A man convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl continues to maintain his innocence.
A couple of fingernails. A few sticks. A used tissue. A scarf. A cigarette. A bloodstained T-shirt. And a bandanna.
These and other items were collected more than 15 years ago during the investigation of what would become one of the most publicized criminal cases in the state’s history.
On Monday morning, laboratory technicians will begin the process of removing the items from storage boxes and scrutinizing them for any remains of blood, saliva, semen, hair follicles and skin cells.
Convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine is hoping the DNA tests – made possible by a state law that took effect in 2001- will put an end to his lifelong prison sentence.
Found guilty in 1989 of the brutal slaying of Sarah Cherry, Dechaine, 45, continues to claim that he isn’t the man who abducted the 12-year-old Bowdoin girl and murdered her in the woods.
He and his supporters have accused the state of obscuring, concealing and suppressing vital evidence that could have proved his innocence.
They believe that someone framed Dechaine by planting his car-repair bill in the driveway of the house where Cherry was baby-sitting when she was abducted.
They also believe that police and prosecutors ignored leads to alternative suspects because they decided at the beginning of the investigation that they had the right guy.
The state has repeatedly defended its handling of the case.
“We’ve got nothing to hide. Let’s do the DNA. That’s fine,” said Bill Stokes, the director of the criminal division for the Maine Attorney General’s Office. “But somebody still has to explain all of the other evidence.”
In addition to the papers in the driveway, Stokes said, Dechaine was spotted coming out of the woods where Cherry was murdered, and his pickup truck was found about 400 feet from where her body was found.
He was missing a penknife from his key ring that matched the wounds on Cherry’s body, and four police and corrections officers testified at his trial that he made incriminating statements after his arrest, including, “What punishment could they ever give me that would equal what I’ve done?”
Dechaine claims that he went to the woods that day to get high, injecting himself with liquid amphetamines that he bought in Boston.
He blames some of the statements on the fact that he was high and being pressured by police, and he claims others were fabricated or altered by the state.
DNA law
Once a quiet, college-educated farmer with a peaceful reputation, Dechaine has been fighting for a new trial since the day he was convicted. His requests have repeatedly been rejected by state and federal judges.
But his supporters are hopeful that this time will be different, because of the state law that took effect in 2001.
The law allows criminals serving a sentence of 20 years or more to test evidence in their cases with DNA technology that wasn’t available at the time of their trials.
“We have been waiting 15 years for this day to come. DNA is science, and we believe in science,” said Morrison Bonpasse, a spokesman for Trial and Error, a group that has been lobbying for Dechaine’s release.
For Dechaine, the best outcome would be to have tests detect another person’s DNA on some of the items and to have that DNA match the profile of one of two alternative suspects identified by him and his supporters.
One of the alternative suspects is a convicted sex offender, which means that his DNA profile is stored in a national database and could readily be checked for a match.
Fingernails
Dechaine’s new lawyer, Michaela Murphy of Waterville, filed a motion in May asking the court for permission to conduct DNA tests on 17 items. Justice Carl Bradford granted the request in September.
The state did not try to stop the tests.
But, Stokes said, it has serious concerns about the value of the results given the fact that the evidence is 15 years old and it has moved around to various courts, law offices and laboratories.
Even if unknown DNA profiles show up on the items, Stokes said, it doesn’t mean that someone else committed the crime.
“This evidence has been handled by many people – defense attorneys, prosecutors, court clerks, jurors, police officers,” Stokes said. “If DNA is found, what does it mean? What is it? Who is it? When did it get there?”
Stokes is most skeptical about the history of Cherry’s fingernails.
Dechaine’s former attorney, Tom Connolly of Portland, sent the fingernails to a private lab to be tested for DNA in 1993 after realizing that they had been mistakenly returned to him as part of his exhibits.
The tests revealed the DNA of two people: Sarah Cherry and an unidentified person, not Dennis Dechaine.
‘Incredibly rare’
Dechaine’s defense team presented the evidence to a federal judge in hopes of getting a new trial, but the request was denied.
Murphy, Dechaine’s current attorney, acknowledged that the second DNA could belong to a police officer, a lab technician or even the baby who Cherry was baby-sitting for when she was abducted.
Still, Murphy said, the fact that it didn’t belong to Dechaine is important, and the testing of the other items could help determine its source.
When Dechaine went to trial in 1989, DNA testing was newly available but it was not nearly as advanced as it is today.
At Dechaine’s request, Connolly filed a last-minute motion to continue the trial in order to test the evidence with what he described then as “radical new technology.”
Justice Bradford denied the motion, ruling that the likelihood of getting any significant results was so remote that it didn’t warrant a continuation.
Dechaine’s new lawyer said she agreed to take the case after learning that Dechaine has been demanding DNA tests since the very start.
“It is incredibly rare for a defendant to demand this testing, even if they are innocent,” Murphy said. “You just don’t roll the dice with DNA before a trial.”
The testing of the 17 items is expected to take about five days. Then it will take another three or four weeks to get the results.
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