SALEM, Mass. — A cold case murder trial for an Alabama man accused of killing a girl in Lawrence in 1988 is scheduled to start in two weeks in Essex Superior Court.
The defense attorney for Marvin “Skip” McClendon, 76, who is accused of killing Melissa Ann Tremblay, 11, said his client did not do it.
“It wasn’t him,” said attorney Henry Fasoldt in an interview late this week.
He said Essex County prosecutors don’t have evidence that puts McClendon at the scene of the crime. Also, they introduced “generic DNA from a common profile” which they say links McClendon to Tremblay’s murder, he said.
Tremblay was a sixth-grader at the Haigh School in Salem, N.H., when she was killed.
While the trial for the 35-year-old murder is expected to start Dec. 4, neither the defense nor the prosecution have filed a list of witnesses they intend to call in the court. Testimony from expert witnesses is expected.
A retired Massachusetts corrections officer and handyman, McClendon was charged with Tremblay’s murder on April 27, 2022, at his Bremen, Alabama home. He was brought to Massachusetts and remains held without bail at Middleton Jail.
McClendon’s sister, Rebecca Greenwood, who lives down the street from him in Alabama, is expected to attend the trial. Fasoldt said she has been a strong source of support for her brother.
On Sept. 11, 1988, Tremblay was found murdered on railroad tracks in South Lawrence.
In 1988, McClendon, who was 41 at the time, was known as an “angry, violent drunk” who frequented strip clubs and had “relations” with women in the back of his van, Assistant District Attorney Jessica Strasnick said previously.
McClendon is accused of stabbing Tremblay to death and leaving her body on the tracks by a rail freight terminal near South Broadway and Andover Street.
When her body was found, her left leg had been severed by a train.
At the time of Tremblay’s murder, McClendon lived in Lawrence and worked as a handyman. He was also employed by the state’s Department of Correction on intermittent dates from 1970 to 2002.
In 2002, McClendon moved to Bremen, Alabama, where he had a home at the end of a dirt road on property surrounded by family members.
Fasoldt previously filed a motion to dismiss in the case focusing on DNA evidence collected in the investigation.
Superior Court Judge Salim Tabit denied the motion, however.
Prosecutors have said McClendon’s DNA matched samples taken from underneath Tremblay’s fingernails.
Strasnick said McClendon “voluntarily provided” a DNA sample to investigators when he was initially interviewed by Massachusetts State Police Lt. Peter Sherber in Alabama in 2021.
McClendon was ordered to pay $35,000 toward his defense. He receives $3,000 per month in pension and Social Security benefits. He also owns his home, on 11 acres, in Alabama which is worth $153,000.
A final pretrial hearing is scheduled for Nov. 28.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter @EagleTribJill.