As a general rule, citizens offer constructive comments, re: opinion page insertions permitted by the press. Rare, but occasionally, destructive comments appear. Like the one authored by Jeffrey Evangelos, titled, “Inaction on Dechaine DNA revelation the final straw” (Nov. 14).

The title of the piece conflicts with its guts, which conclude: “It’s time for the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to intervene and put Maine’s criminal justice system under federal review and supervision.” Earlier in the 14 paragraphs, Evangelos took the Maine’s Attorney Office, en masse, to the woodshed, “staffed with people at the highest level of the Attorney General’s Office who suffer from inherent bias, infected by ethical and moral corruption.”

Evangelos’ article introduced Dennis Dechaine to the reading public, as being “an innocent person” who is being “kept in a cage.” Not so! It was a duly constituted trial jury that found Dechaine guilty of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old child.

Today, we know nothing about the quality of the DNA test; the victim must be respected re: the jury’s verdict. Evidence placed Dechaine in the driveway of the site where Sarah Cherry was kidnapped; his truck was adjacent to the place where the child was killed; Dechaine was having an afternoon of drug ingestion; the child’s body was entangled by material from defendant’s truck; defendant was unable to relocate his truck, and was encountered along the roadside, by a couple, who returned him home. He claimed to be on a fishing venture but had no fishing tackle.

Every child’s homicide deserves patient process.

 

John Benoit

Manchester