No Bail For Marvin McClendon, Man Accused Of Killing Of 11-Year-Old

SALEM, MA — A 74-year-old former Massachusetts Department of Corrections officer accused of the 1988 stabbing death of 11-year-old Melissa Ann Tremblay was ordered to be held without bail.

Marvin "Skip" McClendon Jr. was arrested in Bremen, Alabama, last month after Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said new evidence on Tremblay's body linked him to the case, which had gone unsolved for more than three decades.

McClendon is accused of stabbing Melissa Ann Tremblay to death in New Hampshire in 1988, then leaving her body in a railyard only to be run over by a train after she went missing in Lawrence, Blodgett said.

The DA's office said McClendon worked for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections on three separate occasions between 1970 and 2002 and that he was doing carpentry work at the time of the girl's killing.

"It is extremely gratifying that, after all these years of never giving up, that we believe we have the right suspect," Blodgett said at a news conference last month in Salem.

The Salem, New Hampshire, girl's body was found in the Boston & Maine Rail Yard in Lawrence on Sept. 12, 1988, after she had spent the day playing in the Lawrence neighborhood while her parents were at a local social club. Her body was located between two freight cars, with the left leg severed under one of the trains.

Tremblay was a sixth-grader at the Lancaster School in Salem, New Hampshire.

"My aunt, Janet, may not have used the best judgment in allowing Missy to play around the neighborhood of the social club, but that is between her and God," the family statement said. "She loved Missy and never intended any harm to come to her."

McClendon waived rendition in Alabama last week.

Related

• Accused 1988 Child Killer Will Return To MA To Face Murder Charge
• 'We Have Never Stopped Thinking Of Missy': Cold Case Victim's Family
• Former MA Corrections Officer Charged In NH Girl's 1988 Killing