After 12 years, arrest made in murder case

BRIDGTON – Nearly 12 years after a single mother was stabbed to death, a tip led state police to a Bridgton man who was indicted on a murder charge Thursday.

Michael K. Hutchinson, 31, was linked to Crystal Perry’s killing through DNA evidence, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The indictment was handed up in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland.

Hutchinson, who’s being held at the Cumberland County Jail on a probation violation, will be arraigned on the murder charge on Friday or Monday, McCausland said.

Perry was 30 when she was fatally stabbed in her Bridgton home in May 1994.

Her body was discovered by her 12-year-old daughter, and the girl ran to a neighbor’s house for help.

The case rocked the Bridgton community, and state police detectives interviewed hundreds of people and put in thousands of hours on the case, McCausland said.

Police took blood samples from several men, but the investigation eventually stalled.

In 1996, Perry’s family tried to jump-start the stalled investigation with an offer of a $10,000 reward for information leading to the killer.

A few weeks ago, state police received a tip that pointed to Hutchinson. Police obtained a warrant for a blood sample, and his DNA matched with human cells believed to have been left at the crime scene by the killer, McCausland said.

Hutchinson, a self-employed mason, grew up in Bridgton but there’s no indication that he had more than casual contact with Perry, the spokesman said.

McCausland said detectives have kept Perry’s daughter Sarah, now 24 and living in North Carolina, up to date on the developments.

Perry’s mother, Grace Bartlett, died recently and won’t see the potential resolution of the case, he said.

McCausland credited detectives for continuing to dig into the case.

“This in part is a result of the hard work of those investigators over the past 12 years, along with work done by the state police crime laboratory,” he said.