EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Maine State Police investigators returned Thursday to where the bludgeoned body of a local teenager was found 35 years ago to search for more evidence, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said Thursday.
“We have 10 to a dozen people there doing a search in the area of where the body was found,” McCausland said.
The body of 16-year-old Joyce McLain, a sophomore at Schenck High School, was found on school grounds on Aug. 10, 1980, two days after she disappeared while jogging in her neighborhood.
“We’re not going into specifics of what we’re looking for,” McCausland said of Thursday’s search. “Joyce’s mother was notified this morning.”
Pamela McLain, who has been very vocal in advocating for more work on her daughter’s homicide, worked with volunteers to get a cold case squad started. That effort led to LD 1121, a law enacted earlier this year that provides $491,662 annually to fund two state police detective positions and a forensic chemist for the three-member team tasked with tackling the state’s cold cases. A case is typically considered a cold case after two years.
The cold case squad is scheduled to be formed this month, but it is not involved in the case currently, McCausland said.
State police interviewed more than a dozen suspects in McLain’s death and worked thousands of hours on the case over the years but have never made an arrest.
“This case has been continuously investigated since the day she died,” McCausland said.
If investigators found any new evidence, it was not immediately known, he said.
“I have not received a report from the scene,” McCausland said.