NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A jury on Saturday morning found Jerome Barrett guilty on two counts of second-degree murder in the death of a Nashville Girl Scout in 1975.

The jury recommended that Barrett, 62, receive a sentence of 44 years in prison for each count.

The jury deliberated for about seven hours on Friday, but did not reach a verdict until Saturday morning. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 4.

After the verdict was read, Marcia's mother, Virginia Trimble-Ritter, said she never gave up hope that her daughter's killer would be found, and she only hoped that it would be during her lifetime.

"We only wanted the truth," she said. "I think today we got the truth -- some of it anyway, at least most of it."

Barrett is currently serving a life sentence for the 1975 rape and murder of a Vanderbilt University coed.

The jury, consisting of seven women and five men, left a Nashville courtroom at 1:40 p.m. Friday to begin the deliberations.

Judge Steve Dozier sent the jury back to their hotel for the night at 8:30 p.m. on Friday. They resumed deliberations at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Barrett waived his right to take the stand in his defense during the trial. The prosecution team rested their case on Thursday afternoon. It took less than an hour for the defense to present their case, which involved trying to complicate the child's time and day of death.

The Trimble case is regarded as the most notorious crime in Nashville history and was a cold case until last year.

Two witnesses who were called to the stand Thursday were inmates who spent time in prison with Barrett. Inmates Sheldon Anter and Andrew Napper both testified that Barrett confessed to killing Marcia.

Anter testified that Barrett confessed at least four separate times while they were both in a Davidson County jail that he killed Marcia. Anter said Barrett made the confession while watching television, on a roof, in a recreation room, in their jail cells and also in a shower.

"(Barrett) said his DNA was on Marcia Trimble," testified Anter. "He said he didn't rape her (but) killed her."

Anter is in jail for allegedly stealing from a Home Depot. He is facing deportation to his home country of Trinidad.

The court was also shown surveillance video of a prison fight between Barrett and another inmate over whether Barrett was a child killer.

Other witnesses who were called to the stand Thursday included DNA experts who the prosecution hopes will validate samples taken from Marcia's body.

There were still a lot of unanswered questions in this case, and the defense had hoped that would help their client.

Was Marcia in the neighbor's garage the entire month she was missing? That garage was searched by police and dogs more than once before the child's body was later found there.
If Marcia wasn't there during the first search, could Barrett sneak her body inside that house without being noticed? No one ever reported seeing a black man in the predominantly white neighborhood when the child was killed.

On Wednesday, Marcia's mother testified tearfully at the trial as attorneys on both sides sparred over DNA evidence.

Trimble-Ritter was the first witness Wednesday. Trimble was referred to in court by her deceased husband's surname although she has remarried.

Trimble-Ritter choked up on the stand intermittently as she described the last time she saw her daughter and the details surrounding Marcia's disappearance. Asked to identify a picture of her daughter, she choked back tears and said, "That's my Marcia."

"I started praying that day, and I haven't stopped," she said later.

Police found the girl's body in a neighbor's garage on Easter Sunday 33 days after she vanished.

In opening statements, a public defender said jurors will have more questions than answers by the end of the trial.

Deputy Public Defender Laura Dykes said that semen discovered in the girl's vagina did not match Barrett's.

"The question of who killed Marcia Trimble is a question that has confounded and plagued Nashville police for 34 years," she said. " ... We believe it is not solved."

In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney General Tom Thurman said DNA evidence from the girl's shirt does link Barrett to the crime.

He also told jurors they will hear testimony from a prison inmate claiming Barrett, who has a history of sex crimes, has admitted to killing Marcia.

Police have said DNA evidence linked Barrett to the slaying after he became a suspect in 2007 in another case, also dating to 1975.

Earlier this year, a jury convicted Barrett in the murder of a Vanderbilt University coed and sentenced him to life in prison.

In cross-examination Wednesday, the defense began suggesting that one or some of the boys in the Trimbles' neighborhood at the time could be responsible for the girl's death. This came as attorneys on both sides argued over the DNA evidence, which was not available at the time of her death.

Former state medical examiner Jerry Francisco told the jury that he believed vaginal swabs taken from the girl were contaminated by its handlers. Scientists at the time didn't know that by handing the swabs they could cross-contaminate the lab specimen with their own DNA, he said.

Francisco testified that there was no evidence of vaginal penetration but there were signs of sperm inside the girl. Under cross-examination, he acknowledged that he remembered telling police that it could have come from an undeveloped penis, meaning a child.