GUILTY ME - Joyce McLain, 16, East Millinocket, 8 Aug 1980 *Arrest in 2016*

Suspects: A detective who worked the case stated that he was certain he knew who killed Joyce McLain, but he also stated that he believed that the person responsible for her death is no longer in the position to harm anyone else in the general public. Several theories have came up as to who might have murdered Joyce, including that she was harassed by locals who later took her to the field where she was found, attempted to rape her, and ended up beating and killing her. Another theory was that she was murdered by workers at a local paper mill. However, no one has ever been charged.

Results: Unresolved. In 2008, Joyce's body was exhumed for a second autopsy and new evidence was uncovered, but no one has ever been charged. In 2009, her gravesite was vandalized repeatedly by unknown assailants. It is unknown if it has any relation to Joyce's murder.

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McLain says it was a kind of courtesy stop because they wanted to tell her before she heard it from someone else. She believes they are gathering evidence in the grounds near the soccer field where Joyce was found. She says she's not sure what prompted today's search.

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An announcement Thursday that a state police lieutenant would oversee the state’s new cold-case squad drew an angry response from the woman whose daughter’s homicide 35 years ago inspired the squad’s creation.

“I don’t see that control coming out of the state police office is going to help us. If the AG wants to assign someone to unlock a file for them, fine, but they [state police] shouldn’t have any control over it,” McLain said Thursday.

McLain, whose daughter Joyce’s 1980 murder in East Millinocket prompted volunteers to start pushing for a squad in 2013, has been publicly questioning state police handling of the case since 2005. She has sought outside reviews or takeovers of the case by the FBI and other agencies, even reality-TV show detectives who address unsolved cases.

“I don’t want the same old, same old crap. If the state police could have controlled it and done anything [to solve her daughter’s case] they could have done it by now,” McLain said. “I want this unit to be a real unit that they are doing for our victims.”

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Maine State Police say it’s one of the longest murder investigations that has ever resulted in an arrest in Maine.

Thirty-six years after the killing 16-year-old Joyce McLain in East Millinocket, Philip Scott Fournier, 55, has been charged with her murder. Fournier had previously been identified as a person of interest in her death.

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Williams said it was not a single piece of evidence that led to Fournier’s arrest. Rather, he said, it was the accumulation of work by “generations of detectives” who investigated the homicide.

Over the years, Fournier, who was 19 at the time of McLain’s death, has made numerous statements to police. According to state police affidavits, Fournier has acknowledged being drunk, trying to sexually assault her, striking her in the head and questioning whether he killed her. He also made statements to other people.

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According to the Bangor Daily News, Fournier has a criminal record that includes convictions for burglary and theft in the 1980s. And in 2009 he was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison for possession of child *advertiser censored*. (...)

Fournier was released from prison last year. His first court appearance for the murder of Joyce McLain is scheduled for Monday.

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She's had a candle lit on her front porch for more than 35 years -- since Joyce's body was found. And she said it's finally time to turn it off.

"I'm just awe struck," Pam told NEWS CENTER "When he said we are going to make an arrest today, that was my reaction, nothing, and I'm a talker. So I was speechless, and I'm still not quite sure, it still hasn't sunk in."

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JusticeWillBeServed said:

Joyce McLain's mother reacts to cold case arrest

http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/joyce-mclains-mother-reacts-to-cold-case-arrest/68063571

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​Man charged with murder of Maine girl in 1980 gets no bail

A Maine sex offender charged last week with killing a 16-year-old girl who disappeared while jogging nearly 36 years ago is being held without bail.

Philip Scott Fournier was arraigned Monday at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor on a murder charge. He did not enter a plea.

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An East Millinocket man charged with slaying high school student Joyce McLain more than three decades ago was indicted Wednesday by the Penobscot County grand jury on one count of murder.

Philip Scott Fournier, 55, was arrested March 4 without incident at his home and charged with intentional or knowing murder and depraved indifference murder in the death of McLain, 16, on Aug. 8, 1980.

He is being held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail.

An arraignment date has not been set.

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The East Millinocket man accused of slaying high school student Joyce McLain nearly 36 years ago and dumping her body by Schenck High School pleaded not guilty Tuesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center.

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Much of Tuesday was spent holding a bail hearing with Justice Ann Murray that included testimony by Fournier’s mother and stepfather and former pastor Vinal Thomas, who testified that in June 1989, Fournier confessed to killing McLain.

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The hearing will continue on July 18.

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In 2009, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock identified Fournier as “a person of interest” in McLain’s homicide when he sentenced him in 2009 to 6½ years in federal prison for possession of child *advertiser censored*. Fournier’s criminal history also includes convictions in state court for burglary and unauthorized taking in 1979, burglary and theft in 1980, and burglary in 1984. After his conviction for possessing child *advertiser censored*, he was ordered to have his name listed for 10 years in the official state sex offender registry.

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According to the affidavit filed in connection with McLain’s death, investigators spoke with Fournier at least 27 times in the last 35 years, and in some of those interviews, he confessed to the slaying.

In addition to his parents, police also interviewed other people who said they heard Fournier confess to killing McLain, including a local minister and a couple in 2010 who said he told them he was among several young men who attacked and sexually assaulted the girl before killing her.

During interviews with police, Fournier named at least five different men, saying they were involved in McLain’s death. At times he said he was a witness, other times “he was forced to participate.”

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A Superior Court judge Monday described the evidence against the man accused of killing Joyce McLain and dumping her body near Schenck High School in East Millinocket nearly 36 years ago as “solid but not overwhelming” at the conclusion of a bail and probable cause hearing at the Penobscot Judicial Center.

Justice Ann Murray found at the end of the hearing, which began last month, there was probable cause for the murder charge filed against Philip Scott Fournier, 55, of East Millinocket.

Murray, who tentatively set a trial in January 2018, also set bail at $300,000 but did not specify if she required cash or property.

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The long-awaited trial in the 1980 slaying of an East Millinocket teenager is set to begin Monday.

Opening statements at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor are expected to be followed by a visit to the crime scene.

Bangor defense attorney Jeffrey Silverstein said he will use his time during the judge-only trial to raise questions about why Fournier was charged after so long a time.

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On the third day of Fournier’s murder trial at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor, McLain’s family members and friends wept as the crime scene photographs were displayed on large scenes in the courtroom. Fournier did not outwardly react to the display.

McLain’s head was under a low bush. Tan lines from the hours she spent with friends at the town pool that summer were visible on her upper thighs and across her back.

Former Maine State Police Sgt. Roderick Carr testified that the photographs accurately depicted what he saw when he arrived at the scene the morning of Aug. 10, 1980, more than 36 hours after McLain was last seen jogging near the high school.

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Nine months after Joyce McLain’s partially clad body was discovered, the man accused of killing the 16-year-old on Aug. 8, 1980, walked with investigators behind the athletic fields to the crime scene, a retired detective testified Thursday.

Fournier knew things about the crime that had not been released to the public or the media, including that McLain was having her period when she died and that a broken insulator was found near her body, Graves said Thursday.

The prosecution maintains that although Fournier’s statements to the police over the years have been inconsistent, he confessed to his pastor, parents and others, and knows details only the police were privy to. Prosecutors have not told the judge why it took so long to charge Fournier.

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