Skip to content
GIVING DAY is April 11! Starting now, you can support CSSH students and programs with a $5+ gift to any of our funds.
Apply
Stories

DNA testing excludes Dennis Dechaine from some key crime scene evidence

People in this story

Press Herald staff photo
Dennis Dechaine, convicted of the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry, makes a bid for a new trial in 2012. Defense attorney Steven Peterson, left, is seated with Dechaine.

Press Herald, November 2022

New, state-of-the-art DNA testing has failed to tie Dennis Dechaine to items used in the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old babysitter Sarah Cherry, prompting his defense team to say they will seek a new trial.

Dechaine has spent 34 years in prison since his conviction in the murder. The Bowdoinham farmer with no criminal record or history of violence became the sole suspect in Cherry’s kidnapping on the afternoon of July 6, 1988, when a receipt and notebook with his name on them were found at the Bowdoin home where the girl was babysitting. Her body was found two days later in the woods three miles away, close to where his truck had been parked when he was picked up by police the night of the abduction. She had been sexually tortured and strangled, her hands bound in yellow rope similar to rope found in Dechaine’s truck.

Continue reading at Press Herald.

More Stories

image of fracis scott key bridge in baltimore collapsed after being hit by cargo ship

How do you move a massive ship and broken bridge? It could keep Baltimore port closed for weeks

03.28.2024
Image of former president donald trump looking off into distance

Deadline arrives for Trump to secure $454m bond or risk seizure of assets

03.25.2024
image of ISIS-K member in the street holding up a flag of ISIS

ISIS-K attack in Moscow highlights growing terror threat from Afghanistan

03.28.24
In the News