A Day After Jury Deadlocked, Former Corrections Officer Is Acquitted in 1988 Killing of 11-Year-Old N.H. Girl

Marvin C. McClendon Jr. was arrested in 2022, decades after Melissa Ann Tremblay was found dead in Lawrence, Mass., on Sept. 12, 1988

A former Massachusetts Department of Corrections officer has been found not guilty of killing an 11-year-old New Hampshire girl who died more than 36 years ago.

As previously reported by PEOPLE, Marvin C. McClendon Jr., of Breman, Ala., was arrested and charged as a fugitive from justice by authorities in Massachusetts in April 2022, 33 years after Melissa Ann Tremblay, of Salem, N.H., was found dead alongside train tracks in Lawrence on Sept. 12, 1988.

On Tuesday, Nov. 5, a jury — which was deadlocked on Monday — found McClendon not guilty on the sixth day of deliberations, per the Associated Press, which reports that the case hinged on whether or not DNA found on the victim belonged to the suspect.

McClendon’s lawyer, Henry Fasoldt, tells PEOPLE, “We are grateful for the Jury’s careful and thoughtful deliberations. Mr. McClendon is deeply relieved by the verdict.”

At the time of Melissa’s killing, McClendon had been living in Chelmsford, Mass., and working as a carpenter. Fasoldt tells PEOPLE his client would now be returning home to Alabama after being held for two and a half years.

Essex County District Attorney Paul F. Tucker said he was “disappointed with the verdict,” according to WBZ-TV.

“I recognize the work and dedication of the jury during their long deliberations in this case,” Tucker said, per the outlet.

“My thoughts are with the family of Melissa Ann Tremblay, who have suffered greatly due to the crime that took her life,” he added.

The Essex County District Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE.

Melissa’s body was found the day after she “accompanied her mother and mother’s boyfriend” to a social club in Lawrence on Sept. 11, 1988, authorities previously said in an Essex District Attorney’s Office news release.

“While her mother and mother’s boyfriend remained inside the club, Melissa played in the adjacent neighborhoods and was last seen by a railroad employee and pizza delivery driver during the late afternoon hours,” the 2022 release read. The young girl was reported missing to Lawrence Police later that night.

She was then found dead “in the old Boston & Maine Railway Yard near Andover Street and South Broadway in Lawrence,” the following day after being “stabbed to death” and then “run over by a train car causing her left leg to be amputated,” the release said.

“Over the years, scores of witnesses, suspects, and persons-of-interest were interviewed by police,” authorities added. “Evidence recovered from the victim’s body was instrumental in solving the case.”

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

During the trial, Essex County Assistant District Attorney Jessica Strasnick also told the jury that McClendon seemed to know key details about Melissa’s death, adding that he was “fixated on the fact that she was beaten, ladies and gentlemen, because he knew that she wasn’t just stabbed that day, that was she was beaten,” the AP reported.

Strasnick argued, as well, “that the 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 proof the DNA belonged to the suspect, or that it was found under the victim’s fingernails, the AP reported.

Tuesday’s decision came after a judge declared a mistrial in Dec. 2023 after the jury couldn’t reach a verdict, NBC10 Boston, the AP and the Eagle-Tribune previously reported.

Per an online obituary, Melissa’s mom, Janet M. Tremblay, died at age 70 on Nov. 20, 2015.