LAWRENCE, Mass. (Tribune News Service) — A U.S. Air Force veteran facing charges in the 1988 cold case murder of an 11-year-old girl is not expected to be arraigned in a Massachusetts courtroom until next week.
Marvin "Skip" McClendon Jr., 74, was arrested in Bremen, Ala., on April 26.
He is charged with the murder of Melissa "Missy" Tremblay, 11, of Salem, N.H., in Lawrence, Mass., in September 1988.
In Alabama, Cullman County Sheriff Department officers assisted Massachusetts investigators with the arrest. Authorities said McClendon would not fight his return to Massachusetts to face the murder charge.
His arraignment in Lawrence District Court is not expected until next week, possibly early in the week, said Carrie Kimball, spokesperson for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.
A 1965 graduate of Tewksbury High School and an Air Force veteran, McClendon worked in the past as a state corrections officer and a carpenter. He was living in Chelmsford and affiliated with a 7th Day Adventist Church in Lawrence when Tremblay was murdered, Blodgett said at a press conference last week.
A sixth-grader at the Lancaster School in Salem, Tremblay was found dead on the railroad tracks at the Boston & Maine freight terminal near Andover Street and South Broadway in Lawrence on Sept. 12, 1988.
Reported missing the previous day, she had been stabbed to death and run over post mortem by a freight car.
Tremblay's mother has since died. Blodgett said advocates from his office were able to notify surviving aunts and a cousin of McClendon's arrest.
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