
Dennis Dechaine sits near his attorney John Nale during the first day of a hearing at Knox County Superior Court in Rockland in April 2024 to decide if he should have a new trial. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald
A Superior Court judge has struck down a man’s appeal in a three-decades-old murder case, saying new DNA evidence wasn’t substantial enough to warrant a new trial.

Sarah Cherry, 12
Dennis Dechaine is serving life in prison after he was convicted in 1989 of the murder, kidnapping and sexual assault of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry.
“Sarah Cherry was twelve years old when she suffered and died,” Superior Court Justice Bruce Mallonee wrote in a Thursday ruling. “Had she lived, she would now be approaching fifty. This case is exhausted. Perhaps now the poor dead child might rest.”
Cherry was found dead in the woods in Bowdoin in July 1988. Dechaine, whose truck and other personal items were found near the crime scene, has maintained his innocence ever since. He says those items were planted while he was lost in the same woods getting high.
Dechaine’s attorneys brought forth new DNA evidence in a two-day hearing in Knox County Superior Court in April — arguing the testing revealed a different male’s DNA on the scarf used to choke Cherry and on one of her fingernails.
This isn’t Dechaine’s first time bringing similar evidence to the courtroom. Maine’s highest court rejected his request for a new trial in 2015.
Mallonee said in Thursday’s ruling that although Dechaine’s new evidence was interesting, it is “weak, vague, and without practical meaning,” and doesn’t stack up against all the other evidence that was originally presented at the trial in 1988.
“It is simply another evidentiary anomaly that cannot be accounted for by the existing record,” Mallonee wrote.
Dechaine’s attorney, John Nale, did not respond to requests to discuss the decision Friday. The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the decision.
NEW EVIDENCE
Police found tire tracks near where Cherry’s body was discovered that matched Dechaine’s truck. They also said Dechaine made self-incriminating statements after his arrest. Dechaine has repeatedly disputed the officers’ claims, saying his alleged admissions were taken out of context or were just untrue.
The judge also pointed out the limitations of the new evidence, saying it doesn’t fully rule out Dechaine as a suspect or link a new suspect to the crime. Any DNA attached to the items in the woods is over 36 years old now, Mallonee said, and the items were handled by many different people who weren’t wearing gloves or any other protective gear.
He said more “powerful” and “conclusive” evidence is necessary to merit a new trial, such as a single person’s DNA on a murder weapon.
The DNA, which was extracted from blood under one of Cherry’s nails, belonged to a man that wasn’t Dechaine, according to the test results from newer, more accurate technology.
Although Dechaine’s attorneys have said their aim is not to identify other suspects, some researchers in the University of Virginia School of Law have pointed to notorious serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz, who was in Maine at the time, as a possible suspect.
During the April hearings, crime scene reconstructionist Rod Englert theorized that Cherry fought back against her attacker, drawing blood. But Englert’s hypothesis didn’t make sense to prosecutors, who said the young girl, weighing about 90 pounds, had been stabbed in the neck during the struggle.
‘EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE’
Jeffrey Evangelos, a former state representative who has advocated for Dechaine’s release, said in a phone interview Friday afternoon that the new evidence is concerning and it’s the state’s responsibility to pursue another suspect. Plus, a majority of the DNA degraded while in the state’s custody, he said.
“How can we hold people in prison with this exculpatory evidence?” Evangelos said.
Regardless of how Englert’s claim holds up, Evangelos said, the newfound DNA should have been grounds for a new trial. He also said he disagrees with Mallonee saying the case is “exhausted” because Dechaine still has a right to appeal the case.
Mallonee “doesn’t have the right to exhaust anything,” Evangelos said.
When Evangelos was still in the Legislature in 2021, he presented a bill that would’ve allowed for defendants to bring newly discovered evidence to the court at any time. Prosecutors are allowed to do so when investigating cold cases, he said, so the defendants should have the same right. The bill didn’t have enough support to pass.
Dr. Rick Staub, who oversaw the DNA testing lab that reviewed the crime scene items in 2012, said that while he felt Mallonee gave all the evidence a careful review, he felt the judge should have weighed the DNA evidence more heavily.
“This was the monster piece of evidence that should have been looked at carefully,” Staub said on a Friday night phone call. “I still think he maybe didn’t give that bit of evidence quite enough import.”
Ideally, the DNA could be compared against the national Combined DNA Index System, which could provide a more definitive match, Staub said. But access to that database is strictly limited and outside the scope of private labs, “so a study could never be conducted to fish through samples to find one that matches,” he said.
“It was hard to read that decision,” Staub said. “I don’t know what’s next for Dennis.”
Staff Writer Daniel Kool contributed.
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