EAST MILLINOCKET – Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden has expressed an interest in examining the body of homicide victim Joyce McLain, the slain girl’s mother, Pamela McLain, said Tuesday.

An internationally recognized expert witness who has testified in the cases of Medgar Evers, John Belushi and O.J. Simpson, Baden told Joyce’s cousin Greylen Hale last week that he would need $10,000 for expenses and the autopsy report done when McLain’s body was first discovered almost 28 years ago.

McLain, who is campaigning to have her daughter’s body exhumed, called Baden’s interest “a big thing.”

“He has to have the autopsy report first,” McLain said Tuesday, “but his interest is a big thing, and the price … is very much raiseable. I am surprised that it’s as low as it is. I mean, at least it’s workable to get that money.”

McLain and Hale say they would likely need to raise $15,000 or a little more to cover all expenses associated with exhumation and transportation of the body to Baden’s New York office.

The chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and host of HBO’s “Autopsy” series, Baden has been a medical examiner for 45 years. He has performed more than 20,000 autopsies and helped with congressional reinvestigations of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1970s.

Baden did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Tuesday. He is their first choice, but Hale would not rule out the family’s seeking assistance from other forensic experts.

A 16-year-old Schenck High School sophomore, McLain was killed sometime after going jogging the night of Aug. 8, 1980. Her body was found two days later in a power line clearing about 200 feet from the school’s soccer fields. Her head and neck had been struck repeatedly with a blunt object.

When Pamela McLain asked the state medical examiner’s office late last year to exhume the body, she hoped that the killer might have left DNA traces in the wounds that could help with the state police investigation, which continues. She also believes there is at least a chance the body has not degraded to the extent experts believe.

State Deputy Attorney General William R. Stokes has said that the state’s forensic experts believe it is extremely unlikely that any viable evidence will be found and that the state retains the best evidence – three tissue samples of inconclusive origin – taken from the body at autopsy.

McLain remains undeterred, and Stokes has expressed interest in cooperating with family efforts to secure a second opinion. McLain said a representative of hers went to Augusta on Tuesday to seek Stokes’ cooperation.

“If they [scientists] can find out what a mummy ate for breakfast 3,000 years ago, then maybe they can find something down with my daughter,” McLain said.

Stokes did not immediately return a telephone message left Tuesday afternoon seeking comment.

Although it has been almost 28 years, the state police investigation into the homicide remains active, Stokes and state police have said.

Detective Brian Strout, the case’s lead investigator, was pursuing a lead and conducting interviews in East Millinocket on Monday, he said.

“We have had some information come in and we’ve continued to work on it,” Strout said Tuesday. “That’s all I can tell you at this point.”

Strout referred further comment to his supervisor, Detective Sgt. Troy Gardner, who was not immediately available.

The Medway Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 on Monday to donate about $800 in town services to the exhumation of McLain’s body, which is in a town cemetery off Grindstone Road. To help McLain raise more funds, the activist group Justice For Joyce is re-forming to hold fundraisers for the exhumation and brainstorm possible ways to help resolve the case.

The group will meet at 10 a.m. April 18 and April 25 in the town office building. The public is invited.

“We want some closure to this, finally,” said Nancy Deschaine, the group’s spokeswoman and an East Millinocket resident. “This family has endured this for going on 28 years. It is time that this was brought to an end. This murder has to be solved one way or another. In the event that it’s not solved because of a lack of DNA or whatever, then we can live with that.

“To us, this isn’t the last chance,” she added, speaking of her determination to help end the suffering of Pamela McLain. “We will be there for her and whatever she needs.”

Pamela McLain might have no rest until there is justice for Joyce, Hale said, but so long as she can guarantee that the investigation is being pursued vigorously, by residents holding fundraisers and by professional investigators, then perhaps neither will Joyce’s killer.

nsambides@bangordailynews.net

794-8215

Fast facts

WHO: Justice For Joyce

WHAT: Organizational and fundraising meetings

WHEN: April 18 and April 25, 2008, 10 a.m.

WHERE: Town Office, East Millinocket

WHY: Justice For Joyce is a citizen’s committee dedicated to bringing the killer of Joyce McLain to justice and to raising at least $15,000 for the exhumation of McLain’s body.

HOW: Contributions can be mailed to Justice For Joyce, c/o Bangor Savings Bank, 87 Main St., East Millinocket, 04430

SOURCE: Justice For Joyce