Former MA Corrections Officer Charged In NH Girl's 1988 Killing

SALEM, MA — A former state corrections officer from Chelmsford has charged in the 1988 stabbing death of 11-year-old Melissa Ann Tremblay.

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said the suspect, 74-year-old Marvin McClendon, "has been a person of interest for a period of time" and was arrested in Alabama on Tuesday. Blodgett said he was known to frequent locations in Lawrence — where the Salem, New Hampshire, girl was found in a rail yard — and was tied to the crime through evidence found on the girl's body.

"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 in Salem on Wednesday.

Tremblay was found dead from stab wounds in the former Boston and Maine Railways Yard near Andover Street and South Broadway in Lawrence on Sept. 12, 1988. Her body was located between two rail cars, with her left leg severed under one of those trains.

Blodgett said the girl had been out playing in a Lawrence neighborhood while her parents were at a social club that day and that she was reported missing that night.

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

Blodgett said more details about the evidence that was "instrumental" to solving the cold case are to be revealed at the suspect's arraignment in an Alabama court on Thursday. The timing of his return to Massachusetts is dependent on his decision to waive rendition.

"We'll take every effort to find someone's murdered loved one," Blodgett said. "We'll take every effort we have to to pursue justice. We will do everything in our power using every resource to bring justice to victims."

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

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)