This is Wrong!

On February 25, 1975, something happened in my neighborhood that changed Nashville, and me, forever. A nine-year-old girl was taken from near her home, raped, murdered and her body hidden in a neighbor’s garage.

For over a month, Nashville searched for her. Every day, even as an eight-year-old child, I eagerly read the newspapers to see if there was any news as to her whereabouts.

I remember that Easter Sunday after she disappeared, coming home from church and seeing a commotion just down the street from my home. My dad drove toward it, and my mom rolled down the window and asked a man standing there what had happened. "They found the little Trimble girl," he said. When my mom asked him if she was alive, he shook his head grimly.

I didn’t realize at the time how much this affected me. If something like that could happen to a little girl near my own age, in my own neighborhood, what was to keep it from happening to me? I was afraid to play outside, go get the mail or even go upstairs alone to my bedroom at night. My parents, of course, lived with this fear too. I lost the innocence of believing that I would always be safe and protected. To this day, I am a very fearful person.

I wasn’t the only one affected by all this. There were other children and parents who lived right on her street, who knew her well, who played with her after school and even on the day it happened. Their lives would never be the same. Teenage boys in the area became suspects, particularly one named Jeffrey Womack, who I knew personally. He remained their #1 suspect for over thirty years. One can imagine how this affected his life, his ability to relate to others or find a job, when he was constantly being tied to this well-publicized case. The biggest problem was that his DNA did not match the DNA found on Marcia Trimble’s body. This fact was concealed for many years.

All this is nothing compared to what her family went through. Losing a daughter they loved and protected, not knowing what happened to her, and then finding out the worst. They would never again tell her good night, attend her high school graduation, her wedding, or hold the grandchildren they may have had. They endured the added trauma of being accused by some of being involved in the crime. Her father turned to alcohol for comfort. Her parents later divorced, and her father died shortly afterward. Marcia had a brother who was, no doubt, also deeply wounded by it all.

And let’s not forget Marcia herself, the pain and fear she must have endured in the last moments of her life, and then having all her hopes and dreams for life stolen from her before she even reached her teenage years. Because of what someone did to her. For sport, apparently.

I may sound angry. I am. This was a case that affected me deeply, and yesterday it all came up again when I saw this article.

In 2007 Jerome Barrett was arrested for the rape and murder of a college student in the area just prior to Marcia’s disappearance. When they took DNA samples from him for that case, they also compared them to the DNA found on Marcia’s body. After 32 long years, they had a match.

Now Barrett’s attorney thinks this evidence should be thrown out because there was some misleading language in the search warrant when they took his DNA. TOO BAD! If this man is truly innocent, that’s one thing, but if he indeed committed this heinous crime, he needs to be punished accordingly, regardless of any small mistakes investigators may have made.

When O.J. Simpson walked away from his murder trial a free man, I lost faith in the justice system of our country. It seems we have turned to ignoring the rights of victims and giving them all to the criminals. Rapists, murderers and others who have committed horrible crimes have gone free because of some small technicality. Meanwhile, the victims or their surviving families are left to helplessly wonder why there is no justice for them. What is wrong with this picture?

The judge hasn’t ruled yet in this case, but if he chooses to throw out this important piece of evidence against Barrett (now in prison for murdering the college student) on this technicality, I believe he will have a lot of Nashvillians to answer to.