CBS News
Maine farmer convicted in girl’s 1988 killing says testing excludes his DNA from items at crime scene
A Maine farmer convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl more than three decades ago launched his latest bid on Thursday for a new trial by trying to convince a judge that advances in DNA testing raise questions about his guilt.
The attorney for Dennis Dechaine called his first witness at the start of a two-day hearing in Knox County Superior Court. Dechaine is trying to make the case that tests conducted by a California laboratory excluded his DNA from several items found at the crime scene, requiring a new trial in which jurors could weigh all the evidence.
Prosecutors have contended plenty of other evidence links Dechaine to the crime and that his DNA could not be excluded from several other items.
Dechaine, 66, is serving a life sentence for the murder and sexual assault of Sarah Cherry, who disappeared while babysitting in Bowdoin in July 1988. Her body was found two days later.
Pat Wellenbach / AP
Dechaine’s DNA was found on the murder weapon, his own scarf, which was used to strangle the victim, CBS affiliate WGME-TV reported. But Dechaine’s attorney told the court that DNA from blood under the victim’s fingernails is not from Dechaine, the station reported.
“The murderer’s blood is under the victim’s fingernails. And the murderer’s DNA is on the murder weapon, which is the scarf. The DNA under the fingernails is not Dennis Dechaine, it’s the murderer’s,” said John Nale, Dechaine’s attorney.
However, a car repair receipt and notebook belonging to Dechaine were found outside the Bowdoin home where the victim was babysitting before her abduction. Yellow rope used to bind her hands matched rope in Dechaine’s truck, which was parked near the location where the girl’s body was found.
Dechaine, who was 30 at the time of the killing, contends the evidence was planted while he was doing drugs in the woods.
The farmer from Bowdoinham has a fierce group of supporters who say he couldn’t be the killer. They’ve pointed to alternative suspects.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court denied several previous requests for a new trial, concluding that there was sufficient evidence to convict Dechaine regardless of the updated DNA tests.
As Dechaine entered the courtroom on Thursday, he stopped and smiled at his brother and other family members, WGME reported. Cherry’s parents and sister were also in the courtroom. Dechaine’s family and Cherry’s family declined to comment to the station.
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CBS News
McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
