Family of 1980 murdered Lawrence girl still seeking justice

LAWRENCE, Mass. — This week’s arrest in the decades old Lawrence murder of Melissa Tremblay has the family of another murdered Lawrence girl hoping for justice.

Cheryl Noone was fifteen years old when her body was found near railroad tracks in Methuen on October 22, 1980.

There has never been an arrest.

Now, with the arrest of 74 year old Marvin McClendon in Alabama for the 1988 murder of Melissa Tremblay, Cheryl’s family is hoping their might be resolution in her case too.

“I just know our whole family was always looking. Her mother got sick over it. Her mother died over it,” Patricia Holt, Cheryl’s cousin told me.

Cheryl Noone was mostly deaf and depended on a hearing aid.

“She was a very, very strong little girl. She had a lot of power behind her,” remembered Barbara Vietor, Cheryl’s aunt.

On the day she disappeared, Cheryl Noone intended to walk from her house on Brookfield Street in Lawrence, to her cousin’s house on Farnhum Street.

She never arrived.

Cheryl’s path would have taken her through the same Lawrence railyard where Melissa Tremblay’s body was found eight years later.

Cheryl’s body was found the day after she disappeared, in the vicinity of Pine Street in Methuen in Railroad Square, about three and a half miles away.

“I was told later that she was found raped, strangled, and her underwear around her neck,” Patricia Holt said. “I’m sure it was horrible for her, because if her hearing aids came off, she wouldn’t be able to hear anything. She really didn’t have a loud voice, so screaming would not have helped her.”

Cheryl’s family is stunned by the similarities between Cheryl’s murder and the murder of Melissa Tremblay.

The Essex County District Attorney’s Office told me the two case are not related, but they will not say why they are not related.

Cheryl’s family is determined that they will get some answers soon.

" How could a person in this world,  do this to an invalid child? I would not want  to see anyone get away with it, let’s put it that way,” Barbara Vietor said.

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