Crime Stories TV - Portland Press Herald online -
A young girl is murdered. The killer sent away for the rest of his life. Sixteen years later some say the police got the wrong man. Crime Stories: Lost in the Woods
At 3 p.m. on July 6th 1988 police were called to a house ... Two days later searchers found the body of Sarah Cherry. ibid.
Dechaine has always denied any involvement in the murder. And now his defence team says they have the evidence to prove it. ibid.
Dennis Dechaine has spent the last seventeen years behind bars. ibid.
The official cause of death was strangulation. ibid.
He very possibly could be the wrong man. ibid.
Dennis didn’t get a fair trial. ibid.
The legal fate of Dennis Dechaine now rests, as it has for 25 years, in the hands of Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford.
Dennis Dechaine, shown in court in Portland on Thursday, was convicted in 1989 of the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry.
Bradford, 80, retired in 1998 but is still an active judge and is called upon to preside over certain cases, including that of Dechaine, whom Bradford sent to prison for life in 1989.
On Thursday and Friday in a Portland courtroom, Bradford listened to testimony from DNA experts. He now awaits written arguments from the defense and prosecution before he determines whether Dechaine is granted a new trial. Portland Press Herald online article 9th November 2013