Marcia Trimble

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Marcia Trimble (1966 – 1975) was nine years old when she left her family's Green Hills home in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 25, 1975. Marcia was delivering a neighbor some Girl Scout cookies. Her body was found 33 days later on Easter Sunday (March 30) in a garage just 200 yards from her family's house. Postmortem tests showed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

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[edit] Unsolved Murder Investigation

Her disappearance and murder remain unsolved. In the summer of 1979, Jeffrey Womack, who was 15 at the time of the murder, was arrested for his suspected involvement with the case. Womack had boasted to friends that he had murdered and raped Trimble. According to some neighborhood kids, Womack had been seen with Trimble the day she disappeared. Womack also told an undercover investigator seemingly incriminating details about the murder. He was, however, able to pass two polygraph tests upon interrogation. The case against Womack was dropped in 1980 due to lack of evidence.

DNA samples were taken from semen collected from Marcia's body. The DNA was stored improperly and deteriorated over time. The DNA sample can be used to exclude suspects, but an exact match can never be confirmed due to the sample deterioration. Police have collected DNA samples from 96 suspects, including Womack. These 96 samples have been ruled out as matches.

[edit] Impact on Nashville

The story is highlighted by the Nashville media on the anniversaries of her disappearance and the discovery of her body. Many longtime Nashville residents are still intrigued by the case.

Metro Nashville Police Captain Mickey Miller commented on the case:

In that moment, Nashville lost its innocence. Our city has never been, and never will be, the same again. Every man, woman and child knew that if something that horrific could happen to that little girl, it could happen to anyone.

[edit] Statement of Captain Mickey Miller - Released to the Public on April 17, 2002

The TBI Crime Lab has been involved in attempting to enhance the DNA evidence in the Marcia Trimble Murder case since the year 2000. This newest effort has come about because of advancements in DNA technology. The result of their endeavor is that their experts have been able to greatly increase the odds of a positive match if, or rather when, we are able to produce a suspect whose DNA matches the known sample.

TBI Director Larry Wallace and Assistant Director of Forensics Mark Gwynn provided the assistance on this case through the efforts of Special Agents Joe Minor and Mike Turbeville, who we feel are among the best in their field in DNA technology. Special Agents Minor and Turbeville have devoted countless hours to resolving this case and they have our respect and gratitude for their efforts.

The TBI has informed us that if we can locate a suspect who matches the DNA we currently have isolated, the odds will be 1 out of 41.7 billion that the person identified was the contributor of the evidence found on “little” Marcia Trimble. This would make it virtually impossible for it to be anyone else.

There is other DNA evidence also present that could indicate more than one contributor, but it is so degraded that at this time that it can only be used for elimination purposes, not matches. It is our hope that in time, as technology continues to advance, this material can be identified as well. Additional testing is being conducted on Marcia’s clothing to determine if any usable DNA evidence is available.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that no one has matched the single DNA sample at this time. Over the past 13 years we have taken 96 samples from individuals, most of whom have willingly cooperated because they want to see a positive resolution to this matter.

While we cannot rule out many of the individuals on the degraded material, we have been able to eliminate many as well, which has greatly assisted us in the focus this investigation has taken over the years. Still no one has matched the sample that can be used to positively identify one of the suspects.

Other new developments have come from Dr. Bill Bass who is the renowned forensic consultant who founded the “Body Farm” at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The “Body Farm” is a continuing experiment that studies the effects of body decomposition in various elements.

For many years there has been a question as to whether Marcia’s body had been in the neighborhood garage where she was found, 33 days after her disappearance on Easter Sunday in 1975. There has also been speculation as to whether she was alive or dead during that entire time.

After careful review of the evidence, Dr. Bass has given his expert opinion that, in fact, Marcia had been there the entire time.

We are continuing to make effort s to obtain blood samples from individuals associated with the neighborhood, and hope that our efforts will be completed soon.

Finally, we have discovered that several children, or teens, had solicited for some unknown organization in the neighborhood near the time of Marcia’s death, and we are seeking assistance from the public in identifying those individuals or the group for which they were soliciting.

What we do know is they went door to door selling a variety of items for either “Underprivileged Children”, or “Retarded Children”. The solicitors were between the ages of 10-16. They would carry an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper (usually yellow) with a speech on it. After reading the speech they would ask if the resident wanted to purchase something to help their cause. All of the witnesses stated they did not feel that the children came from the neighborhood. Usually they would have an older teen or young adult with them. This person would drop them off in an area and the kids would go through the neighborhoods soliciting. This solicitation was city-wide. One witness in the Harpeth Bend area stated they would usually return about a week to two weeks later and solicit again. This witness stated the young adult with the kids that solicited in her area was wearing a long green army type trench coat.

While we do not suggest that any of these persons were involved in Marcia’s death, we feel it is imperative to identify this group, at least for elimination purposes. We know that this organization or one resembling it has continued throughout the years to solicit in this manner; however, no group fits this description that has registered with the Charitable Solicitations Board.

We ask that anyone who knows any individual or group that has solicited in this manner contact us through the Homicide office 24-hour phone line. That number is (615) 862-7546.

[edit] Evidence in Perspective

Investigators said that more than one person's semen was found inside the victim's body. Semen also was found on Marcia's clothes.

Investigators believe Marcia was lured into the garage and killed there. Police had looked in the garage, which was 150 yards from Marcia's home, during their search and didn't find her.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to solving the case is that police don't know just how many people were involved in the actual crime. They are almost positive the perpetrator was a juvenile and someone Marcia knew: The dirt found on her shoe was found mainly on the sole, indicating that she'd walked into the garage, as opposed to being dragged. But investigators don't know how many people might have sexually assaulted her. DNA tests have indicated that the semen of as many as four different males may have been found on her body, but at least one investigator doubts the integrity of the samples because the fluids have been poorly preserved. "I'm not confident in the DNA sample that we've got," Jacobs says.

[edit] 3 Different Theories Proposed by Authorities

Miller, Jacobs, and former FBI agent Richard Knudsen each has his own theory about what happened on the evening Trimble disappeared. All three have shared their ideas with the with the caveat that they are not passing them off as gospel, but as individual explanations based on the evidence at hand.

Captain Miller, who has spent countless hours of his own time investigating the finer points of this case, says that while Trimble was killed in the garage where she was found, that may not have been where she was sexually assaulted.

The mother of Marcia, Virginia Trimble, says her daughter left the house for the last time, the girl told her mother that she would be back in a short while; she was delivering Girl Scout cookies to Marie Maxwell, who lived across the street. That checks out, because at around 5:20 p.m., Maxwell saw Trimble standing in an adjacent driveway with a cookie box in her hand. Through a hedge, Maxwell saw two other males standing with the girl--one taller, one smaller.

Shortly thereafter, an eyewitnesses saw someone who matched Trimble's appearance a few blocks away at the corner of Estes and Hobbs roads. The eyewitness told police that she looked like she was about to cross the street in front of the nearby tree nursery, Geddes-Douglas. A second eyewitness told police that she saw Trimble five minutes later walking down Hobbs Road away from Estes, near the second gate of the tree nursery. Both eyewitnesses say the girl they saw was not carrying her cookie box, but they describe her perfectly otherwise. Miller says he thinks one of the two people in the driveway with Trimble that evening stole her cookie box and ran. "Marcia was the type to run after him," he says.

Geddes-Douglas probably had closed for the day, police say, and Miller thinks that Trimble might have been sexually assaulted at the tree nursery. Citing DNA evidence, he also believes that she was sexually assaulted by up to three boys. After this took place, Trimble put her clothes back on and was lured into the garage by one or more of the boys who were pressuring her not to tell anyone what happened. While she was in the garage, Trimble might have raised her voice. "We think she was going to scream and tell, and the suspect grabbed her, trying t o shut her up," Miller says. "He did not mean to kill her."

Miller bases his theory on the fact that while semen was found on Trimble's jeans and in her vagina, she had her clothes on at the time she was found. It's possible that the killer could have reclothed the body, but Miller says that it is extremely difficult to put clothes on a dead person. And besides, the garage had a dirt floor--if the killer had assaulted Marcia, killed her, and then re-dressed the body, he would have dusted up the jeans in some way.

The FBI's Knudsen poses a different theory. He says that Marcia Trimble had walked to Marie Maxwell's home right as the woman was pulling into her driveway. Given the timing, Marcia could not have known that Maxwell was returning home unless someone had called to tell her. Just minutes earlier, Maxwell parked her car in front of a neighbor's driveway to ask a quick question. The house was across the street from the Womack and Morgan homes. If Jeffrey was home during that time, or if he was at Peggy Morgan's house, he could have seen Maxwell's car and called Trimble.

If Knudsen's theory is true, it might place Womack at the driveway with Trimble. He actually owed her money for Girl Scout cookies, according to Virginia Trimble. He might have told Marcia that he'd meet her down the street to pay for his order.

"Marcia is sure she is going to meet Marie, but how does she know that unless someone she knew saw Marie when she pulled in?" Knudsen asks. "If it was Jeffrey who called, he had time to say, Marie is coming, go bring your cookies.' That gives [him] time to walk the back way and meet with her."

Jacobs isn't even sure that Trimble left her home to deliver cookies to Maxwell. He suggests that she might have been planning to meet up with Womack. Regardless, J acobs says he thinks that someone Marcia knew lured her into the garage. He says he doesn't know if it was Jeffrey or just an "adolescent teenager with his hormones blitzing."

"The suspect just raped someone. It was probably a new experience for him, and it was a new experience for Marcia. It was a tense situation. Marcia screamed. I don't think the perpetrator wanted to kill her. I think he wanted to gain control of her and make her be quiet."

Perhaps most significantly, Jacobs doesn't believe that Trimble was sexually assaulted by more than one person--this in contrast to Miller, his former boss. "I would be totally shocked if there was more than one contributor," he says. "Mickey [Miller] puts more faith in the DNA analysis than I do.

"It's almost inconceivable that you had two, three, or four attackers and nobody talked," he adds. "Odds are somebody would have talked."

Jacobs also discounts the possibility of Trimble fleeing to the nursery, as Miller suggests, and theorizes that she was sexually assaulted in the garage and was killed shortly after she put her clothes back on.

The three investigators' theories vary widely, but they all agree that whoever killed Marcia most likely was a juvenile who lived in the neighborhood. "Generally, you don't have an adult taking cookie money," Miller says. He also notes that an adult wouldn't dump a body in the neighborhood where the victim lived. In addition, while the perpetrator was able to strangle Trimble, he fractured rather than crushed one of the bones in her neck. Again, this suggests that the age of the killer fell between that of a child and a full-grown adult.

Finally, the nature of Trimble's sexual assault seems to discount the possibility of a mature perpetrator. "We have never seen an adult rape that looked like this one. Her hymen was intact; there was minimal penetration. That's not what you see in an adult rape," Miller says.

[edit] References

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