Joyce McLain: Mom seeks FBI help in 1980 homicide

[everybodylovesrs]

Mom seeks FBI help in 1980 homicide

McLain says she has lost faith in Maine State Police
8/8/10 07:23 pm Updated: 8/8/10 09:16 pm

EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Saying she has awaited an arrest for 30 years and avoided criticizing investigators for two years, the mother of homicide victim Joyce McLain called on state police Sunday — the anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance — to give the unsolved case to the FBI.

“It’s been two years [since the exhumation of her daughter’s corpse], 30 years since the murder, and I am kind of disappointed,” Pamela McLain said. “There were several physical items found that could be DNA’d and I have heard nothing [about] any of it in two years.

“I question that. Why? Big W-H-Y,” she said, enunciating the letters. “So what is happening? I said I would wait two years and I would shut my mouth, but now I would like to have the FBI take it because I have lost a lot of faith in the Maine State Police Department. I worry that they are not equipped to handle it [the homicide]. I am really worried about that. I really am. And not just for mine — for all of the other [unsolved homicide] cases in the state that are lying dormant, unsolved.”

Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, was on vacation Sunday. His designated replacement for this weekend, Lt. Jackie Theriault, did not return a message left with state police dispatchers in Augusta.

The FBI would take the case if it invoked federal jurisdiction — if the U.S. Attorney’s Office saw in it a violation of federal law, said FBI Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz, spokeswoman for the Boston division of the FBI, which covers Maine.

“Murder is not something that we typically have federal jurisdiction over,” Marcinkiewicz said Sunday.

A 16-year-old Schenck High School sophomore, Joyce McLain was killed sometime during the night of Aug. 8, 1980, apparently while jogging. About 35 hours passed, and a rainstorm came, before searcher Peter Larlee found her body in a clearing near electrical lines close to the school’s athletic fields. Her head and neck had been hit with a blunt object.

The homicide drew national attention on the syndicated television show “Unsolved Mysteries” in 1989, in which Larlee re-enacted his awful discovery, and in People magazine, which in April 2009 featured the extraordinary discovery of forensic evidence found during the exhumation in 2008. The “Unsolved Mysteries” episode is still available on the Internet.

No arrests have been made. State police maintain that the case always has been actively pursued.

The McLain family will likely write to the FBI, state police commander Col. Patrick J. Fleming, the governor’s office and at least some members of Maine’s federal delegation seeking FBI intervention, said Greylan Hale, Joyce McLain’s cousin and Pamela McLain’s nephew.

Hale acknowledged that investigators have worked hard but thinks the FBI is needed.

State police “had plenty of time,” Hale said. “Maybe they have a pretty good idea who is involved [with the homicide] but they have to wait for that one little piece of evidence, to make sure that their i’s are dotted and their t’s are crossed. Maybe the FBI can help them do that, and finish it.”

In previous inquiries, FBI officials told the McLains that they could not take the case without state police assent, Hale said.

Local law enforcement agencies don’t typically give cases to the FBI, Marcinkiewicz said.

“They are usually quite capable. We would not get involved if they can’t do it [handle a case]. We get involved to provide them with additional resources they don’t have,” Marcinkiewicz said.

Such resources include the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, best known for its pioneering work profiling serial killers and rapists, and its many forensic evidence units, Marcinkiewicz said.

Marcinkiewicz could not immediately determine whether the FBI has recently assisted state police with the McLain case.

The FBI provided police with a profile of McLain’s killer at least a decade ago, according to newspaper records.

Pamela McLain’s latest comments fit a pattern of tension and amity she and investigators have developed over the last decade. McLain lets months or years pass before complaining publicly about a lack of communication regarding, or progress with, the investigation. State police make public statements of sympathy and privately brief her as best they can, they have said, without violating case confidentiality.

Less frequently, McLain announces a private initiative to bolster the case. About three years ago, Hale said, a state police detective visited the Vidocq Society, a Philadelphia-based organization of international and prominent investigators that offers free advice on unsolved cases. A society representative told Hale that the society had offered state police some helpful advice.

McLain’s most successful private initiative came in 2007, when she re-formed the Justice for Joyce Committee and announced its intention, over state officials’ objections, to have her daughter’s body exhumed for DNA examination.

Internationally recognized forensic experts Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Henry Lee, whom the committee was paying, examined the body in late August 2008 and were astonished to find an intact vault seal, vault and a metallic coffin that looked almost new, and several pieces of usable evidence, including DNA.

“Your God has done well by you,” Baden told Pamela McLain.

The doctors cautioned that the evidence would have to correspond with other data to produce probable cause for arrest — a formidable task — and as many as 30 detectives worked the case for several weeks in fall 2008. They moved into the town Public Safety Building and began re-examining all case evidence. A year later, they expressed optimism that they would catch Joyce’s killer.

Dr. Peter Cummings, a Boston-based forensic neuropathologist and Millinocket and Dover-Foxcroft native who assisted Baden, hasn’t spoken with state police in several months, but believes their efforts have been very strong.

The lack of arrests “is probably reflective of the challenges related to this case,” Cummings said Sunday, “the complexity of it more than anything. The people working on this give it their absolute top priority. The amount of time that has passed doesn’t indicate a lack of effort or lack of desire on their part. They are working really hard.”

A glimpse into the elaborate and confidential nature of the case came in December 2009 when U.S. District Judge John Woodcock urged Philip Scott Fournier, 48, of Millinocket to disclose to investigators whatever information he has about the McLain case. Identified by the judge as a “person of interest” in the homicide, Fournier was being sentenced by Woodcock to 6½ years in prison for possession of child pornography.

Fournier’s federal public defender said that Fournier had cooperated with investigators. McLain said he is among about a dozen suspects or people of interest spoken of since the homicide.

McLain said she recognizes that homicides go unsolved, but she just can’t stop believing, though her faith has been tested, that Joyce’s killer will get away with it.

“We lose faith and that shouldn’t happen,” McLain said. “I just think something is wrong here. If they thought that this was one that was not solvable, that would be one thing, but I have heard a lot of people said it was solvable.

“I have to find a direction to go. There’s lots of people who can help me,” she said.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/story...omicide,150851

[crochetbuff]

You think they could confidentially meet with her and let her know something that would help her wait patiently a little longer (without jeapordizing any case they may have). If not, by now they should be able to tell her if nothing came of the new evidence. If they'd just let her in a little bit, she would probably feel more cooperative with them.

[Apostapler]

Originally Posted by crochetbuff

You think they could confidentially meet with her and let her know something that would help her wait patiently a little longer (without jeapordizing any case they may have). If not, by now they should be able to tell her if nothing came of the new evidence. If they'd just let her in a little bit, she would probably feel more cooperative with them.

Agreed. I applaud Pamela McLain for not keeping her mouth shut. Her voice is what's keeping this case alive, and if they won't help her, she should scream from the rooftops.

[Blackout]

as someone who lives in Maine I can assure you that the Maine State Police
are a mirror of Cheif Wiggum and his police force from the Simpsons

[JustVisiting]

Hi All,

I didn't see that this case had been updated but the amazon UM indicates it's been solved.

I found this article.

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/03/0...homicide-case/

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I know someone posted the update on the boards last March.

In any case, it's incredible. Hope they get a conviction...

[Steve W.]

Do you think this Fournier guy is definitely the perp (or one of the perps) or is this just his sick way of getting attention?

Was any DNA from the crime scene matched to him? I never knew that Joyce McLain was found nude (other than her shoes and socks) with her hands tied behind her back.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by Steve W.

Do you think this Fournier guy is definitely the perp (or one of the perps) or is this just his sick way of getting attention?

Was any DNA from the crime scene matched to him? I never knew that Joyce McLain was found nude (other than her shoes and socks) with her hands tied behind her back.

Every state is different, but I firmly believe you have to have more than a confession to support not only a conviction, but a mere charge.

Mentally ill folk admit to stuff they didn't do all the time. It's our job as truth-seekers to make sure there is something there that corroborates the confession.

I'm wondering if they were able to pull DNA off of Joyce at some point and the DNA is a match. I imagine we will learn more once the case goes to trial or if the defendant pleads.

[JustVisiting]

I'm not sure but the updated amazon version has it listed as solved. I'll have to go back and check but it seemed like they got a conviction. That segment is another one with a small town where it seems likely that everyone has suspicions or "knows" but there is or wasn't enough evidence.

[oliverjbrown]

Originally Posted by JustVisiting

I'm not sure but the updated amazon version has it listed as solved. I'll have to go back and check but it seemed like they got a conviction. That segment is another one with a small town where it seems likely that everyone has suspicions or "knows" but there is or wasn't enough evidence.

No conviction so far, only a hearing for probable cause. The trial will be in 2018.

Justice Ann Murray found at the end of the hearing, which began last month, there was probable cause for the murder charge filed against Philip Scott Fournier, 55, of East Millinocket.

[...]

in finding probable cause for the murder charge, the judge cited statements Fournier allegedly made to Caron on May 15, 1981.

Murray cited the following:

— Fournier and a friend were seen at Schenck High School around the time others said they saw McLain jogging near there.

— He was seen an hour to an hour and a half later running in front of the school, which was 400 to 500 yards from where her body was found.

— Fournier told police in September 1980 that he was not near the high school and did not know McLain.

— When interviewed in May 1981, Fournier told Caron he had tripped over her body and said it was face down. He also said her hair was tied back with a ribbon. Fournier also described the insulator found near McLain’s body.

— Fournier told police that when he stole and crashed the oil truck, he was trying to commit suicide.

Since that interview, Fournier has denied killing McLain and has not repeated his confession to law enforcement officers, Silverstein said Monday.

Zainea told Murray that Fournier has told inmates when he has been incarcerated that he committed the crime.

During his more than 25 interviews with police over the years, Fournier has named at least five different men, saying they were involved in McLain’s death. At times he said he was a witness, other times “he was forced to participate,” according to a previously published report. The Bangor Daily News is not naming the men because they have not been charged with a crime.

[JustVisiting]

Thanks for the info!!

Originally Posted by oliverjbrown

No conviction so far, only a hearing for probable cause. The trial will be in 2018.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by oliverjbrown

No conviction so far, only a hearing for probable cause. The trial will be in 2018.

Good LORD, that's a long time before trial. Where I come from, we need to have someone in front of a jury within 200 days or we have some explaining to do...

[oliverjbrown]

Originally Posted by LooksLikeCRicci

Good LORD, that's a long time before trial. Where I come from, we need to have someone in front of a jury within 200 days or we have some explaining to do...

This is a pretty standard timeline for US criminal court.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by oliverjbrown

This is a pretty standard timeline for US criminal court.

Dang. Apparently we have nothing better to do in MT than prosecute folks quickly.