Case closed: Dechaine guilty

Once again, as many times in the past 14 years, I opened my newspaper to a story of someone trying to convince the public of the innocence of Dennis Dechaine, convicted killer of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin. This time, it was about a book called “Human Sacrifice” by James Moore.

At first I got angry, as I had in the past at articles that moved me to write the newspapers from an emotional place to chastise them about the pain they were causing the family. This time, I decided not to respond from an emotional place, but to first buy the book, read it and then respond.

I am no stranger to the Cherry family and this case. I met Sarah’s grandparents, her mother and other family members on the afternoon of July 7, 1988, while they waited in a field at the corner of Lewis Hill Road and Dead River Road for news about Sarah. When Sarah was found the next day, I was taken by a sheriff to the van parked down the road, where Sarah’s body lay.

The officers stood off at a distance so I could lay my hand on the child and pray over her as the family had requested. I spent my time for the next week ministering to the family and community which included doing the memorial service for Sarah. I later attended every day of the trial, and the appeals, taking notes for my own use.

I have read Moore’s book and I am impressed with his systematic approach of trying to prove his point that Dennis Dechaine did not kill Sarah Cherry. He first states the facts as presented by the state. Then he discounts the credibility of those presenting the facts, then he introduces inadmissible evidence, innuendoes and rumors as facts. Then he shares this vision as proof positive that his concept of the case is true.

Moore states the facts, but takes the liberty of adding distortions, reframing evidence and testimony so they add credibility to what Moore wants the reader to believe. Moore puts the truck in place, the notebook and receipt in the drive of the home where little Sarah had been abducted. He puts the rope in place and all the other evidence the state used. He acknowledges the speculation that someone else had done the crime. He sordidly presents rumors that had circulated throughout the investigation about this little girl Sarah, about people who were questioned and other inadmissible information.

He is a clever writer because after he presents a rumor he gently says it isn’t credible, leaving the reader with a sense that it will resurface again, which it does. When it does resurface it has grown into evidence and fact as Moore sees it. He leaves the reader with a false sense of what has happened, like a lawyer who makes an inflammatory statement to a witness in court and then withdraws it, leaving the image imbedded in the jurors’ minds.

Moore methodically takes the facts and shifts them to speculation and speculation to facts as he leads the reader to accept his theory. With his clever, well-chosen words he couches his theory in poetry, significant quotations and biblical excerpts, from the Book of Isaiah to J. Edgar Hoover and Sherlock Holmes to Clarence Darrow. He even brings in current events of the time that have nothing to do with the case. He paints a picture of this competent law enforcement team as a bungling bunch of Keystone Kops, and a focused and dedicated prosecutor as manipulative with an unwavering intent for convicting an “innocent” man. He takes quotations from noted authors on forensics as if the author of the paper or book was involved in this case. He maliciously tries to paint the family of Sarah Cherry as the perpetrators of a crime against Dechaine.

He moves on with his assault on the legal system with his assumption that there is a conspiracy between Judge Carl Bradford and the prosecutor to convict Dechaine. If readers stick with it they find this is an attempt by Moore to build his own credibility and destroy everyone else’s. He says the lawsuit against Dechaine by Sarah’s family robbed him of his resources to mount a decent defense. Dennis had Tom Connolly, whom Moore describes as the best in the state. At the end of the trial, Judge Bradford praised both prosecutor and defense lawyers for their high standards and professionalism.

This book reminds me of a game we played as kids: We sat in a big circle and the person who was it would tell the next kid a short piece of information. Then that person would share it with the kid next in line and so on around the circle until it got back where it started. Then the originator would compare what came back with what was originally said and we would always have a good laugh at how much it had changed as it traveled around the circle. Moore’s book shows that he is the last one in the circle. But the rest of us are not laughing.

I haven’t been convinced by Moore’s speculation that Dennis Dechaine is innocent. I am convinced that Sarah was a sacrificial “lamb” and Dennis Dechaine is guilty of murder in the first degree with depraved indifference, kidnapping and sexual assault.

We start and end with these facts: The time of death does, in fact, fit the time frame of Dennis being in the woods. We have him and his truck in the driveway and later in the woods near Sarah’s body. The rope coming from his barn was used to tie her wrists, the bandanna from his wife’s bureau was around her mouth, the dogs tracked from the truck to near her body, and the drugs that Dennis used that day. When all is said and done, the evidence is still there, undeniable.

Moore has given us a chance once again to hold Sarah up to the public so that she won’t be forgotten as we are continually bombarded with yet another speculative review of the case. To quote Sarah’s grandmother, Peg Cherry: “We think of her when we wake up, and before we go to bed. She is always there.”

The Rev. Robert Dorr lives in Waldoboro.