It took more than 30 years for Michael Hand to be charged with the 1986 murder of Tracy Gilpin in Plymouth’s Myles Standish State Forest.
And it took another eight years for Hand, arrested in 2018, to stand trial for her killing.
A Plymouth County jury is finally hearing testimony in Brockton Superior Court in a case centered on statements Hand made in jail and to police. But the nearly 40 years since the 15-year-old’s death has made the case tough for prosecutors and defense lawyers alike.
Some police officers are too sick to testify — others have been retired for many years. The defendant himself, now 69, uses a walker to enter and exit the courtroom.
It was hard to reconcile testimony last week from two of Gilpin’s former boyfriends, now in their late 60s, who described their teen exploits from decades ago.
They remembered few details of their relationships with Gilpin, only that they didn’t assault her and they didn’t know who did.
“It was a long time ago,” one of them, Alan Thomas, said repeatedly on the stand.
The only thing apparently unchanged by time was the 73-pound rock Hand is alleged to have dropped on the Kingston teen’s head in October 1986.
Two state troopers on Friday hoisted the giant rock and showed it to the jury.
Plymouth county prosecutors Shanan Buckingham and Jennifer Sprague allege Hand, then 29, killed Gilpin with the rock after she rejected his advances.
Hand’s defense lawyer, Craig Tavares, says there were no witnesses, no DNA or other forensic evidence linking him to the crime. He said police didn’t investigate other possible suspects, and took advantage of his client’s mental issues and low intelligence.
In questioning Friday, Tavares sought to raise the possibility another man, Henry Meinholz, killed Gilpin. Meinholz was convicted of raping and killing 13-year-old Melissa Benoit and burying her in the basement of his Kingston home in 1990. He died in prison in 2000.
It wasn’t until 2018 — when Gilpin’s sister Kerry was head of the Massachusetts State Police — that a renewed investigation led investigators to Hand.
Gilpin, a freshman at Silver Lake Regional High School, was seen around 11:20 p.m. on Oct. 1, 1986, walking home from a convenience store after spending the night at a party.
Her body was found several weeks later in a shallow grave near the state forest’s main entrance on Long Pond Road. The case went nowhere for three decades.
Then in 2017, investigators discovered evidence suggesting Gilpin and others had spent some time at Hand’s house prior to her murder, according to court records.
Hand is accused of dropping the rock on the Kingston girl’s head the night she died and then in covering her body with leaves near the entrance to the state forest.
Hand, who lived in Kingston at the time, has been held without bail at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility since his 2018 arrest in North Carolina, where he had moved years ago.
The case had been scheduled for trial three times, but it had been repeatedly postponed while prosecutors and defense lawyers filed dueling motions.
The defense got a boost in October 2024 when a state Appeals Court ruled an alleged confession Hand made to his pastor in North Carolina was inadmissible on grounds he was “disturbed,” “distressed” and “desperate” when he spoke to his pastor seven years ago.
The case may now hinge on other statements Hand allegedly made in jail and to police.
He allegedly confessed to a fellow inmate at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility and made incriminating statements to police.
Tavares said Hand had “cognitive issues,” making him susceptible to police persuasion.
As of late last week, the judge was still considering motions filed by Tavares – including one to allow jurors to see the reports of two original investigators in the case.
The investigators, a state trooper then assigned to the district attorney’s office, and a Plymouth police detective, are too ill to testify, court records show.
But their reports suggest they considered other suspects, and had other information helpful to Hand’s case.
Tavares said delays in the prosecution of the case made it impossible to take depositions from the ailing investigators.
“If the Commonwealth had provided notice during the seven plus years of this case, instead of before the fourth trial date in late February and early March of 2026, then the defense could have sought depositions to preserve the observations/testimony,” the defense attorney wrote in his motion to Brockton Superior Court judge Katie Rayburn.
Tavares asked the judge to let the jury hear evidence from their old police reports even though the officers won’t appear in the courtroom.
Prosecutors argued the old reports were “hearsay” and not “critical” to his defense.
He also filed motions to include DNA evidence from Gilpin’s bikini bottoms and jeans that genetic testing showed did not come from Hand.
The trial is expected to continue through this week and go to the jury late this week or early next week.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.