SALEM, Mass. — Daniel Hatch, who was a 13-year-old homeless boy in September 1988, testified Monday that he believes he saw Melissa Ann Tremblay in the presence of two men prior to her killing in Lawrence.
Hatch told jurors he saw Tremblay, 11, sitting on the steps of the LaSalle Club at 397 Andover St. He told jurors he later saw her walking in the Broadway and State Street area, where she encountered a man on Sept. 11, 1988 — the day she was killed.
Marvin “Skip” McClendon, 76, of Bremen, Alabama, is on trial in Salem Superior Court for Tremblay’s murder, a case that went cold for more than three decades.
Hatch, now age 49, said he’s gone over what he saw in his own head “millions of times.” When he was arrested in 2013 in Lawrence on unrelated charges, he told police what he saw in 1988.
“So at some point after 25 years you thought now is the time to tell them?” asked defense attorney Henry Fastoldt of Hatch’s 2013 admission to Lawrence police.
“Yes,” Hatch answered.
He said as a homeless youth, he spent his days looking for cars to steal, places to stay warm, and thinking about how he could get food. Sometimes, he slept in cars or unlocked railroad cars.
That night, he was walking to a friend’s house to get a screwdriver, a tool he used in car thefts. When he passed the LaSalle Club, he saw a man and a girl sitting on the stairs outside.
“She was just a little bit younger than me,” he said of the girl.
He said the man was named Mike Therrien, an adult from a local family his relatives had previously warned him to stay away from.
About 10 minutes later, he said he saw the man and girl cross Broadway and head to State Street where they encountered another man.
The next morning, Hatch said he and dozens of others were gathered in the backyard of his friend’s home nearby as police cars raced into the railyard where Tremblay’s body was found.
“We were watching what was going on. … Someone said a girl had been run over by a train,” Hatch testified.
Hatch said he initially asked his brother if he should tell police what he had seen the night before.
“He said, ‘Stay out of it,'” Hatch recalled.
Hatch said he later moved out of Lawrence to Salisbury.
McClendon was charged with Tremblay’s murder on April 27, 2022. His trial on a first-degree murder charge opened Thursday, Dec. 7. Presiding Judge Jeffrey Karp has said the hope is jurors can start deliberating the case by Dec. 20.
Tremblay, a sixth-grader at Haigh School in Salem, N.H., was stabbed, beaten and killed in Lawrence near the LaSalle Social Club.
She was known to play in the adjacent neighborhoods while her mother and her mother’s boyfriend frequented the social club. She was last seen alive by a railroad employee and a pizza delivery driver, authorities said.
Tremblay’s mother has since died. However, the girl does have surviving relatives and childhood friends living in the area.
Prosecutor Jessica Strasnick said DNA evidence links McClendon to the girl’s murder.
But Fasoldt, McClendon’s defense attorney, said the entire criminal case is “based on assumptions,” including leaps made with the DNA, and that McClendon had “absolutely no reason” to kill Tremblay.
Retired state Trooper Kenneth Kelleher, a lead investigator from 1988, has already testified as a prosecution witness. He told jurors he interviewed Randy Therrien, Michael Therrien’s brother, and another man, Robert Powers, as suspects in Tremblay’s murder.
Both Randy Therrien and Powers were in the area Sept. 11, 1988. But Kelleher testified he did not find any evidence that connected them to the girl’s killing.
The trial resumes Tuesday and jurors are expected to visit Lawrence and see the area where the LaSalle Club was previously located, along with the railroad yard.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter/X @EagleTribJill.