Whisper
#byefelicia
Sara Yarborough
December 4, 1992
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19921204&slug=1528262FEDERAL WAY - There is a videotape in the Yarborough home that has never been touched. Tucked away in a bedroom closet, it sits amid old photos and school papers. On the tape, 16-year-old Sarah Yarborough is singing during a school choir trip.
Although she would love to hear her daughter's voice once more, Laura Yarborough can't bring herself to turn on the recorder. She's just not ready.
A year after Sarah died, the mementos continue to flow. Friends and former teachers stop by with old school papers, photos and funny stories about the former cheerleader and honor student.
But a year after one of the biggest manhunts in the history of King County police, clues no longer pour in.
Sarah was found strangled in a brushy area at Federal Way High School the morning of Dec. 14.
Police were to hold a news conference today to update the case.
Immediately after Sarah's death, the case took top priority. As many as 20 detectives - three times the number in a typical homicide case - scoured the area for clues of a 6-foot-tall man with shoulder-length blond hair who was seen in the bushes near Sarah's body. A specially trained investigator put together a profile of the killer. And the Washington State Crime Laboratory quickly completed tests.
During the first months, more than 3,100 tips came.
But no one has been arrested.
And now the detective staff has been whittled to one. Jim Doyon, a former investigator in the Green River killings, is considered among the department's best, especially when it comes to long-term unsolved murders.
"That girl did not deserve to be killed in that way. No one does, but this was a particularly promising citizen who would have made a real difference to the community had she been allowed to live," he said.
Doyon received 40 tips a month since taking over the case in July, but said the most credible reports have been checked. Another 1,600 lower-priority tips remain on Doyon's desk.
Doyon said he would like to investigate several people and may ask them to submit to a DNA test. (DNA is a unique genetic fingerprint). In September, a former Tacoma man submitted to a DNA test, but the genetic identity didn't match.
No arrests are imminent, he stressed.
Tom Yarborough, Sarah's father, said he won't feel at rest until the killer is caught.
Laura Yarborough said she wishes police could devote more resources to find the man who cut her daughter's life short. A likeness of his face continues to peer out windows from hundreds of businesses throughout South King County, but some store owners say fewer people look at the drawings.
So much time has passed.
or the Yarborough family, time has crept.
"The shock has worn off," said Laura Yarborough. "Now, there's just pain."
And memories. There will be no tree this holiday season. Family traditions, like a favorite Christmas ornament, are marked indelibly with Sarah.
One of Sarah's goals was to become a National Merit Scholar. Shortly before she died, she got her scores from a PSAT test, a prelude to college-entry exams. Last month, Sarah's parents were told that their daughter's scores had placed her as "commended scholar" - someone with top scores - in the national ranking.
Going to the school-board meeting to pick up Sarah's certificate was the hardest thing her parents said they have done.
But Sarah's memory also has been an inspiration.
Andrew Yarborough, 12, used his sister's diaries to do a school project. Her mother will make journals as graduation presents for Sarah's friends. At the top of each page will be a quote from Sarah's diaries; she had one day hoped to become a writer. She also acted in school plays and was a dancer.
Bill Fuller, who works at Weyerhaeuser with the Yarboroughs and whose daughter, Elizabeth, was one of Sarah's closest friends, has launched a fund-raising drive and commissioned Bonney Lake artist Larry Anderson to create a memorial in Sarah's honor.
Anderson will build at least one bench - two, if the money can be raised - on the school grounds. One stone bench will have a bronze statue of a pile of books, a pair of ballet slippers and a necktie. (The week before Sarah died, she had won a necktie contest.) A bronze figure of her dog will be gazing at the statue. The other will be a statue of Sarah sitting and reading.
"We want the benches to be outside in a place were they can be displayed, or people can perform, because the arts were such a big part of Sarah's life," Fuller said. He said he hopes the statues will be completed by school graduation, next June 12.
Sarah Yarborough would have turned 18 years old the day her classmates graduate.
That day promises to be harder than Christmas.
Said Laura Yarborough: "I'd like to be profound and say we're all wonderful and healed. But we're not."
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Sketch Of Suspect
http://www.q13fox.com/community/wam...r-pilgrim-20120106,0,6178217.story?hpt=ju_bn6There’s a major and fascinating break in the vicious murder of a high school cheerleader more than 20 years ago.
Detectives say DNA links the killer to the family of a pilgrim who came to America on the Mayflower and now they think they know his last name.
Sixteen-year-old Sara Yarborough`s body was found on the campus of Federal Way High School on Dec. 14, 1991. Detectives said she was on her way to drill team practice that morning when two joggers using the school track saw her with an unknown male.
They had actually seen her in the bushes with the suspect, but they thought they were a couple of teenage kids, in a romantic situation and really didn`t pay it much attention at the time,†said King County Sheriff’s Detective Scott Thompkins.
Sara was raped and strangled. Until now, composite sketches and a vague description was all investigators had to go on, but now there`s much more.
“Several months ago I was talking to a forensic scientist in the crime lab, Jody Sas, who had just attended a training seminar with Coleen Fitzpatrick, who is the president and owner of Identifinders International,†Detective Jim Allen said.
Fitzpatrick is a forensic genealogist who used DNA from the crime scene to trace the suspect`s family - from father to grandfather to great grandfather - all the way back to the Mayflower. Four-hundred plus years later, that information told her a lot about Sara`s killer.
Descended from Robert Fuller, who came to the U.S. in 1630, to Massachusetts,†Fitzpatrick said. “The person who donated the DNA is one of his descendants, I don`t know that person. All I did was correlate against the name so I don`t know if it`s a direct descendant of Robert Fuller or a member of his extended family, but I do know, to a high degree of certainty, the last name if Fuller.â€
Fitzpatrick said there`s a 2.5 percent chance the suspect has a different last name due to illegitimacy or adoption. But that tiny chance is the best thing detectives have going for them. They have gotten thousands of tips involving about 3,000 suspect names over the years. But with a 97 percent certainty of the suspect’s last name, detective Allen is hoping this is the last tip they`ll need.
“I think there may be people who know their family background or if there is somebody out there whose name is Fuller that matches the description that passed through the Federal Way area in December of 1991, perhaps this could lead somebody to call us up and give us a name,†Allen said.
Again, the killer's last name may be Fuller. He`s between 5’10 to 6 feet tall. He had long, dirty blonde hair at the time, medium build and was wearing a trench coat. If you know anything about this man, or think you know somebody named Fuller in the area at that time, Detective Jim Allen with the King County Sheriff’s Office wants to talk to you --
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