NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - Judge Throws Out Evidence In Marcia Trimble Murder Trial

Judge Throws Out Evidence In Marcia Trimble Murder Trial

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Jerome Barrett goes to trial next week for the murder of Nashville Girl Scout, Marcia Trimble. A judge ruled Friday some evidence will not be allowed in the murder case.

9-year-old Marcia Trimble was choked to death in her Green Hills neighborhood more than 30 years ago.

She disappeared while selling Girl Scout cookies and neighbors discovered her body in their garage a month later.

Judge Steve Dozier ruled Friday that in general most of the testimony and facts in prior cases involving Jerome Barrett will not be allowed in the Trimble case. There are some exceptions.

One of the key witnesses in next week's trial will be Sheldon Anter. Anter met Barrett behind bars. He was also a witness in the Des Prez case.

Des Prez was a Vanderbilt student who Barrett sexually assaulted and killed the same month Trimble was killed, February 1975.

"He said I don't have a problem killing you because I've killed before," said Anter during Des Prez case.

Judge Dozier said he will allow that statement in the Trimble trial, but not a more specific comment.

"The statement about I've killed blue eye bitches plural in the past and I'll kill you," said Dozier.

Dozier threw it out saying it was prejudicial. Police said Barrett became a suspect in the Trimble case when they added his DNA to a national data base. A match came back to DNA found on Trimble.

Evidence from another case also will not be allowed. Two days before Trimble disappeared Barrett was accused, but never tried in an attack on a 24-year-old woman in a different neighborhood. She survived.

Ironically, her parents lived just a few doors away from the Trimbles, and she went to live with them after the attack.

Prosecutors might have been able to show Barrett had a reason to be in the neighborhood, maybe to stop that woman from testifying against him.

Then the thought was he encountered Trimble by chance, but jurors will not hear that evidence.

Earlier this week Judge Dozier agreed to let prosecutors talk about the Trimble autopsy report.

Be sure and watch NewsChannel5+ and NewChannel5.com next week for Gavel to Gavel coverage of the Marcia Trimble trial.