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By Ann S. Kim akim@mainetoday.com Staff Writer

PORTLAND -- Further testing of items from the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry has yielded new DNA, but it's too early to know what the implications are for her convicted killer, Dennis Dechaine.

Dechaine is in the midst of a long-running attempt to win a new trial. To do so, he must convince a judge that a jury would not have convicted him had they known about DNA evidence found on Cherry's thumbnail.

The latest development in Dechaine's bid is the discovery of male DNA on the scarf that was used to strangle the girl, as well as her T-shirt and bra. The items had been tested previously in the case but were retested this summer using a scraping method that had not been employed. That DNA came from the same male, according to a report by Orchard Cellmark, the Dallas-based firm that performed the analysis.

The DNA has not yet been compared to any others samples, including DNA from Dechaine, individuals who worked on the investigation or the felons in a state database. A fresh blood sample was recently taken from Dechaine for comparison purposes.

"The thing we're hoping for -- of course, we could have it backfire on us -- is that this could prove it's not Dennis Dechaine," said Steve Peterson, Dechaine's court-appointed lawyer.

Dechaine, 54, is serving a life sentence for the murder of Cherry, a Bowdoin Central School student who was kidnapped while babysitting on July 6, 1988. He maintains he did not commit the crime. His defense contends the unidentified male DNA from a nail clipped from Sarah Cherry during her autopsy points to another suspect.

The prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stokes, has argued that the state and jurors who convicted Dechaine already know who killed Cherry. He has described the thumbnail DNA as meaningless.

"We don't know what it means," he said Monday of the latest DNA testing.

Original post:
Defense claims new DNA evidence in Dechaine case