SEATTLE (KOMO) — The man found guilty of killing a teenager Washington state more than 30 years ago was sentenced to nearly 46 years behind bars by a King County judge Thursday afternoon.
A jury found Patrick Nicholas guilty on May 10 of murder with sexual motivation for the death of 16-year-old Sarah Yarborough. Yarborough was strangled while she was waiting outside Federal Way High School to go to a drill competition on Dec. 14, 1991.
Now, he was sentenced to 548 months in prison, which is beyond the sentencing range for the crime, but the judge took into account Nicholas' previous rape convictions when he was 16.
Decades later, the impact of Yarborough’s murder during her junior year still lingers just beneath the surface for those who knew her in high school all those years ago.
Investigators put out a sketch of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts from two 12-year old-boys who had seen a man in the area at the time of the murder and for years tried to find a match to DNA found at the murder scene with no leads.
However, in October 2019, there was a break in the case when genetic genealogists gave detectives the name of Nicholas, and they were able to match his DNA to the DNA found at the murder scene.
According to court documents, Nicholas lived in the area around the time and had arrests for rape and child molestation, yet somehow his DNA was never entered into any databases tracking offenders.
Detectives surveilling Nicholas picked up cigarettes and a paper napkin he’d discarded, and DNA on one of the cigarettes matched DNA on several items of Yarborough’s clothing at the scene, and an arrest was finally made.
Nicholas had been living several years in a dilapidated building on a large property with few community ties, court documents go on to say.
Court documents said Nicholas, who was 55 at the time of his arrest and 27 when he allegedly killed Yarborough, strangled Yarborough with her nylons. He was charged with first-degree murder and rape.
By the time Yarborough was murdered, Nicholas had already been to prison for first-degree attempted rape in Benton County, where he approached a young woman in her car and threatened to kill her with a knife, according to court documents. Nicholas forced her to take off her clothes in her car, then walked the woman toward a river, where she jumped and swam away, court documents said.
