Dark Downeast - The Murder of Sarah Cherry (Maine)

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

MAINE MURDER, 1988: 12-year old Sarah Cherry disappeared while babysitting on July 6, 1988. A clue laying in the driveway of the house where she was last seen pointed investigators to their primary suspect. Two days later, Sarah's body was discovered in a shallow grave in the woods in Bowdoinham, Maine.Dennis Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the murder of Sarah Cherry, but over 30 years later, he maintains his innocence, and so do his loyal supporters.Retired Detective Dan Reed joins me in the telling of this story. He was one of the first to respond when Sarah was reported missing. Dan Reed came face to face with the man who would later be convicted of her murder. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/sarahcherryFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

Each week, I invite you to send me the true crime cases from your hometown. The cases you want me to cover, the cases that deserve attention after years without answers. My inbox pings with new cases every single day, and each one is added to my growing case log. But as often as I receive requests for cases that I've never heard of, the victims' names being entirely new to me, there's one case that's received over 100 requests. Some referred to it as the Sarah Cherry murder, while others called it the Dennis DeShane case. As I always strive to do, I will tell you the closest version of the truth that I can assemble, based on the evidence, testimony, and statements that were part of the investigation at the time of the arrest, trial, and conviction of Dennis DeShane.

But I will also explore the accused missteps, the appeals, and the outpouring of support behind the man that many believe is innocent. I am humbled to have the help of retired detective Dan Reed along the way. He was one of the first to respond on the day that Sarah was reported missing. He came face to face with the man who would later be convicted of her murder. This is the murder of Sarah Cherry. Helen Buttrick and her husband Harry were on their way back from the grocery store just after 8.30pm on July 6th, 1988. sun had just set, and the Dead River Road was dark, save for a few washes of light from the sporadically placed homes along the wooded, rural street. The pair wasn't

far from home when Helen spotted a man walking out of the woods and traipsing across the front yard of a family member. They lived close by. Startled by the apparent trespasser, Helen and Harry stopped the car and hollered to the guy, asking him what he was doing. The man responded that he'd been fishing earlier that day, but somehow he lost his truck. He followed the sound of a generator and ended up right there. The man wasn't carrying a fishing rod. He had no tackle blocks or gear slung over his shoulder. He didn't look like a man who'd been fishing. But he explained that when he realized he couldn't find where he parked his truck, he tossed his rod on the side of the road and continued the search without it. Helen and Harry Buttrick were

apparently satisfied by this explanation. Harry Buttrick was familiar with the woods around the north end of Sagada Hawk County and how every path and tree trunk can begin to look the same after a while. Harry offered to give him a hand and drive him around until they spotted the truck. The man accepted Harry's offer and introduced himself as Dennis. Dennis Deshane. Helen might have elbowed her husband at that point. Harry, the groceries, maybe she reminded him. They still had their haul of food in the back of the car, so

before they started looking for the stranger's truck, the stranger helped the couple unload their groceries. In the light of their kitchen, Mr. and Mrs. Buttrick got a better look at Dennis. He appeared a bit grubby. He was scratched up and dusty. Not altogether a strange appearance for a man who said he'd spent the day fishing and wandering the woods. However disheveled, he seemed polite. Normal enough. But as Harry and Dennis pulled off and Helen Buttrick watched the taillights fade out down the road, her brow creased. Something wasn't right. She switched on their police scanner. It was a common electronic in late 80s homes. What she heard raised a clear red flag. Helen called the police to report the encounter with the wandering stranger named Dennis DeShane. Across town, the Saginaw Hawk County

Sheriff's Department was hours into the search for a missing 12-year-old girl. Mr. and Mrs. Buttrick couldn't have known that the stranger they'd just encountered would soon be at the center of it all. The date was July 6th, 1988, and 12-year-old Sarah Terry was a little nervous but excited for her new babysitting gig. She was an incredibly bright young girl. She was in the gifted and talented program at school, she was a Girl Scout, and she loved sports. Sarah was also exceptionally responsible and reliable for being only 12 years old, and this responsible nature made her the ideal babysitter for Mr. and Mrs. Henkel's 10-month-old baby, Monica. Sarah was great with kids, and although she'd never babysat a baby so young before,

Jennifer Henkel trusted Sarah, and she admired her gentle manner and kind personality. Just after 8 a.m. the morning of July 6, 1988, Mr. Henkel picked Sarah up and brought her back to their house. By 9 a.m. that day, Sarah was alone at the Henkel home with baby Monica. Jennifer called to check in on Sarah around noon, and things seemed to be going well. Sarah was feeding Monica, and she was going to make herself some hot dogs for lunch. Mrs. Henkel hung up the phone, apparently comforted and unconcerned. Sarah was doing great. But just over three hours later, Mrs. Henkel returned home to a concerning scene.

She pulled carefully into her dirt driveway, deliberately avoiding two objects laying in plain view. Stepping out of the car, Jennifer realized that the objects were a notebook and nearby, a sheet of paper. Jennifer picked it up to discover it was a receipt from a car repair shop. She carried both of the items with her as her eyes darted ahead at the house. Jennifer walked through the unlocked door just as she'd left it. Mrs. Henkel didn't want Sarah to get locked out if she took the baby outside, but the interior door leading from the attached garage

into the home was wide open. The TV was on in the living room, and Sarah's glasses were folded on the table. Her sneakers and socks were in a neat pile on the floor. Her jacket was there too. But as Jennifer called out for Sarah, she received only silence in response. Baby Monica was sleeping soundly in her bed, but the babysitter, Sarah Cherry, wasn't anywhere to be found. Mrs. Henkel returned outside, trying to determine where Sarah may have gone off to. Finally, Mrs. Henkel returned outside, trying to determine where Sarah may have gone off to. Finally, Mrs. Henkel called the police. Detective Dan Reed was one of the first to respond to the Henkel home on Lewis Hill Road in Bowdoin. His daughter is a Dark Downies listener, and she connected us for a conversation about this case. Dan, how do you want me to address you or introduce you on the show, first of all?

Oh, Dan is fine. Dan? Okay, perfect. I am not a detective anymore. I am not in law enforcement, so Dan is just fine. Thank you. Dan Reed began his career in law enforcement in 1986. He applied for a patrol position that was listed in the newspaper at the Richmond Police Department and was hired on the spot. Three months later, a position he'd been eyeing and previously applied for at the Saginaw Hawk County Sheriff's Department was open again. The sheriff offered him the job, and Dan took it. I graduated out of the police academy in March of 1988, actually. So really,

this happened just a few months after I had just graduated out of the police academy. I was very green, very new. His career was just beginning, and it would continue over three decades, with over 27 of those years as a detective. But at the time, Dan Reed was a deputy, just over three months into the role. And you know, at the time of the call, I mean, nobody, nobody understood the magnitude of this case. We had no idea this was going to turn into the case that it later turned out to be. When the call came in about this missing persons case on the north end of the county, Dan and another deputy, Leo Scappino, headed that way.

It took them about 30 minutes to get there. Bath Iron Works traffic after 3.30 in the afternoon is something that area knows well. We pulled into the driveway of the Henkel residence. The driveway is about 150 feet long. It goes down a slight hill and then levels off to a two-car garage with a home attached to the second floor. Well, Mrs. Henkel came out and she had two documents in her hand. She showed us in the driveway where she found the two documents, said she spoke with Sarah, her babysitter, at 12.30, and Sarah was fine.

When she arrived home at around 3.30, she found these two documents in the driveway. I think about what I would have done, pulling into my driveway and seeing a notebook and a scrap of paper lying where they shouldn't be. I might dismiss them, maybe pick them up and toss them in the recycle bin and chalk it up to a windy day bringing debris into my yard. But Mrs. Henkel had the foresight to pick them up and retain them, her intuition telling her this might be important.

Now, Jennifer Henkel's handling of the documents, and then the transfer to Dan and the other deputy, was later raised as an issue in court. Maintaining the integrity of evidence and ensuring the continuity of that evidence is an integral part of investigative work. Dan, in the many years he's had to process this case in his own mind, recognizes now what could have been handled differently. You know, looking back at it now, I mean, I wasn't big on crime scenes or processing crime scenes at that point in my career because I was so new out of the academy. But, you know, had she left them there, then we could have probably have processed them for fingerprints

or anything. We didn't have DNA back then, so fingerprints. But, you know, she had already picked up the articles and handed them to us. So, you know, that was kind of a second thought. Whether they could have fingerprinted or otherwise tested that evidence, though, to me, seems kind of moot. Because there was no question who that auto body receipt belonged to. The owner's name was printed at the top, along with the year and make of the vehicle. A 1981 Toyota pickup, apparently with front end damage. Identifying info printed on a piece of evidence. I mean, how often does that happen? Over the years, I mean, handling like residential burglaries,

we have encountered times when the suspect would drop his wallet while trying to climb through a window. But that is very unlikely. But, you know, it's wonderful when you're handed a piece of evidence like that. But it doesn't happen very often. But this time, in the case of Sarah Cherry, it did. And the name at the top of that receipt was Dennis DeShane. It was the late 80s, and so investigators turned to the phone book and found Dennis' address so they could pay him a visit.

We drove to Dennis DeShane's home in Bodenham on the post road, address so they could to him about them. She said he left the farm probably around 5 a.m. and he hasn't been back all day. So we left the business card and asked her to please have Dennis give us a call when he arrived. Their initial search that afternoon for the Toyota pickup belonging to Dennis DeShane was unsuccessful. With still no sign of Sarah Cherry, the Sheriff's Department set up a mobile command center at the intersection of Lewis Hill Road and Dead River Road in Bowdoin. They paid a second visit to Dennis' house, and again, his wife hadn't seen him since that morning. The early July sunlight was fading as the search for Sarah continued. Probably around 8 or 9 o'clock, there was a call placed to our dispatch from a woman by the name of

Mrs. Buttricks. She said that a young guy was out on their front lawn when they came back from getting groceries and was very polite, offered to help them with their groceries and said that he was from Yarmouth and that he had been fishing all day and he got lost in the woods and followed the sound of a generator and came out at their house. They said he was very polite, but her concern was that when they got home, she turned on the scanner. Everybody had police scanners back then. And she heard that we were all talking on police radios just down the road from their home. She got worried because her husband had just offered to take Dennis and drive him around looking for Dennis' truck. Finally, a confirmed location of the man they wanted to speak with.

He was riding shotgun in Mr. Buttrick's car. Another deputy, Deputy Ackley, located Mr. Buttrick and transported Dennis back to the command center. Here's a brief bio of the suspect. Dennis DeShane grew up in the county, Aroostook County, and graduated Madawaska High School in 1976. He went on to earn two degrees, one in agricultural business management from Vermont Technical College and one in languages, majoring in French at Western Washington University. He and his wife Nancy bought a farm sometime in the mid-80s, and that's what he did. Dennis was a farmer. Before he was placed in the back seat of Dan Reed's cruiser for questioning,

Dennis was patted down, standard practice. And it's then that deputies noted the scratches and marks on his body and clothing. They appeared fresh. He had two handprints, fingers pointing down, one on each side of the back of his shoulders on his shirt. He was wearing like a blue t-shirt with jeans. His belt was still undone. He had a bite mark, what appeared to be a bite mark on his left bicep, I believe. His story for the bite mark was, I had been working on the farm all day,

baling hay, and that's just a rash from the hay bale. He said that the fingerprints that were on his back, upper shoulders, was from him shooing flies while in the woods, fishing. There was a bloody knuckle, middle knuckle, that was still freshly bleeding. And he said while he was fishing, he, you know, got into some rough area in the woods and must have banged it on a tree or something. He had an excuse for everything

that we pointed out. There are two things that you'll notice about Dennis. He has an answer for everything, and at least in this case, he often defaults to a lie until he's caught in it. But his motivation for lying, that's often debated. I'll get to that later. Mark Westrom was the detective at the time, and when he arrived at the Mobile Command Center, Dennis DeShane was placed in the backseat of Dan Reed's cruiser. Detective Westrom in the passenger seat, Deputy Reed in the driver's seat, and Dennis DeShane in the backseat behind Westrom.

It was their makeshift interview room. We read Miranda to him. He agreed to speak with an attorney, and then Detective Westrom got out of the vehicle while I spoke with Dennis. Their only goal was to find Sarah Cherry. That was the focus. So in speaking to Dennis, Deputy Reed wanted to establish any connection between Dennis and Sarah. His name was on that receipt, found at the home where she was last seen, and no one could speak to Dennis' whereabouts during the hours she was presumed to go missing. They didn't know what happened to Sarah, not yet, but Dennis could have information that would answer that question.

So you get more bees with honey. And I was very polite with Dennis throughout this entire interview and just wanted to keep getting information from him, hoping to be able to find where she's at, if he knows. Dan started with the obvious, Dennis's truck. First thing, you know, we talked about his truck, trying to determine where his truck may be. He was all confused. He said, you know, I don't know. I got turned around in the woods. I followed the sound of a generator. I came out where, you know, I spoke with this older couple. So we really had no idea. I asked him if his keys were in his truck, if his truck was locked. And he said, no, it's not locked. The keys are in my truck. Then Dan moved on to a new line of questioning

to see if Dennis would place himself at the scene of Sarah Cherry's disappearance. I pointed to the Lewis Hill Road, which was the road that we were parked on while we're at this intersection. And I asked him if he'd ever been up this road today, if he'd been up that road today. He looked at it and said, no. I showed him the documents, and he said they weren't his. So I showed him the auto body receipt again and pointed out that his name is on it and that he owns a red Toyota pickup truck. At that point, he agreed and said, yeah, they are mine.

I asked where he normally keeps those articles in his truck. Yeah, the Toyota truck that he owns is just a two-seater. There's no back seat. So he said that he keeps them always on the passenger seat. So I told him that these articles were found on the Lewis Hill Road, on this road that I had early asked him about. And I asked him again, are you sure you have not been on this road today? And that's when he said, oh, yes, yes, I was on this road. I remember now. He said, I was looking for a place to go fishing. And I spoke with somebody, and they told me that there was a good spot to fish in the opposite direction, meaning back towards the Dead River Road.

So he said I turned around in the driveway and headed back. I had him describe the driveway, and he described the Henkel residence to a T. Perfectly. There. While Dennis' story changed with each new piece of evidence revealed to him by Deputy Reed, what matters is that Dennis clearly described the home where Sarah Cherry was last seen. Dan had been there himself earlier that day. He knew the description to be accurate. Dennis was at the Henkel residence. I said, well, it's funny because that is where these documents were found on the ground. He said, well, you know, I did urinate when I turned around the driveway. I got out and I urinated. So I asked him, I said, do you normally get out the passenger door of your truck? Is your

driver's door broken or something? He said, no. I said, well, you said that they're on the passenger seat. How would these things fall out if you got out the driver's seat? And that's when he said, oh, well, I remember transferring my fishing gear from the front seat to the back of my truck. So when I opened the passenger door, they must have fallen out at the end of of all. Mind you, I never told him where these documents were found. It was him that said, whoever took the girl must have moved them from where he dropped them up near the house. Deputy Reed got out of the cruiser, and with the sheriff now on scene, he briefed him on the conversation he'd just had with Dennis DeShane.

The sheriff, for some reason, was thinking that we were missing a portable radio or something. So he said, look, you know, I want to make sure there's no portable in there while we're not in the car and he's not listening to what's being said over the police radio. So he had us take DeShane out of the car and one of the other deputies searched the back seat of my cruiser and found Dennis' car keys underneath the passenger seat, the front passenger seat. Dennis had just said that he didn't have the keys and that they were with his car somewhere, wherever he left it. The lies and inconsistencies in his ever-changing story were mounting. You know, he had a shit-eating grin on his face and said, oh, you know, you found them. Whether it was another lie to cover his tracks or an honest, forgetful moment, we can't know for sure.

I asked Dan about Dennis' demeanor that night. For a man who seemed to have an answer for everything, did those answers come to Dennis quickly? Did he seem to be searching for the right lie to tell to maintain his story? Or did he have an answer for everything simply because he was telling the truth? What Dan Reed remembered the most about Dennis that night only became clear after seeing countless pictures of him in the decades since. And the one thing that really stands out to me is his eyes. His eyes that night were very large.

They weren't dilated. He didn't appear to be on drugs. They just seemed large, as in fearful. Was he scared? You know, being new, I kind of wrote it off as if I were in his situation, whether I abducted this child or not, I have all these cops around me. I would probably be nervous and scared too. So after my interview with him, I had already told him that, you know, when we're done speaking, that I would drive him around to look for his truck. Well, Detective Westrom and I and Dennis, we drove around.

We got to the point where his truck was later found, and we pulled up to that road on the right and asked him if he recognized this road. I do believe at this point now in my life that he knew that's where his truck was, and he did not want us to find his truck that night because he said no no I definitely know it's not that road let's go forward so we never went down that road it wasn't until much later probably around midnight that one of our part-time deputies used his spotlight and was driving down that road and he's the one that saw a reflection and there was Dennis the Shane, and he's the one that saw a reflection, and there was Dennis the Shane's truck pulled into the woods, maybe 50 yards into the woods,

not even a trail, just drove into the woods. It was after midnight, but they finally had Dennis's truck, the truck at the center of the search since the very beginning. Dan's flashlight illuminated details that are still crystal clear in his mind over 30 years later. I remember distinctly looking in the passenger window, seeing all these small smudged little handprints on the glass. The sheriff's department called in the state police and a canine officer to track whatever trail, whatever clues, that are only discernible to the highly trained nose of a very good dog. The dog went right from Dennis' truck, straight across the dirt road that we were parked on,

and right back into the woods. We never found her that night. The canine wouldn't lead them directly to Sarah. That dog wasn't trained as a cadaver dog. But they knew at this point, they needed to ask Dennis DeShane a few more questions. State Police Detective Hensby questioned Dennis at the Bodenham Police Department. But Dennis wasn't under arrest. At about four in the morning, because we had no body, we didn't have Sarah, they were forced to release Dennis and let him go home. Dennis Deshane got to go home that night, but Sarah Cherry still hadn't made it back to hers. The search for the missing 12-year-old babysitter continued for two days.

Meanwhile, Dennis' truck was processed by the state crime lab. They were looking for fingerprints, hair, anything related to Sarah being in that truck. But they found nothing. You know, the search went on for two days. And on the second day, one officer happened to stumble across. He came across, he could see a little hair sticking. Her ponytail was sticking out of the shallow grave. They moved the soil, and there she was.

I want to warn you that the following description is upsetting. It's about 30 seconds long, if you would like to fast forward. She had about a dozen small penknife stab wounds on her chest and neck. She had a scarf that she had been strangled with. Her pants were pulled down to her ankles. She was laying on her side in the grave and she had two sticks probably about three quarters of an inch in diameter. One protruding out of her rectum and one protruding out of her vagina. And that's the way she was found. No case is easy to talk about. No case is without horrible upsetting details. But when I dig into cases with child victims, I struggle.

In all honesty, I will sometimes avoid covering a case with a young victim, especially when that victim is sexually assaulted, because I don't know if I can handle it. And I recognize that having the choice to skip even just descriptions of trauma that I did not have to endure firsthand is a privilege. These victims, their families, do not have the privilege of skipping that firsthand trauma. I shared my conflicted feelings with Dan about this, and I found his response to be incredibly important. When I first became a detective and I started investigating a lot of child sexual abuse cases,

my daughter was very, very young at the time. It was very, very difficult for me. And how I overcame that was I decided at a certain point that I am going to do the best job I can because this child has already been victimized once. If I make a mistake, then this child is going to be victimized again in the courtroom. And I never wanted that to happen. So that's how I got over the fear of working the child sexual abuse cases. I would have nightmares when I first started. They're children.

They can't defend themselves. But if there's one thing that I've learned over the years about children, children do not lie to get into trouble. So if a child reports something to you, to a school nurse, a counselor, whatever, the likelihood that what that child is saying is true, that they don't lie to get into trouble. People that commit crimes and do bad things, they lie to get out of trouble. And there were so many times I was interviewing the suspect of a child sexual abuse case,

and when I mentioned that to them, they would actually confess. After two full days of searching, the body of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry was found. The state police took over. The evidence linking Dennis Deshane to the home where she was last seen alive, the proximity of his truck from where her body was ultimately discovered in that shallow grave, it was all enough to obtain a warrant for the arrest of Dennis Deshane. Dennis had spent those two days at home, apparently watching the news and the story unfold. As police rolled up to the Deshane farm,

he came outside without prompting and rattled off the first of many incriminating statements. I can't believe I could do such a thing. It must have been somebody else inside of me. I can't believe I could do that. Dennis was transported by state police to the Sagada Hawk County Sheriff's Department, where he was booked. As Detective Westrom assisted Dennis washing the fingerprinting ink off his hands, Dennis again began speaking, unprompted. He said he didn't realize he did this until he saw her face on the news, and then, you know, he realized what had happened. He told his wife he did something wrong or something bad happened. And she wouldn't believe him. She just laughed at him. Detective Westrom made notes of those statements made by Dennis at the Saginaw County Sheriff's Department

on the night of his arrest. The next excerpt is direct from those notes, obtained by a non-profit called Trial and Error through a Freedom of Access request. Oh my god, it should never have happened. Why did I do this? I went home and told my wife that I did something bad and she just laughed at me. I told her I wouldn't kill myself. Besides, that's the easy way out. Please believe me, something inside must have made me do that. Why would I do this? I didn't think it actually happened until I saw her face on the news. Then it all came back to me. I remembered it.

Why did I kill her? What punishment could they ever give me that would equal what I've done? I feel so bad for her. My God, how must her mother and father feel? It was something inside that must have made me do that. How can I live with myself again? I wish I had never gone on that road that day. Why couldn't my truck have broken down instead? I don't think my wife believes me. Why did I let this happen? It should be noted that this was not a transcript, not pulled from an audio recording, but rather the recollection of the detective who identified the statements Dennis was making

to be of particular importance, and so he noted them. But the most important, and what would later become the most contentious aspect of those notes, was the phrase, how did I kill her? That phrase is scrawled along one line of the page, and then the words, how did, are scribbled out. Above them are the words, why did, making the full noted phrase, why did I kill her? The two phrases are distinctly different. How did I kill her might be a man grappling with what police believed to be true and how they could possibly be true. But the phrase, why did I kill her, that has the undertones of guilt. A man asking himself why he took the life of that young girl and trying to understand for himself. Later, as Dennis DeShane was processed at Lincoln

County Jail, he again made incriminating statements, this time to two corrections officers. They later testified to what Dennis told them, quote, you people need to know I'm the one who murdered that girl, and you may want to put me in isolation, unquote. Dennis DeShane's murder trial began in Rockland, Maine on March 6th, 1989. On March 8th, a headline in the Bangor Daily News read, Deshane's drug use revealed by attorney. Reading directly from the first paragraph of that article, quote, Dennis Deshane was wrongly arrested for the brutal murder of a 12-year-old babysitter because he had been furtively using drugs in the wooded area where the body was found, his defense attorney said Tuesday. Unquote. That was his defense. In his opening argument, attorney Thomas Connolly told the jury that Dennis DeShane's drug use was

quote, the dark secret of the case. Unquote. Throughout the trial, the defense leaned on the story that Dennis was getting high in the woods, injecting speed, but that didn't mean he killed Sarah. They also pointed to what they considered to be inconsistencies and omissions in the state's case. Those notes I read from earlier, the ones with the scribbled out words by Detective Westrom, were a clear weak point. As Dan explained to me, the credibility of those notes and the man who wrote them potentially tanked in the eyes of the jury. But the actual evidence against Dennis DeShane was strong. While it's true that no DNA and no fingerprints or evidence of that nature conclusively placed Sarah Cherry inside Dennis' truck, the truck did contain multitudes of evidence.

You know, most jurors, they want to see physical evidence. Well, there was a lot of physical evidence. Just because there was no physical evidence showing that she was in that truck, the physical evidence came from that truck. What was wrapped around her hand, that rope, that rope was cut from a spool of rope that was behind the seat of his truck. Scientifically, they were able to show that one end of that rope from around her hands matched perfectly to one end of the rope that was behind his seat. Now, the other end of the rope behind his seat matched perfectly with a spool of the rope that was hanging in his barn. The scarf that he strangled her with, that came out of his truck. Now, his wife told one of the other detectives, the state police detectives,

that Dennis always has a small little penknife on his key ring. That evening when we found his keys, under the seat of my cruiser, there was no penknife on that. So I think at some point after this took place, before he encountered his encounter with us, I believe he did take that penknife and probably scaled it into the woods. Such a small, small thing. Nobody ever found it. So everything seemed to have come from that truck. Dozens of character witnesses were called,

testifying to the Dennis DeShane they knew. They called him a, quote, gentle, compassionate, peaceful person, unquote. They explained that Dennis was physically repulsed by violence and blood. Dennis DeShane also testified in his own defense. He answered questions on his history of drug use and admitted that he only told lie after lie that day to cover up the fact that he'd been injecting amphetamines. Quote, I was afraid they'd found my truck with a syringe in it. Unquote. Dennis's wife, Nancy, testified too.

She told the jury that she didn't like it when Dennis used. Any marital problems they had always stemmed from his drug use. Nancy said, quote, I told him stop and get some help or I would leave him, unquote. You know, looking at the defense strategy here, I'm not sure how I feel about it. If drug use is the truth, then the truth might have been the best defense for Dennis. But if it's just one of a few angles they could have taken, I can't see how the story of an admitted drug user would play well to a jury, especially when they've heard horrific details of the sexual assault and murder of a 12-year-old girl.

You know, I think his defense attorney, I think his attorney screwed up by eliminating the fishing story and going with the drug story. Why do I say that? Because it was the fishing story that put him on that road. It was the fishing story that had him describe that driveway to a tee. And the fishing story is how his documents fell out of his vehicle. Now, you eliminate all of that and admit that fishing was not an option. It did not happen. He was out in the woods doing drugs. Now, how do you explain how he was on that road? How could he have described that driveway and that home perfectly? And how did his documents fall out of his truck at the end of his driveway, as he said, the roadside of the driveway, without being there to turn around to go fishing?

I think that was a big mistake. I don't believe they still would have, their case would have held water, but I think that they probably should have stuck with the fishing story and not said he was only giving me that story because he was more afraid about admitting that he was in the woods doing drugs. The jury deliberated for 10 hours. On Saturday, March 18, 1989, they returned with their verdict. Dennis DeShane, guilty of two counts of murder, one count of kidnapping, and two counts of gross sexual misconduct. The two counts of murder were later reduced to one, but regardless, Dennis DeShane was sentenced to life in prison. And so began the appeals process in October of the same year.

Attorney Tom Connolly filed an appeal of Dennis' conviction. That appeal was denied. In May 1990, the Maine Supreme Court also denied the appeal of his sentence. Two years later, in May of 1992, Attorney Tom Connolly, presenting evidence that wasn't available at the time of Dennis' initial trial, filed a motion for a new trial. That evidence was DNA found on Sarah Cherry's fingernail clippings.

The DNA was not conclusively found to belong to Dennis. It's possible the DNA belonged to someone else. So while on the surface it is a convincing argument for a new trial, the full scope of that DNA evidence on the fingernail clippings is not as clear of a picture. Dennis could not be excluded from the DNA sample because it was such a minuscule amount of testable DNA. Additionally, the clippers used to collect the fingernails potentially contaminated the sample. In 2014, the defense team had articles of Sarah's clothing tested, including her shirt and her bra. According to the defense, the testing revealed that it was possible, or even likely, that someone other than Dennis DeShane killed Sarah.

Again, however, the testing of the clothing could not exclude Dennis as the one who murdered Sarah. Dennis DeShane maintains his innocence, who murdered Sarah. Dennis DeShane maintains his innocence. And with no confession and no witnesses, we still don't know for sure what happened that day. Dan Reed can now view the case through the lens of his decades of experience as a detective. He may have been green on the day he received the call, but considering all the details now, he's developed his own theory of what might have happened that day, July 6, 1988.

I don't think Sarah put up much of a fight. You know, I really don't. I don't think she had a chance. Nor do I think Dennis DeShane set out to commit this heinous crime on that particular day. Me personally, Dennis did not go into that house. The two doors were wide open because I believe Sarah was out either putting the dogs out on the runner or she was feeding or watering them. She didn't have her shoes and socks on, and she didn't have her jacket.

So she wasn't going anywhere. Dennis, I think it was just an opportunity for him. As he was driving by, he sees this young girl at the end of the driveway. I think that, I think he probably used the fishing story on her. He probably pulled up to her, probably asked her if she knew of a fishing hole. And if she said no, then maybe he said, you know, can you ask your parents? And being young and back in maybe he said, you know, can you ask your parents? And being young and back in the 80s, you know, people weren't as protective as they are today. I could see Sarah probably saying, oh, you know, I don't live here. I'm babysitting. I'm not

familiar with the area. And I think at that point in time, I think Dennis grabbed her and stuffed her in the passenger seat. And that's when the documents fell out. I've learned again and again that the simplest version of events is usually true. stuff during the passenger seat, and that's when the documents fell out. I've learned again and again that the simplest version of events is usually true. Or as Dan Reed puts it in words I appreciate, If it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, it's a skunk. But in the decades since Dennis DeShane's conviction, one group has rallied around the skunk in question, and their theory is undeniably more complex. Trial and Error is a non-profit dedicated to the, quote,

outcry for justice in the Dennis DeShane case, unquote. The group is comprised of an eight-person board of directors, all friends or family members of Dennis DeShane. In full transparency, I did not reach out to Trial and Error directly in enough time to include any new or original statements from them in this episode. However, their site trialanderrordennis.org is a robust source of case files, transcripts, documents, articles, reposted news stories, and other sources pointing directly to their view of the case. It is clear, they believe Dennis was wrong and commentary of the evidence against Dennis, as well as their own assertions of his innocence, to determine the

primary pillars of their argument. First, evidence that would have posed reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury during the trial was either not available at the time or not permitted. From trialanderrordennis.org, quote, The trial judge ruled against the defense's request for DNA testing, which, finally conducted years later, identified DNA under the victim's thumbnail as belonging to a male who was not Dennis, unquote. The group accused the state of interfering with attempts for retrial based on that DNA evidence, saying that, quote, the courts and the main attorney general's office have blocked every attempt to give a jury a chance to consider all the evidence in a retrial. This resistance has included incineration of likely valuable DNA evidence

shortly after Dennis filed a motion for testing," unquote. Trial and error also asserts that Sarah's time of death would have cleared Dennis of any involvement in her murder. They say he would have been in police custody at the time of her death. Now, Sarah's time of death was given as a range, not a finite time. It was based on the passing of rigor mortis and the state of decomposition. The medical examiner testified that she died 30 hours or more after his examination of her at the location in the woods. That time frame

would have been consistent with the time of her disappearance. The trial and error group lists numerous line items identified as, quote, questionable state actions or conduct, unquote. You can read them all on the site if you're interested, but the one I was most concerned with was listed as Now there's a full subpage of information about an alleged alternative suspect in the case of Sarah Cherry. I have decided not to discuss the alternate suspect theory or give the name of that person. You can find the discussion and the assertions made by the trial and error group linked in the show notes for this episode. Is it possible that Dennis DeShane was framed. Dan Reed walked me through a few of the frame-up scenarios he's considered over the last 30 plus years. The scenarios would have involved finding Dennis's truck,

selecting the specific documents with Dennis's name printed on them, cutting the precise length of rope they needed to bind Sarah's hands, going to the house where Sarah was babysitting, but first even knowing that Sarah would be alone babysitting at someone else's house, and then planting those documents, bringing Sarah back to the location of Dennis' truck, along with other logistically challenging steps, all in broad daylight. And you know, articles that I've read with trial and error, I mean, they are so adamant about saying, you know, the cops focused on one person and one person only. Well, you know, that is kind of the rule of thumb. Until you can rule that person out, you don't waste a lot of time and resources hunting down somebody else.

You need to rule your number one suspect. He is the number one suspect based on the circumstances. So you don't just start looking into other people until you've been able to rule him out 100%. I can honestly say it was impossible to rule Dennis DeShane out of this case. The Cherry family found strength. Debra, Sarah's mom, is still married to Sarah's stepdad, and together they created the Cherry Camp Fund. The fund helps cover the expenses for kids to attend a Christian summer camp in Maine. There's also a scholarship fund in Sarah's name at Mount Ararat High School.

Throughout the appeals process, the family endured the trauma again and again. Reverend Robert Doerr, a longtime source of guidance and faith and support for the Cherry family, had this to say in 2010, quote, the family was put through over 20 years of this. First of all, the murder itself, and then to have to endure time and time again the appeals and the confrontations they have dealt with from the people who support Mr. Deshane. There are a lot of families that would not have been able to withstand it. They stand as one." Unquote. Sarah's grandparents, Peg and Bud Cherry, told the Sun-Journal in 2005 that they keep photos of Sarah hanging on the walls of their home. Peg said, quote,

we do it to make her feel closer to us. It's not a matter of forgetting, because we will never forget Sarah. Unquote. quote. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Links to all of my sources for this case are listed at darkdowneast.com. And I owe a massive thank you to Dan Reed for his help in telling this story. Dan, I'm honored and humbled to be trusted to share your words about this case. And to your daughter, Heather, thank you for listening to this show. And thank you for sharing it with your dad. It means so much to me. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends

who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.