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a new 48 Hours investigation digs into a decades old cold case involving a murder
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of a Seattle area high school student 16-year-old Sarah yarboro was last seen in 1991 on her way to drill team
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practice her remains were found later on her High School's campus it took almost
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three decades for investigators to identify her killer Natalie Morales reports on the investigation for this
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week's 48 hours we used to hop the fence right here and cut through here on December 14th 1991 13-year-old Drew
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Miller and his friend were walking through Federal Way High School outside Seattle Washington when they noticed a
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man in the bushes he's just staring at us from the bushes that was pretty jarring the mysterious man walked away
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but he left behind a horrific scene there in the bushes where the man had just been the boys discovered the
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body of a young woman 16-year-old Sarah yarboro it was absolutely horrible Drew says his shock turned to fear when he
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realized the man who was now just feet in front of him was staring directly back at him does that look still haunt
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you oh yeah yeah it's frozen in my mind the boogeyman then legitimate Boogeyman the boys raised home and police were
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called detective Scott strathy with the King County Sheriff's Office was one of the first on the scene even for
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experienced investigators this scene was really hard to deal with just the innocent nature of
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this young woman in her school drill team uniform with her hot curlers still in her hair this was just pure
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unadulterated evil Sarah had not been raped but the Killer's DNA was found on pieces of her clothing it sounded like
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they had so much evidence Sarah's friend Amy per had hoped that the killer would
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quickly be found for at least a short while it felt like of course they're going to catch him and then when they
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didn't and they didn't your expectations change Sarah's friend Shannon Grant you
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don't know if it's your next door neighbor you don't know if it's some random stranger there was that constant
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fear is this going to happen again Natalie Morales joins us now from Los Angeles good morning atalie so
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detectives had DNA they had eyewitnesses what was it that finally LED them to this killer well you know they knew that
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the DNA would eventually be the Breakthrough that they needed but what it was essentially I mean it took 28
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years to solve this case this was a cold case for a very long time until a forensic genetic genealogy team got
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involved a Woman by the name of Colleen Fitzpatrick she's considered one of the Pioneers uh she worked with the King
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County Sheriff's department and investigators to try to piece together the details and she was able to identify
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a man by the name of Patrick Nicholas who at that time had a criminal record for raping women but his DNA was not in
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the cotus database but um they were able to surveil him they followed him and got
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his DNA off of two cigarette butts that he had smoked and it was a positive match they arrested him um and then he
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was tried and convicted of first and second degree murder but it was a long time coming and thank goodness relief
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finally for the for Sarah's family and friends and thank goodness detective stuck with the case Natalie Morales
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thank you so much you can watch Natalie's report the hunt for Sarah Yarborough's killer on 48 hours tomorrow
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night at 10:9 Central right here on CBS or on Paramount Plus