The murders and the trials are the things you remember the most. Perhaps it is because it all started with a murder.

My 30-plus years with the Bangor Daily News started when a NEWS reporter, Francine Bray, was murdered by her husband in Camden in 1971. I was “between jobs” then, just visiting Camden from Gloucester, Mass., when the shooting was reported on television. I ended up with the job and never left.

In newspaper work, there is absolutely nothing more dramatic than the moment of truth when a jury in a murder trial files back into a courtroom with a verdict. The defendant stands to face them and find out whether he or she goes out the door into the sunshine or goes to a prison cell for the rest of his or her life. Covering murders and murder trials will teach you that the more you think you know what a jury is going to do, the less you know what a jury is going to do.

That lesson came hard in 1972 when tree worker Henry L. Andrews, then 35, was tried for the strangling death of his former landlady, Hazel Doak of Belfast. That was called the “feather case” because the defendant, when arrested, had feathers on his socks that were matched by an FBI feather expert (who knew?) to the pillow on Doak’s bed. A cab driver placed the defendant at the scene at the time of the murder and it seemed like a simple case.

The jury didn’t think so.

The deliberations went a couple of days and spilled over into Saturday. I was so convinced of the verdict that I never went to the Saturday session. Naturally, Andrews was acquitted and walked out of the courtroom a free man. No courthouse interview.

Paula Roberts was an innocent convenience store clerk when she was abducted in 1984. Her body was not found for days, despite intensive search efforts. Eventually the brothers, David and Phil Willoughby of Augusta, were tried for the crime in 1985. Feelings were so strong in Augusta that David Willoughby’s case was transferred to Rockland. Again the evidence seemed to be strong enough, but the defense countered with eyewitness descriptions that didn’t match the defendant. The Rockland jury acquitted David Willoughby and he conducted a brief jailhouse interview before he was released. I actually asked him “Did you just get away with murder?” He denied it but got his sentence anyway when he hanged himself several years later. A jury eventually found Philip Willoughby guilty of the Roberts murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.

But the Dennis Dechaine case was the murder case that stands out above the others. The Bowdoinham farmer was charged with the 1988 random abduction, torture and murder of teen-age baby sitter Sarah Cherry. Again the body was not found for weeks despite a massive search.

Eyewitnesses placed Dechaine at the scene. He admitted he was alone, shooting up with drugs in the woods. He admitted on the stand that he left the woods because “we were losing the light.”

“We?” asked prosecutor Eric Wright. “I thought you were alone.”

There was strong evidence supported by some incriminating statements, but Dechaine had a classic choirboy face, a college education and legions of believers who said that Dechaine “couldn’t do such a thing.”

The jury disagreed. In March of 1989, they found him guilty and the judge sent him to the Thomaston prison for life. A number of appeals failed. When his attorney Tom Connolly ran for governor, he promised the first thing he would do was pardon Dechaine. Connolly finished about 200,000 votes behind the winner, Angus King.

The oddest murder was the case of Larry Richardson, who died of asphyxiation in a Maine State prison cell in 1990. The question was whether he had assistance in the process. The state tried Richardson’ cellmate, Roger Smith, and another inmate in the segregation unit. In a weeklong “kangaroo court,” other inmates urged Smith to kill Richardson, a “skinner” or child abuser, the bottom rung of the inmate ladder. During the bizarre trial, witnesses said the guards knew all about the “kangaroo court” that convened every night to harass Richardson but did nothing about it.

Smith was found guilty of murder in 1991 and sentenced to 70 additional years in jail. Another inmate, Randall Tenggren, housed several cells away, was acquitted.

It is an odd thing to look back on three decades of work and remember the murders the most. Every one broke a heart. Every one left a shattered family. But it was the nature of the business.

And I will miss it.

Up until Aug. 13, Emmet Meara was one of two NEWS reporters covering the State House. His position was eliminated as part of broad budgetary cuts. His weekly column will continue to appear in the Style section. Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com