Charges Filed in Marcia Trimble Case

The Nashville District Attorney’s office announced today that charges have been filed in one of the city’s oldest unsolved murder cases.

A Davidson County grand jury has indicted Jerome Sidney Barrett on the 1975 murder of then 9-year-old Marcia Trimble. She was out delivering Girl Scout cookies when she disappeared. Her body was found a month later in a garage in her Green Hills neighborhood.

While Metro Police have said in the past they’ve collected DNA evidence from suspects and from semen samples on Trimble’s body, Deputy DA Tom Thurman says his office and police detectives won’t reveal details about the pending case. He says that includes what ‘scientific evidence’ led to Barrett’s indictment.

Thurman says for his office, the work is just beginning.

“Mr. Barrett has the right to a trial, a fair trial, so this is just the start of the procedure. The satisfaction will come if, in fact, Mr. Barrett is convicted, if a jury of 12 people determine he’s guilty in this particular case. That’s when the true satisfaction in this case will come.”

Barrett is already in jail, serving while he awaits trial for a separate murder charge–the 1975 death of a Vanderbilt University student, Sarah Des Prez. He cannot be charged with the death penalty since it was suspended during the time Barrett allegedly committed both murders.