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Timeline Of Marcia Trimble Case

POSTED: 12:25 pm CST December 3, 2007
UPDATED: 3:49 pm CDT July 3, 2008

  • Dec. 30, 1972: Jerome Barrett accused of sexually assaulting woman in Memphis

  • Sept. 1973: Barrett was indicted for intent to commit rape (Unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman)

  • Feb. 4, 1974: Barrett is arrested on that charge, convicted and sentenced to three years

  • Aug. 14, 1974: Barrett was released on parole

  • Aug. 21: Vandy student is walking at 19th and Grand Avenue. Two men, raped her in the bushes near the Upper Room…took watch and ring

  • Dec. 2/22: Two rapes occur in one weekend. The Tudor Inn is robbed, and a woman is taken from there. Another is abducted at 20th and Terrace and taken to Granny White Pike and driven back to original area.

  • Dec. 16, 1974: Newspaper Printing Corp employee is raped in her car in Gulch area of downtown Nashville. Suspect told her he had knife and asked for money

  • Oct. 24, 1974: Woman, 67, raped in rental office on Church Street in Nashville, bound and gagged

  • Aug. 24, 1974: Two men broke in and assaulted a housewife. Threw a pillow over her head. No race or description given.

  • Feb. 2, 1975: Sarah Des Prez was killed at her apartment in Nashville. She was found by her father and brother. Her father was a well-known professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University.

  • Feb. 17, 1975: Audrey Judy Porter, a Belmont student is raped at her apartment.

  • Feb. 21, 1975: Pregnant girl in East Nashville is held at gunpoint and robbed getting into her car. She had another child in her car at Lischey Market. They stole tape player and tapes.

  • Feb. 25, 1975: Marcia Trimble, 9, was reported missing from her Green Hills home. Her body was later discovered. Evidence led police to believe that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

  • March 9, 1975: Couple held hostage/woman raped 121 Acklen Park

  • March 12, 1975: Barrett is charged with 2nd degree burglary, forced entry of Belmont rape on Feb. 17

  • Feb. 13, 1976: Barrett was convicted in Belmont case and sentenced to 60 years in prison

  • Aug. 28, 1979: Jeffrey Womack is arrested on murder charges and released on a $25,000 bond.

  • Aug. 28, 1990: DNA is submitted to FBI, semen is found on clothing, and samples were taken from six people... five of whom were teens at the time, and one of whom was an adult. (Jeffrey Womack, was one of the ones originally charged.)

  • 1994 - According to information obtained by Channel 4, in 1994, evidence from the Trimble case was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were at least two DNA samples from the scene, but there has never been any kind of match.

  • Aug. 11, 2002: Barrett was paroled

  • March, 2004: FBI took another look at the case. Blood, hair, clothing and other evidence was examined. More than 100 blood samples existed, but not all of those were sent to the FBI.

  • Nov. 20, 2007: Jerome Sydney Barrett, 60, was charged with murder in the slaying of Des Prez in 1975.

  • Nov. 27, 2007: A Nashville woman said she was able to escape an attack by Barrett on March 11, 1975. The woman, who asked to be identified only as Judy, said her attack was a distant memory until she saw Barrett's face on the news again. When police came to the apartments the night of the attack looking for a man fitting Judy's description, they found Barrett at the laundry room trying to break in. They said he was armed with a loaded gun, knife and a change of clothes. Shortly after, they were able to link him to the rape of a Belmont student.

  • Nov. 28, 2007: An anonymous woman said Barrett attacked her on her front porch on Feb. 23, 1975. The date the woman described was two days before Marcia Trimble disappeared.

  • June 6, 2008: Jerome Barrett officially indicted and charged in death of Marcia Trimble.

  • July 2, 2008: Jerome Barrett pleads not guilty to the murder of Marcia Trimble and is appointed a public defender.


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