Washington 1991 Cold Case SOLVED - Police Needed Therapy After Witnessing This Crime

December 14, 1991. Federal Way, Washington. Sixteen-year-old Sarah Yarborough drove herself to Federal Way High School on a cold Saturday morning to meet her drill team. They were headed to a competition. She parked her car. She never made it to the bus. Two 13-year-old boys cutting through campus found her body in the bushes 300 feet from her car — still wearing her drill team uniform, hot curlers still in her hair. A stranger named Patrick Nicholas had been waiting. What makes this case almost unbearable is what investigators discovered immediately. From day one they had DNA. A complete male profile extracted from the crime scene in 1991. The answer existed from the very beginning. But Patrick Nicholas had a 1983 rape conviction that predated the national DNA database. His DNA was never entered into CODIS. He escaped justice three separate times through gaps in the system — gaps that should never have existed. Meanwhile Sarah's family spent 32 years living under what her mother Laura called a Damocles sword — the suspended weight of an unanswered question that could drop at any moment or never drop at all. In 2019 investigators surveilled Nicholas in a parking lot and waited. He dropped a cigarette. That cigarette matched the DNA that had been sitting in evidence storage since 1991. Patrick Nicholas was arrested. Convicted on May 10, 2023. Sentenced to 45 years and 8 months. Detective Scott Strathy, one of the first officers on scene, said the crime scene was pure unadulterated evil — something that even for experienced investigators was really hard to deal with. Some details you carry with you forever. The hot curlers were one of them. Sarah Yarborough was 16 years old. She was an honors student. She loved life and people and travel. She showed up every single time she was supposed to show up. She deserved every year that was taken from her. This video is intended for educational and documentary purposes. 📚 SOURCES: CBS 48 Hours full episode coverage King County Superior Court trial records (May 2023) Seattle Times: "Man sentenced to 45 years for cold-case murder of Federal Way teen" Federal Way Mirror sentencing coverage Good Morning America arrest coverage (2019) Identifinders International genetic genealogy case documentation King County Sheriff's Office press releases Oxygen.com Patrick Nicholas conviction coverage RELATED SEARCHES: Sarah Yarborough | Patrick Nicholas | Federal Way Washington 1991 | drill team murder | hot curlers cold case | King County cold case solved | genetic genealogy 2023 | system failed victim | Washington state cold case | 32 year cold case solved | CBS 48 Hours Sarah Yarborough | CODIS DNA cold case #truecrime #sarahyarborough #patricknicholas #federalway #washingtoncoldcase #coldcasesolved #geneticgenealogy #1991murder #truecrimecommunity #truecrimedocumentary #coldcase #48hours #systemfailure #dnaevidence #coldcasefiles