheduled in September 2005, but Murphy abruptly withdrew her motion just before it was set to begin.

In order to get a new trial, Dechaine would have needed to prove that the DNA on the thumbnail was not his, and that only the real killer could have left it on Sarah’s thumbnail. It was an unfair demand on the defendant, and one that the lawyers could not possibly meet, Murphy said at the time.

Michigan and Maine were the only states in the country that put such a heavy burden on convicts.

Dechaine’s supporters lobbied for a change in the law that would bring Maine in line with the majority of states. In the spring of 2006, the Legislature revised the statute. Lawmakers critical of the revision dubbed it “The Dennis Dechaine Bill.”

Under the revised law, a convicted person has to show that the DNA evidence, had it been available at the trial, probably would have resulted in an acquittal.

In August 2008, Peterson filed the motion for a new trial based on the revised law. Murphy was forced to leave the case behind because she took a post as a Superior Court justice.

Since the time that Peterson filed the motion, little progress has been made toward a hearing. But Peterson and Stokes recently agreed on a schedule that set a hearing date for September.

In the meantime, Peterson has asked the court for $6,500 to have some of the original evidence tested again for DNA. That evidence includes the sticks, the rope, the bandana and the scarf used to kill Sarah Cherry.
Tests on those items in the past decade failed to detect the DNA of anyone other than the 12-year-old victim, but

Peterson wants them tested again using a scraping method that has not been tried on the items. Peterson also intends to have the thumbnail clippings tested one more time.

The court has not yet ruled on his request for funds. If he is denied, Peterson said he will turn to private sources.

Other evidence that might have yielded DNA results was incinerated by the state in 1992. At that time, it was routine for the state to destroy evidence that was not introduced by either side at trial. Several items from the murder investigation were incinerated, including the jeans Sarah Cherry was wearing, hairs found on her body and swabs of Sarah’s body that were obtained during the autopsy.

The state is now required to preserve all physical evidence in cases where the identity of the perpetrator is disputed.

That requirement was part of the 2001 state law governing post-conviction appeals based on DNA evidence.

“It’s unfortunate,” Peterson said of the 1992 incineration. “Now that we’ve proven the technology to be as good as it is, it would have been helpful to have those items available for testing.”

Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:

The Defense Expert: Intrigued by case, prominent lawyer uses resources to scrutinize evidence

Famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey thinks the unidentified male DNA found on murder victim Sarah Cherry's thumbnail is intriguing, but it might not be enough to get a new trial for prisoner Dennis Dechaine.

Inmate Dennis Dechaine shakes hands with attorney F. Lee Bailey, right, after a meeting at the Maine State Prison in Warren on April 8, 2009. “All that I promised to do, and have done, is to use past friendships and associations to get Dennis what he couldn’t afford,” Bailey said. “I don’t wish to be an advocate for anybody.”

• Dr. Cyril Wecht, based in Pittsburgh, has served as a medical-legal and forensic pathology consultant in civil and criminal cases since 1962. He is perhaps best known nationally for his criticism of the Warren Commission’s conclusions in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. For more information, see www.cyrilwecht.com.

• Dr. Walter Hofman is coroner for Montgomery County, Pa., and practices pathology at Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia. Hofman is a designated forensic pathologist for the State of New Jersey and is a consultant to the Department of Health for the State of Florida. For more information, see www.drhofmanfourn6path.com.

But Bailey does believe, based on two new expert opinions, that she was killed several hours after Dechaine was in custody, and that should tip the scales in favor of a new trial.

The reports were prepared in December, at Bailey's personal request, by Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman.

Both forensic pathologists have performed more than 10,000 autopsies each, and have testified as consultants for prosecutors and defendants in civil and criminal cases nationwide.

"If the pathologists are right, he has to be innocent," Bailey said of Dechaine. Bailey said it is not possible, given the nature of Sarah Cherry's injuries, that the 12-year-old survived for several hours after the attack.

Dechaine is serving a life sentence for his conviction in 1989. His latest motion for a new trial is tentatively scheduled to be heard by a judge this fall.

State prosecutors say the new opinions are not credible, and have no place in the upcoming proceedings.

"These are doctors who were not there, who are reviewing only a few facts and pieces of evidence, coming up with an opinion more than 20 years later," said William Stokes, head of the criminal division at the state Attorney General's Office.

"Most forensic pathologists that I have dealt with, when you ask them about time of death, are understandably cautious," Stokes said. "I don't think any medical examiner can give you a precise time of death. Anyone who tells you that is not credible.

"Dr. Wecht and Dr. Hofman are fine, but they weren't there," Stokes said. "It's speculation."

Bailey, 77, became famous for his work on high-profile cases, including the trials of Dr. Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson. He has been a figure of controversy in recent years.

He was jailed briefly in 1996 for refusing to return millions of dollars in stocks formerly held by one of his clients. Bailey was later disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts for his conduct related to that case.

Bailey has business ties in Maine and he is moving to Yarmouth this month from Massachusetts. A longtime pilot, Bailey is a close friend and business partner with Jim Horowitz, the founder of Oxford Aviation.

Bailey heard about the Dechaine case a few years ago from Waterville lawyer Jon Nale. Bailey read a copy of "Human Sacrifice," the book about the case by James P. Moore, a Brunswick author and retired federal agent. Bailey was intrigued by Moore's contention that Sarah Cherry's time of death was much later than the theory put forward by state prosecutors.

Bailey met Dechaine and his attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport, at the Maine State Prison in April 2009. He agreed to serve as an unpaid "ombudsman" in the case.

"All that I promised to do, and have done, is to use past friendships and associations to get Dennis what he couldn't afford," Bailey said. "I don't wish to be an advocate for anybody."

Bailey said he receives about a dozen requests each year from lawyers and prisoners asking him to review their cases but he rarely gets involved. Moore's book was the difference-maker that prompted him to take an active role in Dechaine's case.

Bailey sent a packet -- including Sarah Cherry's autopsy report, portions of the trial testimony, weather reports and other case data -- to Wecht, who is a longtime friend. Wecht agreed to provide an opinion for free. Bailey also sought a second opinion from Hofman, whose nominal fee of $1,000 was paid by Dechaine's advocacy group, Trial and Error.

Both Wecht and Hofman disagreed with the findings of Ronald Roy, the deputy state medical examiner who conducted Sarah Cherry's autopsy after her body was found by a search team around noon on July 8, 1988.

At Dechaine's trial, Roy testified that when he examined Sarah's body that afternoon, rigor mortis -- the temporary stiffening of a corpse's joints and muscles -- was still present but was passing off. The body had been found in the woods in Bowdoin, covered by five to six inches of leaves, sticks and other forest debris.

In the estimate he provided for the jury, Roy said Sarah died a minimum of 30 hours before he examined her, or sometime before 8 a.m. July 7. But Roy said Sarah probably died much earlier than that, most likely sometime on the afternoon of July 6.

Dechaine walked out of the woods in Bowdoin around 8:45 p.m. on July 6, and his whereabouts after that time are accounted for.

According to the opinions written by Wecht and Hofman, if Sarah had died anytime on July 6, there is no way that rigor mortis still should have been present when Roy examined the body. There also should have been much more insect activity on Sarah's body, given the daytime temperatures of close to 90 degrees, the pathologists contend.

In Wecht's opinion, the earliest possible time of Sarah Cherry's death would have been 3 a.m. on July 7, six hours after Dechaine was picked up by police. Hofman's report said the earliest time of death would have been around noon on July 7.

Roy is retired and living in British Columbia, Canada. He did not respond to phone messages seeking comment for this story.

Peterson, Dechaine's attorney, continues to prepare arguments in hopes of convincing a judge to grant Dechaine a new trial. At that upcoming hearing, Peterson intends to introduce the DNA evidence found on Sarah Cherry's thumbnail; the time of death opinions written by Wecht and Hofman; and witness testimony supporting the defense's theory of an alternate suspect.

But it is unclear whether Justice Carl O. Bradford will consider the Wecht and Hofman reports at the hearing. Dechaine is the first prisoner to test the state law allowing this type of appeal. The law was passed in 2001 and revised in 2006.

"The scope (of the law) includes bringing in old and new evidence in any area that had been involved in earlier proceedings," Peterson said.

Stokes disagrees with Peterson's reading of the law. He said the defense is limited to the DNA evidence, and the law does not open the door to other evidence. Disagreements over time of death and the possibility of alternate suspects have already been heard in several previous appeals lodged by Dechaine, all of which have been rejected by the courts.

"This is a hearing on DNA evidence," Stokes said. "It is not an opportunity to retry the case."

Bradford will likely have to make a ruling before the hearing on what pieces of evidence he will consider.

The Hometown Perspective: For those who knew the young man, disbelief endures

MADAWASKA - The boys would play on the train tracks near their neighborhood, climbing ladders on the sides of the freight cars and jumping from one to the next.

Down across the flood plains of the St. John River, they'd launch into the air on Tarzan swings that stretched from tall trees across old gullies.

One, Jesse Waltman, had moved to town when he was in fifth grade, after his dad died in Vietnam. The other, Dennis Dechaine, was 9 years old and had lost his mother to cancer. The two became best friends.

But in 1988, Dechaine's life took a dark turn. He was 30 when he was charged with the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Dechaine has been incarcerated since his 1988 arrest.

His path from life in this small mill town to the central role in one of Maine's most contentious and notorious murders is inconceivable to those who knew him.

"I've never been able to accept that Dennis could have done this," said Roger Martin, Dechaine's guidance counselor at Madawaska High School.

"I didn't see him getting into any fights in school, altercations with other kids ... Dennis was just a good kid, easy to talk to, always very polite -- just a nice kid."

Dechaine, the youngest of four brothers, grew up in a big house in a neighborhood off Main Street, behind the town's police station.

His father owned a gas station and ran a taxi service. After Dechaine's mother died, an aunt helped keep house and watch the kids.

But then, when Dennis was 14, his father died of a heart attack. His oldest brother, Phil, left the Coast Guard and returned home to take care of his brothers.

Dechaine was a good student, recalls Carol Waltman, Jesse Waltman's wife, who herself was a good friend of Dechaine's in high school. She is the founder and main force behind Trial and Error, the advocacy group that has been pushing for a new trial for Dechaine.

Even after losing both parents, Dechaine was a very positive person, said Carol Waltman, adding that he enjoyed photography and took pictures for the school yearbook.

"In high school, all you'd see was Dennis with a smile, and a camera -- and the camera was bigger than him," she said.

Carol Waltman said she didn't know Dechaine was experimenting with illegal drugs during high school. At his 1989 trial, Dechaine said he tried to hide that aspect of his life because he was embarrassed. He began smoking marijuana around his sophomore year, and he also tried cocaine and LSD while he was a teenager. At his trial, Dechaine said that when he was in his 20s, he sporadically used marijuana and cocaine.

In high school, Martin, the guidance counselor, recommended Dechaine for the Upward Bound program at Bowdoin College, an outdoors-based education experience.

Martin said Dechaine didn't have a lot of parental oversight, and he wanted him to experience a bit of the world, and to get him thinking about college. "I probably felt he had more ability than he used," he said.

Dechaine took part in the program for three years. After graduating in 1976, Dechaine enrolled at Vermont Technical College, where he studied agricultural business management.

Dechaine received his associate's degree and moved on to Western Washington University.

Steve Young didn't know Dechaine well in high school. But when Young was at the University of Maine at Orono, Dechaine came for a concert and stayed with him. The two became good friends.

The two talked about nature and jazz music, and canoed the Allagash. When Dechaine moved to Washington state, he convinced Young to join him.

"Dennis was the kind of guy that if it rained, he was out there picking up night crawlers to go fishing," said Young. "He represented to me what people say about the work ethic of people from northern Maine."

Dechaine had met a woman, Nancy Emmons, at Western Washington University. They graduated together in 1983, married that fall in Colorado and returned to Maine to work on a sheep farm in Bowdoinham.

The couple started their own business, with a vegetable stand, greenhouses and Christmas wreaths and gift baskets. They bought a house and called it Basswood Farm, where they raised sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits, geese and ducks.

Days before his arrest, Dechaine was in Madawaska for a family reunion. He visited with Young's parents, and with Young, who had a 3-week-old daughter. Dechaine wanted Young, an accomplished photographer, to take some product shots of the gift baskets he and his wife were selling.

A few days later, Young's sister called to tell him Dechaine had been arrested for murder. Young called the jail and spoke with Dechaine; his friend told him he didn't know what was going on.

Nancy Dechaine and Dennis Dechaine divorced shortly after he was convicted in March 1989.

Tom Connolly, Dechaine's trial lawyer, said Nancy still supported Dennis but needed the divorce to protect her half of the marital property in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Dechaine by Cherry's family. The family later won its case.

Nancy moved out of Maine, remarried and had children. She eventually told Dechaine that she would not be in contact because she did not want to expose her new family to the case, Connolly said.

Over the years, Young said, he would visit regularly with Dechaine in prison, bringing photos of his daughter. But Dechaine eventually asked him not to communicate so often.

"It'd bum him out -- he'd think about what it was, about what it could have been," said Young.

And his close friends wonder how Dechaine's life -- and their own -- would be different if he hadn't been charged and convicted.

"Compared to Sarah Cherry's family, or to Dennis -- you can't compare. But all his close friends and relations have never been the same," said Young.

At the end of an interview, Jesse Waltman leaned forward, tapping his finger where his neck meets his head.

Additional Photos

The Author: Private investigator digs – and becomes an advocate for Dechaine

In 1992, a retired federal agent from Brunswick saw a notice in a local newspaper.

Trial and Error, the group of people who believe Dennis Dechaine was wrongfully convicted for a murder in 1988, was holding a meeting in town.

James P. Moore, a private investigator who had retired in 1985 from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, recalls thinking that the group was likely a "bunch of birdbrains." Out of curiosity, though, he attended the meeting.

By the end of that evening, Moore agreed to look into the case, with one caveat.

"I told them if I found more evidence that he is guilty, I'm giving it to police," Moore said.

He began by reviewing the 1,500-page trial transcript. Moore was initially struck by the testimony of the deputy state medical examiner, who could not rule out the possibility that Sarah Cherry was killed after Dechaine was in police custody.

Other elements of the case concerned Moore: the lack of physical evidence and the fact that police did not pursue leads on other suspects, including a known child rapist who lived down the road from the house where Sarah Cherry had been abducted.

For the next 15 years or so, Moore devoted a significant part of his life to the investigation of the case, and he became one of Dechaine's fiercest advocates.

"You have some poor guy in jail that didn't do anything," Moore said in an April 26 interview. "I couldn't let go of it."

In the fall of 2002, Blackberry Press published Moore's book, "Human Sacrifice." Moore's central claim was that Dechaine could not have committed the crime and had been set up by another man. Moore contended that police and prosecutors, in their single-minded belief that Dechaine was guilty, ignored other leads, manipulated witnesses and withheld police reports from Dechaine's lawyers before the trial.

The book sparked a renewed public interest in Dechaine's case, and it swelled the ranks of Trial and Error. A revised version of the book was published in 2006, after Moore filed a lawsuit against the state Attorney General's Office and gained access to the investigative files.

Moore said he did not accept payment for his work as an investigator or as a writer. He also has received none of the royalties from "Human Sacrifice," which retailed at $15 and has sold more than 10,000 copies. Profits from the books have gone to Trial and Error, Moore said.

He said he decided a few years ago to cut down his advocacy work on the case, and to let Dechaine's lawyers go about their business of seeking a new trial.

In response to the book, the lawyers at the Attorney General's Office have said the evidence led to Dechaine, and to no one else, because he kidnapped, tortured and murdered Sarah Cherry.

Eric Wright, the prosecutor who represented the state at Dechaine's trial in 1989, now works as an attorney for the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection. He declined to comment for this story. But Wright did respond to Moore's book in 2003 in a newspaper article published in the Lewiston Sun Journal.

"Moore goes so far as to suggest, though not with proof, that the trial justice was unfair; that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court did not give this case any more than cursory review; that Mr. Dechaine did not stand a chance against a self-protective, clubby legal profession; that the state's deputy chief medical examiner was incompetent, subject to manipulation, or a liar; that a dozen or so detectives and deputies from the Maine State Police and the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office were either bumblers or conniving co-conspirators in repeated perjury," Wright wrote in a five-page letter to the Sun Journal.

Lawyers, friends and supporters who believe Dennis Dechaine was framed for the murder in 1988 of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry have pointed fingers at several possible alternate suspects.

But one name -- Douglas Senecal -- has been at or near the top of their lists since the beginning.

At least three judges, however, have found no credible evidence linking Senecal to the crime, and they have said Dechaine's alternate suspect theory is nothing more than speculation.

Senecal himself says the target painted on his back forced him to move out of Maine shortly after Dechaine's conviction. Being labeled as a possible suspect in one of Maine's most infamous murders has essentially destroyed his life over the past 22 years, Senecal said in a brief telephone interview last week.

Senecal, 57, said he hopes he outlives Dechaine, but he still wants to hear a confession from the prisoner so his own name might finally be cleared.

"He won't do it," Senecal said. "He can't confess because he is too far into it, and he is too intelligent."

During the telephone interview, the retired drywall mason used profanity to blast Dechaine's camp and the media, including The Portland Press Herald, for dragging his name through the mud in the past two decades.

Since leaving Maine, Senecal has lived in North Carolina and Florida. He wouldn't say where he currently resides.

In 1988, Senecal lived in Phippsburg and ran a drywall business. He was under indictment in Sagadahoc County for the alleged sexual abuse of one of his stepdaughters five years earlier.

Senecal was connected to Sarah Cherry through a series of divorces and marriages. His stepdaughters were stepsisters to Sarah, and the girls lived in the same home in 1983 at the time of the alleged abuse.

A few days after Sarah Cherry's body was found in July of 1988, a tenant of a property owned by Senecal called a state social worker to report that she believed Senecal had committed the crime. According to court records, the social worker contacted detectives and told them Senecal had been acting strangely since the murder and was the subject of several allegations of sexual abuse in addition to the pending indictment.

Tom Connolly, Dechaine's trial lawyer, wanted to call Senecal and his tenant as witnesses at the trial, under the theory of an alternate suspect. Connolly theorized that Senecal feared Sarah Cherry would testify against him in the sexual abuse case. Connolly also claimed Senecal could have known where Sarah was baby-sitting on the day she was abducted.

Senecal's attorney said his client was running errands the afternoon of the abduction, and his whereabouts were accounted for. The lawyer, Joseph Field, said Senecal had no motive because Sarah was not on the witness list in the sexual abuse case. Field said Senecal had no knowledge of Sarah's plans to baby-sit.

Justice Carl O. Bradford agreed with Field, and he would not allow Connolly to present his theory at Dechaine's March 1989 trial.

"I admire your ingenuity, but this is inviting the jury to engage in nothing but speculation," the judge told Connolly during a conference in chambers, according to a court transcript.

Nor was Senecal tried on the sexual abuse charge. His case was scheduled for trial in late July 1988, but prosecutors continued the case twice because Senecal's stepdaughter left Maine earlier that summer. Several witnesses said in affidavits that Senecal's wife arranged for the girl to travel to California so she would not be available to testify. Prosecutors did not resurrect the charge after the girl returned to Maine.

Connolly focused on Senecal again in 1992 in a motion for a new trial for Dechaine. At the hearing, five witnesses provided information implicating Senecal in the murder. One man claimed to have heard Senecal's voice and the voice of a little girl on a road near the spot where Sarah's body was found.

Justice Bradford found the testimony was either not credible, hearsay or otherwise inadmissible. The judge ruled that the new evidence "still lacked the substantial link between Douglas Senecal and the alternative perpetrator theory of defense."

Then in 1994, laboratory testing done by Dechaine's legal team discovered a partial DNA profile from an unidentified male on Sarah Cherry's clipped thumbnail. The profile is sufficient to rule out some people, including Dechaine, but there is not enough genetic material to conclusively match the profile to any other individual. There are potentially thousands of people worldwide whose DNA would match the partial profile.

Undeterred by the odds, Dechaine's defense team has tried to identify the man whose DNA was left on or under Sarah's thumbnail.

In 1996 and in 1998, Dechaine asked the Superior Court to order Senecal to provide a sample of his saliva for the purposes of a comparison. Dechaine made the same request to a federal judge in 2000. The requests were denied.

In a 2004 interview with Bill Nemitz, columnist for The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Senecal said he would not provide a DNA sample to Dechaine's defense team because he did not trust them. Senecal believed lawyer Connolly might have already secretly obtained his DNA -- perhaps by taking one of his hairbrushes or a dropped cigarette butt -- and transferred it onto Sarah Cherry's thumbnail.

Senecal reiterated that deep sense of suspicion in last week's telephone interview.

"There is not a soul on this earth that I trust, except my wife and son," he said, while noting that his wife died three years ago.

Senecal is aware that his name could come up once again in Dechaine's pending bid for a new trial. Dechaine's current attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport, has said he will try to introduce evidence to support his theory that another man killed Sarah Cherry. But Peterson said a court order prohibits him from talking about that aspect of the appeal.

"When is it going to be done? I've been waiting 25 years," Senecal said. "I don't need an attorney, I have done nothing wrong except be born."

His son, 29-year-old Isaac Senecal, said anyone who truly knows his father knows that Doug Senecal had nothing to do with Sarah Cherry's death.

"Having seen what my dad and the rest of my family has had to go through, it is disheartening," Isaac Senecal said of the constant intrusions by reporters and private investigators.

Isaac Senecal lives in North Carolina and serves in the Air Force Reserves. He went on reserve status three years ago after seven years of active duty that included three years in the Iraq war. Isaac was 7 years old when his father's name was first connected with the Dechaine case.

"He is my best friend in the world," Isaac Senecal said of his father. "He is an awesome person, and I have a very close circle of friends that would say the same thing.

"You can go to anybody in prison and they have an army of people behind them who say they didn't do it. What bothers me is they have no facts," he said. "A name came up on the radar, it was my dad's, and he has had to live with that."

Did Dennis Dechaine kill Sarah Cherry?

By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Thirty-year-old Dennis Dechaine of Bowdoinham is escorted to his arraignment in the slaying of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry on July 12, 1988, four days after his arrest. Dechaine has been in custody since.

Additional Photos Below

COMING NEXT WEEK: In Dennis Dechaine’s latest bid for a new trial, the key piece of evidence is a fragment of unidentified male DNA, extracted by scientists in 1994 from a thumbnail clipping of 12-year-old murder victim Sarah Cherry. Serving a life sentence for the crime, the prisoner hopes this trace of genetic material can alter his fate.

But there’s a court hearing on the horizon that could be his last chance at a new trial. There are some things that he wants the public to hear again.

So Dennis Dechaine answers the same questions the officers asked on that summer night in the woods of Bowdoin in 1988. Did you take the girl? Did you kill Sarah Cherry?

“I’m not the guy who did this,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

“Somebody, somewhere in their heart of hearts at the state level has to know this.

The Dechaine case occupies a unique position in Maine’s collective consciousness.

No other case has been litigated in Maine’s court system for so long – almost 22 years and counting.

Maine knows Dennis Dechaine, inmate No. 1725, as the farmer convicted for one of the most shocking crimes in state history – the kidnapping, torture and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Most Mainers also know that Dechaine, now 52, has maintained his innocence, and a large group of backers has provided the emotional and financial support behind his quest for a new trial.

In four appeals, state and federal judges have upheld the conviction and life sentence.

Sometime this fall, a judge is expected to decide whether Dechaine should get a new trial based primarily on a microscopic fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry’s clipped thumbnail.

His lawyers must convince Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford – who presided at the 1989 trial – that the jury likely would have acquitted Dechaine if they had known about the thumbnail evidence. The lawyers also will ask Bradford to consider two forensic reports suggesting Dechaine could not have committed the crime. The hearing is tentatively set for September.

“We only get one shot at getting this right,” said attorney Steve Peterson of Rockport, who has worked on the case since 2003 and has been Dechaine’s lead defense lawyer since the fall of 2007.

William Stokes, head of the Criminal Division at the state’s Attorney General’s Office, will argue that Dechaine does not deserve a new trial. The only mystery, as far as Stokes is concerned, is why the case has not been closed for good.

“When you have been given so many opportunities to make your case, and you haven’t done it, there’s that point where the family of the victim should get some finality,” Stokes said.

The coming court battle was made possible by a state law enacted in 2001, and revised in 2006 at the urging of Dechaine's supporters. The law allows prisoners to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.

Only a handful of prisoners have filed motions based on the law, and Dechaine's motion would be the first to go before a judge if the hearing takes place as scheduled.

"In terms of public interest, there have been no other cases that compare to the Dechaine case. Never. Not even close," said prominent Augusta defense lawyer Walt McKee, who is not involved.

"Everybody has got their own take on the case," McKee said. "The first school of thought is that he had a trial with excellent lawyers on each side, the jury ruled, and how long do we have to go through this. On the other hand, there's the thought that the jury didn't hear some information that we now have, so let's put it in front of a new jury and let them decide."

The stakes are high. An advocacy group called Trial and Error, composed largely of Dechaine's family and friends, have raised and spent more than $200,000 on lobbying to change the state law regarding DNA appeals, DNA testing, private investigators, a website and the production and distribution of DVDs about the case.

The state, meanwhile, has spent thousands of dollars on Dechaine's court-appointed lawyers, court time and the prosecutors who have contested Dechaine's appeals. At least $10,000, including for the estimated cost of more than 200 hours of staff time, also has been spent by the state crime lab for DNA testing.

"We do not keep a running tab on any case, but this case has consumed literally thousands of hours of attorney time and law enforcement time as well as the lab and the court. So it's a lot of money, certainly tens of thousands," Stokes said.

The Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the exoneration of convicts through DNA testing, has been involved in the case since the early 1990s. One of the organization's staff lawers, Alba Morales, is helping Peterson. Lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who created the Innocence Project in 1992, became famous for their work on the O.J. Simpson "dream team" that won an acquittal for the former football star in 1995.

Another member of the Simpson team, famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, also has entered the Dechaine fray.

Bailey, who has business ties in Maine and is moving to Yarmouth this month, heard about the case from another attorney. Bailey met with Dechaine at the prison in April 2009. At Bailey's request, two nationally recognized forensic pathologists reviewed some of the evidence and gave their opinions that Dechaine could not have committed the crime.

"This was a strong circumstantial case put on by the state, but it is possible that someone could have set him up," Bailey said. "The inflammatory nature of the crime makes it rife for opportunity to go astray because the public wants someone to pay."

Dechaine said that the prosecution's desire to make an arrest and assure the public that the killer was behind bars denied him a full and fair investigation.

"I have forced it so far to the back of my mind that I don't like to think about it anymore," he said while sitting in one of the visitation rooms at the state prison in Warren. "I don't like to think about all of the events that led to my wrongful conviction ... It took a lot of, well, pounding square pegs into round holes to do what was done to me."

Lawyers on both sides will be watching Dechaine's health as the hearing date approaches, because of an incident that took place at the prison in early April.

On the morning of April 5, two weeks after he was interviewed for this story, Dechaine was found unconscious in his cell, with an extremely low pulse rate and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to a Portland hospital, where doctors inserted a tube to help him breathe. Dechaine was speaking and walking again within a few days. He was returned to the prison on April 21.

Don Dechaine, a brother who lives in Madawaska, said Dennis Dechaine apparently ingested an unknown medication that nearly killed him. The family does not know what the medication was, how it got into Dechaine's system or how it was administered.

"There are a lot of questions we don't have the answers to," Don Dechaine said. He said he spoke to his brother on the telephone last week, and he sounded good. Dennis does not appear to have any lasting problems, such as brain damage.

The Maine Department of Corrections investigated the circumstances surrounding the emergency, and passed on the results of their probe to Knox County District Attorney Geoff Rushlau.

Rushlau and Denise Lord, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, declined to comment on details of the investigation.

"The matter is being reviewed for possible criminal charges," Rushlau said last week.

Peterson, Dechaine's lawyer, said any criminal charge arising from the April 5 incident would be dealt with separately from the DNA appeal.

Sarah Cherry's family members hope Dechaine's motion for a new trial will be denied and they will be afforded the closure they have been seeking since Sarah was kidnapped while babysitting on July 6, 1988.

Searchers found her body in nearby woods two days later. Sarah had been bound, gagged and sexually assaulted with sticks. She had been stabbed about a dozen times, and was strangled to death with a scarf.

"It's not right that he should be allowed to go on with this forever, to keep coming back to the courts time and time again," said Peg Cherry, Sarah's maternal grandmother.

Peg and her husband, Bud Cherry, live in Lisbon Falls, a short drive from the small town of Bowdoin, where Sarah lived with her mother and stepfather, Debbie and Chris Crosman.

Peg Cherry displays elementary school photographs of Sarah on cabinets. From her tidy living room, the 77-year-old grandmother can see where Sarah and her cousins used to play games of soccer, softball or tag.

Chris and Debbie Crosman declined to comment for this story because they say they still have difficulty discussing it more than two decades after their daughter's murder.

Many family members, including Peg Cherry, attended the trial in March 1989 at Knox County Superior Court in Rockland. Cherry has been in regular contact with prosecutors before and since. And no matter what Dechaine or his supporters say, she is certain he committed the crime.

"He thought he was going to hoodwink everybody. Here is this pretty boy, really clean-cut, and he wants you to believe there's no way he could do it.

"No question, this was a circumstantial case, but sometimes that can be even more powerful than direct evidence," said William Stokes, the state prosecutor who inherited the Dechaine case from his predecessors in 1995.

Stokes said the state had more evidence against Dechaine than it does in many murder cases:

• A notebook and receipt from Dechaine's truck were found in the driveway of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting.

• Dechaine was seen walking out of the woods in the general area where Sarah's body was later found.

• The scarf used to strangle Sarah and the rope binding her wrists had come from Dechaine's truck.

• Two detectives and two corrections officers testified that Dechaine made incriminating statements on the day of his arrest, including, "It must be somebody else inside of me."

Dechaine's testimony at the trial also was a key piece of evidence, Stokes said.

Dechaine said he went into the woods on the afternoon of July 6 to inject drugs, and got lost at some point. In an interview with the state's chief psychologist after the arrest in 1988, Dechaine said his history of drug use began with marijuana around the age of 13, and he had occasionally used various drugs, including cocaine and amphetamines, since that time.

During cross-examination at his trial, Dechaine conceded that his memory of the afternoon of July 6 was not as sharp as it might have been if he had not been using the drugs. But he insisted that he was not in an altered state of consciousness, and that he never saw Sarah Cherry that day. Dechaine believes another man took the items from his truck and used them to frame him.

Stokes takes offense at the accusations made by some of Dechaine's supporters, who claim that he and others within the Attorney General's Office have worked to protect the police and to hide and distort evidence pointing away from Dechaine.

"They have their point of view," Stokes said. "They are entitled to their point of view. What I do have a problem with is the personal attacks."

Stokes, an Augusta city councilor who also has served on the school board, said people sometimes ask him whether Trial and Error, the advocacy group that backs Dechaine, might be right in proclaiming his innocence.

"They're not trying to offend me, but I look at them and say, 'Do you really think I would fight and use my skills in the courtroom to keep someone in prison who I believe to be innocent?' " Stokes said.

"Consider the accusations that have been made, that we are basically conspiring to conceal evidence to keep a man we know is innocent in prison," he said. "That is personally very offensive to me, and I'm sure it's offensive to everyone else who bears the brunt of it."

At the Maine State Prison, Dechaine awaits the upcoming hearing with "reserved hope." There are some questions about his case that Dechaine wants the public to consider.

He noted that police never found physical evidence, not a hair, fiber or drop of blood, connecting him and Sarah Cherry. Investigators never found the knife used to stab Sarah, or her missing panties.

When the police dog tracked from Dechaine's truck into the woods, the dog took investigators on a few indirect routes, but did not lead to Sarah's body. Also, the dog did not find a scent of Sarah in Dechaine's truck, and that information was not provided to his lawyers before the trial.

"Had I abducted Sarah Cherry while in a complete stupor, which is what would have been required here, evidence of her presence in my vehicle would have been undeniable," Dechaine said. "Had I abducted Sarah Cherry in a complete stupor and killed her in the way that she was killed, I would have been covered in blood."

Dechaine said he would not have pushed for DNA testing of all the evidence, ever since the beginning of the case, if he had anything to hide.

More than anything, though, Dechaine said his own personality demonstrates that he was not capable of committing the acts that were perpetrated on the 12-year-old victim.

"I dare anybody to find a single incidence of violence in my life -- ever," he said. "It's not in my being. It's not who I am."

Peg Cherry says that claim of innocence has a hollow ring, in light of all the evidence against Dechaine. It defies common sense, Cherry said, to believe that anyone other than Dechaine could have been the one who killed her granddaughter.

In Lisbon Falls, Peg and Bud Cherry go about their own routines, supported by their community. They try not to get worked up by the actions of Dechaine's supporters.

Occasionally the phone rings and it is Bill Stokes, keeping them posted on a process that Peg Cherry describes as tiring.

"With each of these appeals, we keep thinking that it's going to be the last one, and then it isn't," she said.

"They're not going to get rid of us," she said. "As long as I can physically get in there, I will -- to my dying breath. And she is worth it."

But there’s a court hearing on the horizon that could be his last chance at a new trial. There are some things that he wants the public to hear again.

So Dennis Dechaine answers the same questions the officers asked on that summer night in the woods of Bowdoin in 1988. Did you take the girl? Did you kill Sarah Cherry?

“I’m not the guy who did this,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

“Somebody, somewhere in their heart of hearts at the state level has to know this.

The Dechaine case occupies a unique position in Maine’s collective consciousness. No other case has been litigated in Maine’s court system for so long – almost 22 years and counting.

In four appeals, state and federal judges have upheld the conviction and life sentence.

“We only get one shot at getting this right,” said attorney Steve Peterson of Rockport, who has worked on the case since 2003 and has been Dechaine’s lead defense lawyer since the fall of 2007.

“When you have been given so many opportunities to make your case, and you haven’t done it, there’s that point where the family of the victim should get some finality,” Stokes said.

Only a handful of prisoners have filed motions based on the law, and Dechaine's motion would be the first to go before a judge if the hearing takes place as scheduled.

"In terms of public interest, there have been no other cases that compare to the Dechaine case. Never. Not even close," said prominent Augusta defense lawyer Walt McKee, who is not involved.

Another member of the Simpson team, famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, also has entered the Dechaine fray.

Dechaine said that the prosecution's desire to make an arrest and assure the public that the killer was behind bars denied him a full and fair investigation. "I have forced it so far to the back of my mind that I don't like to think about it anymore," he said while sitting in one of the visitation rooms at the state prison in Warren. "I don't like to think about all of the events that led to my wrongful conviction ... It took a lot of, well, pounding square pegs into round holes to do what was done to me."