Cold Case File: Man Found Guilty of Killing Girl after 34 Years

Crime doesn’t pay these days with the use of DNA. After 34 years, justice comes to a killer and rapist, Jerome Barrett, 61 .

. The killer of college student, Sarah Des Prez, was found and now has been convicted and sentenced to life for killing her in 1975. The grief of a family has been described as awful, whether a young child, like Caylee Anthony or JonBenet Ramsey or an adult daughter like Natalee Holloway is killed. The terrible grief of the Ramseys was increased by accusations and rumors that either the mother, Patsy Ramsey, or the father, John Ramsey, had killed their own daughter. DNA proved they didn’t. . Natalee’s mother Beth Holloway Twitty still doesn’t know what happened to her daughter who disappeared in Aruba and where there has been speculation that Natalee was killed. In the case of Caylee Anthony a trial is pending with the mother accused of killing her. What evidence will be used in this case is still relatively unknown. Not knowing what happened and who the killer was of a child has been described by John Walsh, founder of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and host of America’s Most Wanted, as terrible. His own son Adam’s killer, Ottis Toole, was brought to justice in December of 2008 after 27 years. Now a family in Tennessee has some relief, by learning who killed the young Sarah and that the perpetrator is now being punished after decades of wondering. DNA is often touted for helping free folks, but it’s used to convict as well. In this case it was the DNA match that did it in for Jerome Barrett. Investigators said he showed no emotion when he was arrested and none when the sentence was read. Barrett was a convicted rapist who had been in prison from 1976 until 2002. He had been accused of three sexual assaults but only convicted for a rape. While in jail he talked with a fellow inmate about killing a young woman in 1975, unable to remember why. The inmate, Sheldon Anter, reported Barrett’s confession. Another family may have some relief in July. Barrett will be going to trial for killing and raping 9-year-old Marcia Trimble, who was found strangled in a garage near her Green Hills home also in 1975. JonBenet’s killer has never been found. Natalee Holloway remains missing and what happened to her a mystery. Sometimes real life has more drama than television shows, as the case of Barrett reveals.