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Michael
Cardamone | Dennis Perry
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Dennis Dechaine
The website Trial
and Error provides the full background to Dennis Dechaine's
conviction for first degree murder. On that site is a video interview
with Dennis Dechaine from which I have taken the grabs illustrating
this page. I have had a link to the website since I became aware
of the case last fall. I did not make a page before because I
thought the case was well covered on Trial and Error. Shortly
after posting the link I received a venemous e-mail faccusing
me of supporting a murderous pedophile. That alerted me that
this is a volatile case. The
chronology
Dedicated people have been
working to overturn this conviction since 1989. Only this week
did material become available through Freedom of Information.
It is time to really turn up the pressure and help the hard working
people who have been working on Dennis Dechaine's behalf bring
their friend home. This page is a tribute to their hard work
placed here with the hope that another page turning up in the
search engines will make the story known to more people.
Dechaine author's lawsuit
yields helpful documents
Author Jim Moore again shows that Dechaine prosecution was
faulty.
Contact: Jim
Moore
BRUNSWICK, ME- May 21,
2005
The lawsuit for access to documents
filed ten months ago by author James Moore against the Maine
State Police and Attorney General G. Steven Rowe has unearthed
more documents which support Dennis Dechaine's claim of innocence.
This conclusion of the Freedom of Access lawsuit came as the
State afforded satisfactory access to the original microfilmed
record of the Maine State Police investigation of the Sarah Cherry
murder. This file contained previously unknown facts and
evidence, despite a 2003 Special Law which opened the files of
the case to the public, and despite trial discovery rules which
required disclosure at the March, 1989 trial.
These facts and evidence were never made available to Mr. Dechaine,
his lawyer, or the Court at the trial. They were
not available to Mr. Moore when writing the book, "Human
Sacrifice", published in 2002. Even without the newly
released documents, Moore was able to uncover other withheld
documents which helped lead him to conclude that Dechaine could
not have committed the crimes against Sarah Cherry.
Prior to the agreement by the
defendants, the Maine State Police and Attorney General Steve
Rowe, to provide the microfilmed documents, a Superior Court
judge had denied Moore's petition for "Freedom of Access",
and that ruling was appealed to the Maine Supreme Court.
The uncovered documents include
contemporaneous notes from lead Detective Alfred Hendsbee contradicting
statements made by prosecutor Wright during and after the trial.
Wright claimed that because Dechaine's truck was found locked,
and Dechaine had the keys, an alternate suspect could not have
taken the identifiable documents from that truck and placed
them in the driveway where the victim, Sarah Cherry, was babysitting
on July 6, 1988. However, the notes show Hendsbee's
knowledge that the truck could have been locked by an intruder
without a key and his report of that fact to Prosecutor Wright
before the trial.
Hendsbee's notes also contradict
his own courtroom testimony, while explicitly reading from those
notes, that Dennis Dechaine made the incriminating statement
to him at the time of his July 8, 1988 arrest, "It must
be someone inside me doing this." Hendsbee's notes
record several non-incriminating statements made by Dechaine,
but that statement is not there. Under questioning
by Prosecutor Eric Wright, Hendsbee repeated four times the allegation
that Dechaine said to him that "It must be someone inside
me doing this."
Hendsbee's notes record that
he met with Prosecutor Eric Wright on the same day, February
2, 1989, that he recorded the conviction that day of another
alternate suspect, Jason Fickett, of a sexual assault.
This was one month before the trial of Dennis Dechaine, at which
trial his defense was without any knowledge of the activities
of alternate suspect Jason Fickett. At trial, Dechaine's
attorney, Tom Connolly, had documents revealing a
trail of barefoot prints to Mr. Fickett's trailer, but he had
no knolwedge of the investigation, indictment, and conviction
of Fickett, in another case where Detective Hendsbee was also
the lead detective.
Also released thanks to the
successful lawsuit were two reports by another state police detective,
Stephen Drake, regarding another alternate suspect, Douglas
Senecal, including that suspect's alleged effort to create an
alibi for the day of Sarah Cherry's murder. Also, those
reports reveal an alleged admission by Senecal of an unlawful
sexual contact with his stepdaughter, for which he was indicted
in 1988, and scheduled for trial at the time of the murder of
Sarah Cherry. The father of that victim of
unlawful sexual contact later became Sarah's stepfather.
There are additional discrepancies
in the documents which require further investigation, before
conclusions can be drawn.
The Maine Legislature is currently
considering a Resolution to ask Attorney General Steve Rowe to
support a retrial of Dennis Dechaine on the grounds of newly
discovered evidence, including exculpatory DNA. The Resolution
failed passage last Tuesday by a vote of 85-51, but that
was before the release of new exculpatory information from Moore's
lawsuit. The Resolution is being redrafted in the
hope of winning the support of a majority of Representatives
in a second vote.
All the recently revealed information
should have been disclosed before the 1989 trial and should have
been included in the files opened to the public in 2003 by Chapter
18 of the Special Laws of 2003. The documents would still
be hidden, but for the successful Freedom of Access lawsuit filed
by author James Moore.
DOCUMENTS RECEIVED IN
RESPONSE TO LAWSUIT
vs. MAINE STATE POLICE
Summary
A Contemporaneous notes
of Det. Hendsbee re testing doorlock on Dechaine pickup.
B Typewritten official
report dated 3/3/89, 1530, "I arrived at Headquarters and
tested The locks on DENNIS DECHAINE'S pick-up truck. The truck
can be locked without a key by holding the latch inward and can
also be locked with a key."
[Same page of report shows
that at 0945, "I called Eric Wright at his request and discussed
the case with him."]
C Contemporaneous notes
of Det. Hendsbee
"2/2/89 1330 hrs at AG's office met Wright ref pre-trial
Dechaine."
Further notes on that page relate to locating John Henkel's current
place of employment.
D On the reverse of the
page "C", above:
"LC-188 1/31/89 1000 at Sagadahoc Superior Court trial of
Jason Fickett."
2/2/89 1630 hrs Fickett guilty one charge gross sexual
1 hung + 5 (or S)
[undecipherable word] guilty 6/10/88."
E Official report of
Det. Hendsbee regarding calls to Bellingham, WA Police Dept.,
Dets. Werner and Garrett, (206) 591 5646 regarding several murders
of blonde girls between the ages of twelve and thirteen. On 2/1/89,
Werner requested Dechaine's blood type. On 2/2/89 Hendsbee left
message with Werner's secretary that Dechaine had blood type
O.
No further reports of conversations with Bellingham PD.
F Official Report of
Det. Steven Drake re call from Bobby LaPierre whom Drake was
attempting to serve with a subpoena. LaPierre stated that Senecal
never said anything about killing Sarah Cherry. LaPierre stated
that his father was sick and dying; and that "this wouldn't
help his mother out emotionally." Then, rather that giving
Drake the address where he lived,
LaPierre said that "we could serve him at his mother's."
G Details of this item
under investigation regarding evidence of the murder and the
conduct of certain officials. Results will be made known when
that investigation is completed.
H Official report of
Detective Drake, interview with Shelley Murray, RR2 Box 3306
Bowdoinham, phone 721 3068 in which Ms. Murray stated that her
brother, Peter Christianson, had worked and lived with Douglas
Senecal; and that Senecal has asked Christianson to give him
an alibi for the day of Sarah Cherry's murder. Drake said he
had already interviewed Christianson, and that he'd told Drake
he couldn't remember what he was doing that day. Ms. Murray further
stated that she had told Deputy Dan Reed that they should look
into Senecal because he had admitted to her that he had abused
his step-daughters, and because she had received obscene, harassing
phone calls from Senecal. Ms. Murray stated she had received
(and would try to find) letters she received from Senecal's step-daughter
saying that he had touched her. Drake advised her to turn those
letters over to the D.A.'s office in Bath. This report is dated
6/30/92.
I Report by Det. Drake
dated 12/28/93 and report by Drake date-stamped 2/9/94 in
which Drake describes information from Chet Wooldridge, who rents
rooms for the handicapped to people "for the state,"
who reported that patient Steve Senecal would "drift off"
any time anything about the Sarah Cherry murder case came on
the TV; that Steve said he had "cleaned out Doug Senecal's
truck" and "had replaced the seat and the dashboard
and the windshield in Bath." Mr. Wooldridge stated that
Steve never said that Doug had killed Sarah Cherry, and that
Steve "also thought that Sarah Cherry was his daughter."
Mr. Wooldridge further stated that Steve had been convicted of
assault and may be in the Kennebec County Jail or AMHI. It is
odd that Drake's report bearing the "2/9/94" date stamp
covers events leading up to (and occurring before) the events
described in the report dated 12/28/93.
J Contemporaneous notes
by Det. Hendsbee: "Ron Jack Henkel said had short
pieces
of rope missing still had longer pieces."
K-- Details of this item under
investigation regarding evidence of the murder and the conduct
of certain officials. Results will be made known when that investigation
is completed.
L Det. Hendsbee contemporaneous
notes re encounter with Dennis Dechaine, 7/8/88,
1357 hrs., quoting Dechaine as saying "I can't believe this
guy I know would do anything like that I heard the bad
news I can't believe that I could do such a thing
the real me is not like that I know what you're here for.
Do what you got to do "
[Note: Not noted by Hendsbee:
the incriminating phrase prosecutor Wright had Det. Hendsbee
repeat 4 times during his testimony at the trial as allegedly
reading from his notes, i.e. "It must be somebody inside
me doing this."]
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
