No proof Dechaines ever confessed to murder

Contrary to assertions made by the Office of the Attorney General, there is no proof that Dennis Dechaine ever confessed, and strong evidence that police lied when they testified that he had. And there is no proof that he told anybody where the body was. We know that the First Circuit rejected Dechaine’s application for a second successive habeas appeal on procedural grounds, but, contrary to the statement from the attorney general’s office, there is no certainty that they considered the merits of the evidence and arguments presented by Dechaine.

Contrary to what was stated in recent news stories, Dechaine has not exhausted all his paths to a retrial, although most have now been blocked by the opposition of the state and by rulings of Judge Bradford, who denied Dechaine request for DNA testing in 1989 when there would have been fresh DNA to test, and who more recently ruled against allowing the testimony of Dr. Cyril Wecht, the world-famous forensic pathologist who found that time of death evidence destroyed the state’s theory of the crime.

One story refers to a “man from Brunswick” who spent “hours” investigating the case and then wrote a book about it. In fact, retired federal agent James Moore intended to prove Dechaine guilty, spent 10 years investigating the case, and concluded in his book “Human Sacrifice” that Dechaine did not kill Sarah Cherry. Also, there are several likely alternative suspects.

William Bunting

Whitefield

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