Arrest in Marcia Trimble Case

Last Saturday the newspaper announced there was an arrest in the Marcia Trimble case. Anyone who has ever lived in Nashville for any time has probably heard of the murder of Marcia Trimble in 1975. She was a 9-year-old girl who was delivering Girl Scout cookies in her Green Hills neighborhood one evening and never returned. Her body was found on Easter Sunday, 33 days later, in a neighbor's garage. It has been said this was when Nashville lost its innocence. The murder touched and shocked everyone. Everyone who had sons of a certain age in the neighborhood were touched and frightened as these sons were questioned as to their wherabouts on that night. No leads ever amounted to anything.

The man arrested in the case is Jerome Barrett, the same man who was arrested recently in the murder of Sarah Sally Des Prez, a Vanderbilt student at the time, who was murdered about two weeks before Marcia. Both were in my sphere, but I didn't really know either of them. At the time, I don't remember anyone even connecting the crimes. One was an adult and one was a child--one was murdered near Vanderbilt campus and one near her Green Hills home, even though the Des Prez home was also in Green Hills. But now looking back, it would make sense to at least think of the possibility the two may have been committed by the same person. What is very peculiar, however, is that when the police searched the neighbor's garage previously, Marcia's body was not there, but 33 days later it was???? That is what has never made sense. Surely you would not miss something like that in a search.

But having the answer would bring some peace to these tragedies, even though it can never bring them back.