Rita St. Peter's Killer Was Finally Brought To Justice After More Than 30 Years Thanks To DNA From A Cigarette Butt.

Rita St. Peter

In July of 1980, Rita was 20 years old and had a 3-year-old daughter. She was staying with friends in Anson and working at Ken’s Family Drive-In, a restaurant in Skowhegan, Maine.

On July 4th, Rita had bee drinking at a tavern in Madison County. She was last seen sometime after midnight crossing a bridge over the Kennebec River from Madison to Anson.

The next day, 18-year-old Timothy Dyke was exercising his horses when he found Rita's partially clad body on trial off of Campground Road in Anson. She was lying on her back. Rita had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned in the head with a tire iron before being run over with a truck. She had a bloody red tire tread mark across her cheek.

Witnesses told investigators they had seen Jay Mercier alone in his truck near the tavern when Rita left. Investigators went to Mercier's house to talk with him, when they arrived, he was washing a red truck with a hose. Mercier denied knowing and killing Rita but agreed to let the investigators take his truck to examine it. Investigators took prints of his tire treads. Even though the treads look similar to those found at the scene of Rita's death,  there was not enough evidence to arrest Mercier.

Fast forward to 2005. Maine State Police Detective Bryant Jacques and Maine State Police Crime Lab forensic analyst Alicia Wilcox began their investigation of this “cold case.”

In 2009, DNA was extracted from sperm cells found in biological evidence taken in 1980 from Rita's body. Jacques established contact with Mercier through a series of casual conversations at Mercier’s home. 

In January of 2010, after one of these conversations, Jacques collected a cigarette butt that Mercier had discarded on the side of the road. The DNA obtained from Mercier’s cigarette butt matched that found on the Rita's body. The DNA match enabled police to get a warrant allowing them to swab Mercier’s mouth for more DNA and other tests.

On September 16, 2011, Mercier was charged by indictment with the intentional or knowing murder, or depraved indifference murder, of Rita St. Peter. 56-year-old Mercier entered a plea of not guilty to murder in state court in Somerset County, Maine.

The court conducted a six-day jury trial beginning on September 20th, 2012. After deliberating for less than two hours, a jury of five men and nine women, including two alternates, returned a verdict finding Mercier guilty of intentional or knowing murder. Mercier was sentenced to seventy years in prison.