WASHINGTON (NEWS CENTER Maine) - The trial for a man charged with a 37-year-old murder is underway in Bangor.
Phillip Scott Fournier is standing trial for the 1980 murder of 16-year-old Joyce McLain in East Millinocket.
RELATED ► McLain's mom reacts to murder arrest
He was arrested in 2016, but was a suspect back in 1980. Before that arrest, the case sat cold for 36 years.
In the state of Maine, there are currently more than 80 unsolved murders.
Linda Perkins' husband Ludger went missing 42 years ago.
His body was never found, and his case is considered an unsolved homicide.
PRESS HERALD ► Hunter’s disappearance decades ago haunts family
Perkins says waiting for answers has never gotten easier - but seeing arrests in cases like Joyce McLain's are giving her a renewed sense of hope.
“When I heard that they arrested somebody, I was like ‘oh there is hope,’” she said.
Perkins doesn't usually watch the news - but says she's been glued to it lately, following Phillip Fournier's trial.
Though she's never met them, she can't help but feel close to Joyce McLain's family. “There's a lot in common there,” she explained. “The not knowing, there's no justice. There's pain, heartache.”
Perkins knows that pain and heartache all too well. After her husband Ludger went missing, she was left alone at 19-years-old, with three infant children. She's spent more than two-thirds of her life dwelling on what happened. She says she still thinks about Ludger every day.
Belanger's mysterious disappearance has baffled the Maine Warden Service - and even sparked a chapter in their new book, “Open Season: True Stories of the Maine Warden Service.”
Perkins believes her case is eerily similar to McLain's - and says she's frustrated to watch it take 36 years to arrest Fournier. “Why did It have to take so long when it's the same person that confessed to it so many years ago?” she said.
Despite the anger, waiting, and frustration - Perkins won't give up. “I'm not going away,” she said.
Perkins lobbied for the creation of a cold case unit within state police, which came to fruition in 2015.
She's now an activist for Marsy's law, which is a proposal to get crime victims and families more rights and protections.