Unsolved Mysteries Rewind 89: The Murder of Joyce McLain
About this episode
The episode discusses the tragic murder of Joyce McLain and the long road to justice for her case.
The tragic murder of 16-year-old Joyce McLain shocked the small town of East Millinocket, Maine, in August 1980. A popular honors student, cheerleader, saxophonist, and aspiring soccer player, Joyce vanished during a routine evening jog near Schenck High School. Her partially clothed body was discovered two days later in a wooded area behind the soccer fields—beaten to death with blunt force trauma, hands bound with a blue cloth, and a telephone insulator likely the murder weapon. No sexual assault occurred, and heavy thunderstorms washed away potential evidence, leaving no fingerprints or usable DNA. The case haunted the community for nearly 38 years, featured on Unsolved Mysteries in 1989, spurring tips but no immediate resolution. Philip Scott Fournier, then 19, emerged as the perpetrator through multiple confessions—to family, a pastor, coworkers, and notably a janitor in 1989—revealing non-public details like the weapon and Joyce’s condition. Despite claims of unreliability due to a brain injury from a nearby truck crash (hours after the murder), he was convicted in a 2018 bench trial and sentenced to 45 years. Appeals failed, and he remains incarcerated. In this…
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