• Marvin C. McClendon Jr. was found not guilty following his arrest in 2022 following the 1988 murder of 11-year-old Melissa Ann Tremblay.
• “Mr. McClendon is greatly relieved by the verdict,” McClendon’s attorney told the Associated Press.
• “My thoughts are with the family of Melissa Ann Tremblay, who is suffering greatly as a result of the crime that claimed her life,” Essex County District Attorney Paul F. Tucker told WBZ-TV.

Former Massachusetts Department of Corrections officer found not guilty Murder of an 11-year-old New Hampshire girl The person who died more than 36 years ago.

As previously reported by PEOPLE, Marvin C. McClendon Jr. of Breman, Ala., was arrested by authorities in Massachusetts in April 2022, 33 years after Melissa Ann Tremblay of Salem, N.H., was found and listed as a fugitive from justice was accused. He died next to the train tracks in Lawrence on September 12, 1988.

On Tuesday, November 5, the jury, deadlocked on Monday, found McClendon not guilty on the sixth day of deliberations. Associated PressHe stated that the case depends on whether the DNA found on the victim belongs to the suspect.

McClendon’s lawyer, Henry Fasoldt, told the news agency: “Mr. McClendon was greatly relieved by the decision.”

“We appreciate the jury’s careful and thoughtful deliberations,” Fasoldt added.

At the time of Melissa’s murder, McClendon was living in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and working as a carpenter. Fasoldt told the AP that his client now wants to return home to Alabama after being detained for two and a half years.

Essex District Attorney Paul F. Tucker said he was “disappointed in the verdict.” WBZ-TV.

“I appreciate the jury’s work and determination during their lengthy deliberations in this case,” Tucker said.

“My thoughts are with the family of Melissa Ann Tremblay, who is suffering greatly as a result of the crime that claimed her life,” he added.

Neither Fasoldt nor the Essex County District Attorney’s Office immediately responded when contacted by PEOPLE.

Melissa’s body was found on Sept. 11, 1988, a day after she went to a social club in Lawrence “with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend,” authorities said earlier in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. newsletter.

“While her mother and her mother’s boyfriend stayed at the club, Melissa was playing in the adjacent neighborhoods and was last seen by a railroad employee and pizza delivery driver in the late afternoon,” the 2022 statement said. it said. The young girl was reported missing to Lawrence Police later that night.

He was later found dead “at the old Boston & Maine Railroad Yard near Andover Street and South Broadway in Lawrence” the next day, after being “stabbed to death” and then “run over by a train car, causing the amputation of his left leg.” ” he said in the statement.

“Numerous witnesses, suspects and persons of interest have been interviewed by police over the years,” authorities added. “The evidence obtained from the victim’s body was instrumental in solving the case.”

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Authorities had previously said McClendon had “multiple ties” to Lawrence, but his attorney, Fasoldt, told the jury this week that his client had “no meaningful connection” to the city, according to the AP.

During the trial, Essex County Deputy District Attorney Jessica Strasnick also told the jury that McClendon knew key details about Melissa’s death, adding: “Ladies and gentlemen, he was focused on the fact that she had been beaten because he knew that Melissa had been beaten,” the AP reported. “He wasn’t just stabbed that day, he was beaten.”

Strasnick also argued that “DNA evidence taken from under Tremblay’s fingernails excludes 99.8 percent of the male population as potential suspects.”

But McClendon’s defense said there was no evidence the DNA belonged to the suspect or was found under the victim’s fingernails, AP reported.

Tuesday’s verdict came after a judge declared a mistrial in December 2023 after the jury failed to reach a verdict. NBC10BostonAP and Kartal-Tribune has been reported previously.

per online obituaryMelissa’s mother, Janet M. Tremblay, died on November 20, 2015, at the age of 70.