Patrick Nicholas Is Convicted For Murdering Teen At Her School Over 30 Years Ago And Gets 45 Years In Prison

Patrick Nicholas is convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl at her Washington high school in 1991 and gets nearly 46 years in prison.

Patrick Nicholas Is Convicted For Murdering Teen At Her School Over 30 Years Ago And Gets 45 Years In Prison (PHOTO: KOMO News)

Patrick Nicholas Is Convicted For Murdering a Teen In 1991

Thursday, Patrick Nicholas 59 years old was sentenced by King County Superior Court Judge Josephine Wiggs in connection with the killing of Sarah Yarborough, who was found fatally strangled on the Federal Way High School campus in 1991. Nicholas will most likely spend his life in prison after getting an order of 46 years in jail, The Seattle Times reported.

A jury found Nicholas guilty of first-degree murder and returned a special verdict that Yarborough’s killing was sexually motivated, which allowed for a longer prison sentence.

Defense attorney David Montes urged the mandatory minimum 20-year sentence, saying Nicholas didn’t commit crimes in the decades since. Wiggs, who had presided over Nicholas’ trial, determined more than 45 years was appropriate because of the facts of the case and his history of sexual violence.

Prosecutors said during the trial that Yarborough was an honor student and member of her school’s drill team when she drove to school on December 14, 1991, thinking she was late to meet teammates for a competition. She was an hour early prosecutors said.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Mary Barbosa wrote in the state’s sentencing memo that while they will never know how their interaction began, Nicholas in other attacks had approached women with knives, forcing them to walk to secluded areas.

Two boys, ages 12 and 13, who were walking through the school campus that day found Yarborough’s body after they saw a man pop up on an embankment and walk away quickly, prosecutors said.

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A Male DNA Was Found The Victims Figgernails

Action News reported that a male DNA was found under Yarborough’s fingernails making it proof that she “fought for her life” before she was strangled, according to the evidence presented at trial.

Detectives have sent the DNA samples from several men to the state crime lab to be tested against the unknown male DNA, but none matched.  The DNA was afterward periodically but unsuccessfully run through the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, an FBI database of DNA profiles from people convicted of felonies.

In 2019, a genetic genealogist determined two King County brothers who were sex predators as potential suspects. The older brother, whose DNA was already in CODIS, was eliminated, leading detectives to focus on Nicholas.

Detectives began tailing Nicholas and had collected cigarette butts discarded near a laundromat in the Seattle suburb of Kent and found out that his DNA had matched the crime scene, which leads to his arrest, prosecutors said.

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