Marvin “Skip” McClendon, 75, pleaded not guilty to first degree murder at his arraignment in Salem Superior Court today. Judge Thomas Drechsler ordered him held without bail. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for August 23, 2022.
The defendant is accused to killing Melissa Tremblay, 11, in Lawrence on September 12, 1988. He was arrested at his home in Breman, Alabama on April 26, 2022. He was returned to Massachusetts and arraigned in Lawrence District Court on May 13th. An Essex County Grand Jury indicted him on June 15th, moving the case to the Superior Court.
Mr. McClendon is represented by Attorney Henry Fasoldt and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
From:
Carrie Kimball
Director of Communications
Essex District Attorney’s Office
Daneille Root’s statement to the media following the arraignment today:
I am Melissa’s cousin Daneille Root. On behalf of her family, I want to thank everyone who has
worked on her case over the years. They have never given up and because of that, we were able
to sit in the courtroom today and face her killer.
We are about 2 months shy of 34 years since we lost Missy and we have never given up hope
that her killer would be found. Over the years, some people have said that we didn’t care about
her, but that is not true. She has always been in our thoughts. We chose to put our faith in God,
the Lawrence Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police and the Essex District
Attorney’s Office. Clearly that was the right choice.
Many people have blamed my aunt for Missy’s death. While I don’t believe she made the right
decision that night, that is between her and God. Ultimately the only person responsible for
Missy’s death is the man we saw in court today ~ Marvin McClendon. He made the decision to
take a life that night for whatever reason and he is finally going to face a judge and jury for that
decision. Not only will he face judgement here on earth but he will face God’s judgement one
day too.
I do want to say a special thanks to the Essex District Attorney’s Office. They didn’t give up in
trying to find us when an arrest was made. They have stayed in contact since then to make sure
we had all the information they could release to us and that we were okay. The Office even
arranged it so we could call into the courthouse for the original arraignment in district court so
we didn’t miss anything and then reached out to make sure we understood what had occurred.
We also appreciate that the District Attorney’s Office scheduled this arraignment for today while
I was visiting family in New Hampshire so that I could attend in person.
Again, thank you to everyone involved in getting us to this day.
