The jury begins deliberations in the trial of an Alabama man accused of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1988

A jury began deliberating Monday in the case of an Alabama man accused of beating and stabbing an 11-year-old New Hampshire girl more than 35 years ago.

Prosecutors and the defense attorney for Marvin “Skip” McClendon Jr. made their closing arguments Monday in a case that hinges in part on whether the jury believes DNA found under Melissa Ann Tremblay's fingernails came from McClendon.

This is the second murder trial for McClendon after a judge declared the proceedings a mistrial last year due to a deadlocked jury.

The Salem, New Hampshire, girl's body was found at a rail yard in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on September 12, 1988, a day after she was reported missing. She had been stabbed in the neck.

The victim had accompanied her mother and her mother's boyfriend to a social club in Lawrence near the rail yard and went outside to play while the adults stayed inside, authorities said last year. She was reported missing later that night.

The girl's mother, Janet Tremblay, died in 2015 at age 70, according to her obituary. However, surviving relatives came to court to witness the latest trial.

After initially ruling out several suspects, including two drug addicts, authorities turned their attention to McClendon.

He was arrested at his home in Alabama in 2022, based in part on DNA evidence.

Essex County Assistant District Attorney Jessica Strasnick told the jury that McClendon's comments during his arrest showed he knew details of the crime and that he was “fixated on the fact that she was beaten, ladies and gentlemen, because he knew she wasn't beaten.” She was simply stabbed that day, that is, she was beaten.”

A left-handed man like McClendon stabbed Tremblay, Strasnick said. She told jurors that the carpenter and former Massachusetts corrections officer was familiar with Lawrence because he had frequented bars and strip clubs in the city. He also lived less than 20 miles away at the time of the murder.

“He assumed that after 33 years he had gotten away with it,” Strasnick said.

“He assumed that if he left her beaten and stabbed body on the wheel of a railroad train it would look like she had been run over,” she said. “He assumed they wouldn’t investigate. He assumed he would stay under the radar.”

Strasnick told the jury that the DNA evidence taken from under Tremblay's fingernails excluded 99.8% of the male population.

“This 11-year-old girl used the last of her energy to fight for her life by clawing and clawing at him,” Strasnick said. “That's how she managed to get his DNA under her fingernails… That's why his past finally caught up with him after all these years.”

But McClendon's attorney, Henry Fasoldt, said there was no evidence that the DNA under Tremblay's fingernails came from McClendon. “Your initial assumption that the DNA came from the murderer is a bad assumption,” he said after the trial.

Fasoldt also said evidence suggests a right-handed man, not a left-handed man, may have stabbed Tremblay. He also argued that McClendon had “no meaningful connection” to Lawrence – apart from living 16 miles (25 kilometers) away in Chelmsford. In 2002, he moved to Alabama to property owned by his family.

“I'm worried. He is 77 years old and in poor health and he has to go through this again,” he said. “I don’t think he did.”