Thirty-eight years have passed since Joyce McLain’s body was discovered in East Millinocket. On Monday, state prosecutors told a jury that there is no doubt that it was Philip Scott Fournier who killed the 16-year-old Schenck High School student.
McLain’s body was found behind the high school athletic fields, where she often jogged. During a jury-waived trial before Superior Court Justice Ann Murray in Bangor, lawyers for Fournier, 57, said while their client had been in East Millinocket the day the girl went missing, the state could not produce physical evidence that tied him to the murder.
Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin said Fournier had admitted to killing the girl, but was not taken seriously by police because he frequently offered conflicting accounts of his activities.
Defense attorneys told the court that Fournier had sustained a traumatic brain injury in a truck accident within hours of McLain’s disappearance and that it had affected his memory.
The trial continues tomorrow in Penobscot County Superior Court.