SALEM, Mass. — More than 35 years after the murder, state Trooper Kenneth Kelleher said he recognized the multicolored top Melissa Ann Tremblay, 11, was wearing when she was found dead in a Lawrence railroad yard.
Donning blue latex gloves in front of jurors, Kelleher lifted the stained white top with black and gray stars on it from a brown paper evidence collection bag.
Kelleher also testified about the blood-stained purse found next to Tremblay’s body on Sept. 11, 1988. Inside he found coins, a candy wrapper, a “Rockingham County”’ bank slip, sparkle makeup and an ID card for the Boys & Girls Club, he said.
Now retired, Kelleher took the stand Thursday as one of the first prosecution witnesses in the first degree murder trial of Marvin “Skip” McClendon, 76.
In a case gone cold for more than three decades, McClendon, of Bremen, Alabama, was charged with Tremblay’s murder on April 27, 2022.
Tremblay, a sixth-grader from Salem, New Hampshire, was stabbed, beaten and killed in Lawrence near the LaSalle Social Club.
Tremblay 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. She was a sixth-grader at the Haigh School in Salem, N.H., at the time of her murder.
Prosecutors said DNA evidence links McClendon to the girl’s murder.
“At least I got 20 years out of my retirement pension,” said Assistant District Attorney Jessica Strasnick, repeating what McClendon allegedly told state troopers two weeks after his arrest for murder.
While the use of DNA evidence was still emerging in 1988, Kelleher, a lead investigator, made sure Tremblay’s hands and feet were wrapped with evidence bags prior to her autopsy, said Strasnick in her opening statement in the trial Thursday morning.
But defense attorney Henry Fasoldt said the entire criminal case is “based on assumptions,” including leaps made with the DNA.
“He has absolutely no reason to kill a 11-year-old girl … His crime is his last name: McClendon. He is innocent. He wasn’t there,” said Fasoldt, in his opening statement.
Kelleher, on the stand Thursday afternoon, said in 1988 he was among a group of state police detectives assigned to the Essex County District Attorney’s Office who investigated major crimes including homicides, sexual assaults, white collar crimes and more.
On Sept. 12, 1988, he was called to Lawrence after Tremblay’s body was found in the railroad yard on Andover Street.
When he arrived in Lawrence, he recalled then-Lawrence Police Sgt. Alfred Petralia telling him the girl found deceased resembled a child who had been reported missing the night before by her mother.
She “closely matched the description,” said Kelleher, answering questions posed by Strasnick.
Jurors were then shown the missing persons report Janet Tremblay, Melissa’s mother, filed with Lawrence police. The report indicates Janet Tremblay last saw her daughter, who was 5 feet tall and weighed 111 pounds, at 2 p.m. on Sept. 11, 1988.
Kelleher said Melissa Tremblay’s body was found face down in the rail yard. Her dark hair was matted with blood and her left leg had been severed just below the hip.
Her hands were caked with soil and she had wounds to her head and torso. He also testified she had a “gaping wound, an incised wound just below her Adam’s apple.”
He explained all of the girls extremities were “potential evidence carriers” so he was sure to have evidence bags secured so they could be tested for any trace evdence, blood, hair and fibers. Her body was wrapped in a clean white sheet before she was taken to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.
Kelleher attended the autopsy, recalling for jurors when a medical examiner removed Tremblay’s hands from the evidence bags and clipped her fingernails. Prosecutors have said DNA found under Tremblay’s fingernails links McClendon to her murder.
As part of his investigation, Kelleher said he went to Tremblay’s home at 56 Haigh Ave. in Salem, N.H. and took a look around her room.
The retired detective paused and seemed to choke up before saying nothing unusual was found in the girl’s room.
Also testifying Thursday was Bruce Penttinen, a now retired worker from the Lawrence railroad yard.
Penttimen remembered seeing Tremblay hanging around the railroad yard on Andover Street on Sept. 11, 1988. It was both a busy and dangerous area to be in, particularly for a child, he said.
He said told the girl to leave the area. and she did, he testified.
The next day, Tremblay was found murdered in the railroad yard. Penttinen said yard workers called Lawrence police and railroad authorities.
When he saw the body, Penttinen said he could “make out” the polka dot dress Tremblay had been wearing when he saw her the day before.
Lisa Ann Quinto, then a mother raising four children with her husband Stephen on Amherst Street, said she first met Tremblay when her kids brought her home to play.
Her children met Tremblay in the street, she said.
She said Tremblay came by at least once weekly, including on school nights. Sometimes the kids would make cassette mix-tapes together. Tremblay, she said, always wanted to help her with her babies, a one-and two-year-old, she said.
Several times late at night her husband, Stephen, accompanied Tremblay on the walk back to the LaSalle Club to meet her mother.
On Sept. 11, 1988, Quinto said Tremblay had come by the house, hoping to play. But her children were grounded.
“I don’t know where she went but she left,” Quinto said.
When asked if she ever met Tremblay’s mother, Quinto replied “at the funeral.”
Donald Nadeau, 63, a former bartender from the LaSalle Club, remembered Melissa accompanying her mother to the club.
Melissa would sit at a table by herself where she was served a coke and a bag of chips. Nadeau said sometimes she’d sit at the table by herself for 5 or 6 hours.
He testified that any time her mother was at the club — so was Melissa.
Under cross examination by the defense, Nadeau said in addition to drinking alcohol, people used drugs at the club.
Nadeau said he didn’t remember McClendon or anyone nicknamed Skip coming into the LaSalle Club.
The trial, which is supposed to last two weeks, continues Friday morning.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter/X @EagleTribJill.