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It’s the morning of Jan. 26, 2022. Sarah Harris, 25, lies unresponsive on the floor of the home she shares with her boyfriend, 48-year-old Dr. James Ryan. She is found in the living room, which is in disarray. Ryan tearfully talks with Montgomery County, Maryland, police at the scene. The conversation is recorded on a body camera as they ask him about the night before:

FIRST RESPONDER (bodycam video): Was she sleeping on the couch last night?

DR. JAMES RYAN: Yes. She would do that sometimes (crying).

DR. JAMES RYAN (bodycam video): We were watching TV and then she said you should probably go to bed because you’re tired and you have to work tomorrow … so I did …(crying).

FIRST RESPONDER: Uh huh. What time did you go to bed?

DR. JAMES RYAN: …Probably about 10 or 11 (crying).

Ryan has already told authorities he’s a doctor, and that he thinks it’s an overdose. And he says it’s happened before.

DR. JAMES RYAN (bodycam video): … and I did CPR and brought her back.

This time, Sarah doesn’t survive. Ryan has suggested where she got at least one of her drugs of choice — a powerful anesthetic.

JAMES RYAN (bodycam video): She used to take propofol too, she used to steal that from my office.

How they got into her body and why.

JAMES RYAN (bodycam video): I’ve caught her before with, um, like injecting herself with things.

JAMES RYAN (bodycam video): She was bipolar also, so she could be really angry or could be really happy.

THE DEATH OF SARAH HARRIS

Ryan had called Sarah’s family with the awful news that morning. But her mother, Tina Harris, just didn’t believe anything he said. She immediately suspected Ryan was responsible for Sarah’s death. She arrived at the scene about 20 minutes later.

Tina Harris: I started kicking and hitting him and screaming at him.

Nikki Battiste: What did he say happened?

Tina Harris: He said he went to bed and left her alone and came down and she was unresponsive in the morning.

Authorities say they found wrappers from syringes, tourniquets and saline bags next to the kitchen sink, and drug vials in Sarah’s purse. Tina Harris thinks Ryan arranged it that way.

Tina Harris: He wanted it to look like it was a suicide.

Tina Harris had long held suspicions about Dr. Ryan. He had encountered Sarah Harris more than a year earlier — not as a girlfriend, but as a patient to get her wisdom teeth out.

Mary Fulginiti is a former prosecutor and defense attorney and a CBS News consultant. “48 Hours” asked her to use her decades of courtroom experience to help analyze this case.

Mary Fulginiti: Dr. Ryan is somebody who’s practiced for over 20 years. … He has incredible credentials. He’s esteemed and regarded in his community as one of the best at what he does.

Tina Harris says the first time her daughter met Dr. Ryan for her teeth in the summer of 2020, the doctor was professional. But she does remember at the time feeling it was curious when his interest in Sarah seemed to change.

Tina Harris: She starts getting all these text messages. … He asks her, “how are you doing?” And she says, “I’m fine.” And he starts sending little emojis.

Nikki Battiste: What are you thinking as her mom?

Tina Harris: I thought it was a little bizarre that he added a little happy face and … I thought, well, maybe he just likes using emojis.

She says that’s when Ryan had mentioned he was looking to hire someone as a surgical assistant.

Tina Harris: I thought, well, you know, maybe he just thinks that she’d really be a good addition.

Ryan hardly seemed like a threat. He was divorced with three grown children and was involved with a woman with whom he already had a baby. At 47, he was more than twice Sarah’s age.

Tina Harris: He said, “no, I don’t need your resume. … just come on in for a working interview.” … I said, “well, I’m proud of you, honey. That’s pretty incredible. … that he’s gonna teach you all this stuff.”

At the beginning, Sarah seemed to love the job, but Tina Harris says as the holidays approached, an extravagant gift – a diamond necklace — retriggered her suspicion that Ryan’s interest in Sarah was more than professional.

Tina Harris: I said, “OK, he’s after you.” I said, “you gotta put your foot down.”

Instead, in early 2021, she says Sarah announced she had agreed to go out for a meal with Ryan, who was ending his other relationship. He seemed to win over Sarah. Tina Harris admits, in their early days as a couple, even she found him impressive.

Nikki Battiste: As a mother, was a part of you excited, she’s — dating a doctor?

Tina Harris: Oh, well, I was excited! I was excited because… he had a wonderful reputation.

And she says Ryan was generous. He would lease Sarah a new car and take her and her family on trips — all expenses paid. Tina Harris says, in a way, he spent time courting her, too.

Tina Harris: He would say, “I would love to have you as my mom. Sarah’s so blessed to have you.”

Tina Harris says she and Sarah always had a special bond.

Tina Harris: We were very, very close.

She says Sarah was close to her three siblings, too — especially older sister Rachel Harris.

Tina Harris: Rachel … took it upon herself that she was gonna be the protector.

But there had been a rough period during Sarah’s youth in suburban Maryland. Like many young people, she experimented with drugs, and had problems moderating her mood. She suffered from anxiety.

Nikki Battiste: When did she first struggle with depression?

Tina Harris: I noticed depression coming about when she was about 14, 15 years old. She would start feeling down.

But Tina Harris says Sarah still exceled in high school — craving knowledge and the skills that came with it. She learned German, Spanish, Russian and American Sign Language.

Tina Harris: She put a lot of pressure on herself … especially with her grades.

Before long, Sarah got her social bearings.

Tina Harris: She fell into a great group of kids … They would sit down in the living room and play the guitar, play the piano, sing.

She was at a music festival in 2018 when 21-year-old Sarah caught the eye of Henry Peterson, seven years older.

Henry Peterson: I feel like it was like stars colliding and, meeting someone like you’re supposed to meet.

They lived seven hours apart, but he says they quickly became emotionally inseparable.

Henry Peterson: We talked about everything you could think of in terms of a future … marriage and children and family.

He says the distance eventually made them drift. Peterson broke it off, though he says he still imagined they would end up together.

Henry Peterson: She and I never stopped talking. The love was always there.

By her mid-20s, Sarah had gotten into modeling and competing in beauty pageants. In 2020, she’d won the Miss Maryland Petite Pageant. The next year is when she started quietly seeing Ryan, and by that summer, they had decided to live together.

Tina Harris: And that’s when everything goes downhill.

WAS DR. RYAN OBSESSED WITH SARAH HARRIS?

By the end of the summer of 2021, Tina Harris says James Ryan was dominating Sarah’s life: Boss, boyfriend — even letting her live rent free in his house. But instead of flourishing, Sarah seemed anxious and depressed. She saw a psychiatrist, who gave her that bipolar diagnosis.

Tina Harris: Her complexion starts to change … She starts to lose weight.

On a family trip to Key West that September, Tina Harris says Sarah had been asleep when a drunk Ryan revealed something unsettling: he had first noticed Sarah when she was just 14.

Tina Harris: “I used to see Sarah walking the neighborhood and playing at the park with her friends.”

Tina Harris: And he says … “then I found out she worked in the toy store … so I would take my kids there so I could see her and I remember when she dressed up as Elsa from ‘Frozen’ and she looked just like Elsa” … and then he said, “yeah and then I found out she worked at one of these restaurants and so I would go in there for dinner so I could get her as my server.”

Nikki Battiste: It sounds like Doctor Ryan was obsessed with Sarah.

Tina Harris: He was. He was very much so.

By their next trip to Florida a month later, she says Sarah was acting strangely. She wore a bulky long-sleeved sweatshirt despite the heat. And it seemed like she and Ryan were always fighting.

Tina Harris: And she goes,” I hate him. … I don’t wanna be here. I wanna go home.”

And when they returned to Maryland, Tina Harris saw the full horrifying picture of what Sarah’s life had become. She says she called Sarah on Oct. 28, 2021.

Tina Harris: Phone rang, rang, rang, she finally picked up. She could barely talk. Her words were extremely slurred. So, I said, “Sarah what’s going on? What’s wrong with you?” She goes, “Oh, I’m just really tired mom.”

Nikki Battiste: You knew something was wrong.

Tina Harris: Yeah. Well, I knew she was slurring.

Tina Harris says she and Rachel left for Sarah’s house minutes later.

Tina Harris: And we walked into hell.

Nikki Battiste: What did you see?

Tina Harris: Well, Sarah answers the door … she smells, it looks like she hadn’t bathed in a week or more. She looked horrible.

She’d weighed 120 pounds when she’d had oral surgery with Ryan, Tina Harris says. But Sarah was skin and bones now. And Tina says there was more.

Tina Harris: The IV bags, needles laying all over the floor … syringes, tourniquets, bloody footprints, bloody paper towels …

And there were drugs, bottles and vials everywhere. Rachel gathered them up and photographed them.

Tina Harris: I never looked at the drugs and I wish I had.

Nikki Battiste: Do you think some people watching would think, how did you not look at what the drugs were?

Tina Harris: Of course … I just wanted to get her out.

She says Sarah had offered an innocent, if unconvincing, explanation.

Tina Harris: She goes, “I’ve just been dehydrated, mom. … he’s just hydrating me.”

Tina Harris: I said, “I’m turning him in.” … And Sarah starts crying, “mom you can’t do that. Please don’t do that.” She’s begging me … I grabbed her arms and I pulled her sleeves up, and she had needle marks from here to here (moves her hand from her wrist to her elbow), all over her arms, bruises … I became hysterical.

Against her better judgment, Tina Harris agreed to hold off on calling authorities. But she says she insisted Sarah move back home. Just days later, Tina says Ryan convinced Sarah to come back to him.

In the following weeks, Tina Harris says Sarah seemed to be getting better. She started cooking, eating and even going to church. But on Dec. 3, 2021, Tina says her daughter answered the phone slurring again. Rachel Harris jumped into action.

Tina Harris: Rachel said … “I’m gonna go and check on her.”

When Rachel got there, Tina says “It was worse than the first time.”

Poking around the ground floor, Rachel Harris once again pulled out her camera, finding drug bottles and vials, as well as a saline bag, an IV pole, IV needles and bloody footprints on a kitchen mat. She was so distraught, she left without talking to her sister. A few days later, Tina Harris confronted Dr. James Ryan. She was in no mood for another explanation.

Tina Harris: I just reached across and smacked the living crap out of him.

Nikki Battiste: You hit him?                                           

Tina Harris Yeah. Oh, I hit him, and I said, “what are you doing? Are you trying to kill my daughter?”

Tina Harris says Ryan still insisted he’d only been hydrating her.

Nikki Battiste: And you still believed it?

Tina Harris: I believed he was giving her something. I didn’t know what it was. I did not look at the vials … All I could see was my daughter and what kind of trouble she was in.

But the next day she says Ryan admitted he’d been doing more than hydrating her. He’d been giving Sarah drugs — though only, he said, to keep her from getting them someplace else.

Tina Harris: So, I told him — I said, “look … you can break it off with my daughter … Or I’m calling the police …” And he said, well, I’ll break it off with her.

But days turned into weeks and Ryan never did. After months of tension, Tina Harris says she couldn’t keep arguing with her daughter anymore.

Tina Harris: What was I gonna do, lock her up?

Nikki Battiste: You probably wanted to.

Tina Harris: I threatened it and she said, “if you do that, mom, when I get out, you’ll never hear from me again,” and that scared me to death.

Within weeks, there was a new tragedy for the Harris family. Sarah’s brother Christopher, just 38, died after a heart attack in Montana.

Tina Harris: I had to sign the papers to take him off life support … which no mother should have to do.

His death was devastating to the whole family. Sarah posted this tribute message to her brother:

 “Never goodbye. I’ll see you soon big bro.” And only 18 days after Christopher’s death, at about 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 26, 2022, Tina Harris says she and Rachel were together when Rachel got James Ryan’s call.

Tina Harris: Rachel started screaming … she’s holding the phone and James has it on Facetime and he’s got the camera pointed at my baby, had Sarah on the ground, saying, “she’s gone, she’s gone.”

At the time of her death, Sarah weighed just 83 pounds. Authorities would list her manner of death as undetermined. Ryan was not arrested. They seemed to accept his story that Sarah, struggling with mental health issues, had overdosed. But there would be help from a most unlikely investigator.

A SISTER’S SEARCH FOR CLUES

Three months before she died, Sarah left a voicemail for her ex-boyfriend Henry Peterson.

SARAH HARRIS (voicemail): I just hope that you’re happy that I’m with someone who truly, truly loves me …

SARAH HARRIS (voicemail): I’ve never trusted anybody as much as I’ve trusted the man that I’m with right now professionally, emotionally … you never let me in that way. …

They’d stayed in touch after breaking up, so when she didn’t answer her phone after January 2022, Peterson says he had a strange feeling and decided to go online.

Henry Peterson:  I Googled her name, and — there’s an obituary.

Peterson says when Tina Harris gave him details, he joined her in the belief that James Ryan — the man Sarah said she had trusted more than anybody else — was responsible for her death. But first responders didn’t think so.

Tina Harris: They didn’t shut it down as a crime scene.

Police seized some drug vials but left the house unguarded. Tina says that’s because they believed what Ryan had told them about where Sarah had gotten the drugs and how she’d taken them.

Tina Harris: It was an … overdose …

But Tina Harris says she knew there was more to it than that — though she didn’t know how to prove it. Turns out, there was someone very close to her who did.

Tina Harris: Rachel told me she would find the evidence.

Rachel Harris decided to examine Sarah’s laptop, to see if it might contain clues authorities hadn’t seen. She didn’t know the password, but she knew her sister well.

Tina Harris: It took her about a couple of days to figure out Sarah’s password.

Combing through Sarah’s computer and iCloud, Rachel Harris hit paydirt: a trove of texts between her sister and James Ryan. The messages were full of references to drugs, including a tranquilizer named diazepam and two fast-acting surgical anesthetics — the type Rachel had seen in the home Ryan and Sarah shared — propofol and ketamine, which is sometimes also used for depression. Rachel created a binder, adding the photos she’d taken there.

Nikki Battiste: Rachel compiled 200 pages of evidence —

Tina Harris: Mm-hmm.

The medical examiner would release Sarah’s autopsy report, which showed those same three drugs in Sarah’s system. Research suggests they can all be habit forming and they can suppress breathing. Taking them in combination can be lethal.

Nikki Battiste: All the while, Rachel’s building a case?

Tina Harris: Yes, yes, yes.

In February 2022, Rachel Harris gave her binder to Montgomery County Police. It eventually landed on the desk of Detective Ian Iacoviello, an expert in pharmaceutical investigations. After more than 33 years as a cop, Iacoviello was nearing retirement. He decided to come in alone on a Sunday.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: It was my birthday, and nothing was going on. You don’t get parties when you’re this age. I’m like, I’m just gonna go in the office and look through this binder and just see.

What Iacoviello saw in Rachel Harris’ binder suggested cops at the scene had been wrong about Sarah’s death. He says reading the texts between Sarah and James Ryan was like watching a murder in slow motion.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: You could see … Sarah die.

Sarah is suffering within the first month of their relationship.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: She had … anxiety. She was having trouble sleeping.

Ryan offers a quick fix, “I can give you an injection … the anxiety will be completely gone in 6 second s [sic] …”  He writes, “It will work. Let’s try it …”

Det. Ian Iacoviello: He had already made the decision.

Iacoviello says, the texts suggest that over the months, Sarah developed a drug habit – and a habit of asking her boyfriend the doctor to feed it:

In October 2021: “do we have ketamine here” In November: “we need syringes … I feel like s***.”

In December: “I just really need … sleep” she writes. “xan (sic) you bring propofol”

Det. Ian Iacoviello: She’s actively asking for drugs. At no point, does he say no.

Iacoviello says the texts suggest Ryan often brought Sarah the dangerous drugs and that he actually administered at least one about a month before her death. It was Dec. 20, 2021. “If you wake up… I just went [sic] change after I gave you ketamine. Just now.…” he writes.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: He’s injecting her while she’s asleep. No monitoring, no anything.

And Iacoviello points to this exchange from the day before Sarah died. “Is it possible to bring home ketamine when you come…” she asks. “Yes, I will bring some home. I love you baby,” Ryan replies.

Nikki Battiste: The texts tell a story.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: They do.

So do Rachel’s photos from Sarah’s house, says Iacoviello, though his colleagues lacking experience in pharmaceutical investigations might not have understood that.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: They had no idea what they were really looking at.

He says patrol cops and paramedics often deal with overdoses of street drugs like heroin and fentanyl. But the deadly drugs in Sarah Harris’ house were masquerading as something else.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: There’s a difference between drugs and medication.

Iacoviello says, to the untrained eye, the drugs at Sarah’s looked like “medication.” The paraphernalia around the house might have been confusing, too.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: Usually what we see is burnt spoons, tinfoil, um, some hypodermic needles … maybe a shoelace or some other string … that kind of drug paraphernalia …

But to Iacoviello, the syringes and the saline, the professional tourniquets and the plastic wrappers at Sarah’s made it resemble an operating room.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: That’s what a lot of it looked like.

Whatever questions responding authorities may have had, he says Ryan offered answers.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: And you’ve got James saying … she did all of this. Without any other information, OK, well, we’re just kind of gonna go with what he says.

Nikki Battiste: He’s a doctor.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: He’s a doctor.

But Iacoviello says after reading through the family’s binder, any credibility Ryan may have had that day vanished. And on March 22, 2022, nearly two months after Sarah’s death, James Ryan was arrested for the murder of Sarah Harris. But prosecutors would have to make the case to a jury.

Prosecutor Jennifer Harrison: Sometimes it’s hard to convince them.

Maybe especially so in this case, because Ryan’s defense is suggesting he was only trying to save Sarah’s life — and that she had other ideas.

WHAT IS “DEPRAVED-HEART” MURDER? 

“I knew the case was solid, ” says Iacoviello. He was sure Dr. James Ryan was responsible for Sarah Harris’ death and he had no problem convincing prosecutors on Montgomery County’s Overdose Taskforce: Jennifer Harrison, James Dietrich and Kimberly Cissel.

Prosecutor Jennifer Harrison: It’s his fault.

Prosecutor James Dietrich: He was the one who was providing those drugs.

Prosecutor Kimberly Cissel: He knew how dangerous these drugs were.

Ryan was a doctor after all. But as certain as prosecutors were, that he knew he was risking Sarah’s life, they had no conclusive evidence he intended to kill her.

James Dietrich: We never suggested that. … you can accept that James Ryan loved Sarah Harris … but it does not excuse all the other actions that he took that led to Sarah’s — Sarah’s death.

So they charge Ryan with a sub-category of second-degree murder unfamiliar to many people. It’s known as depraved-heart murder. Prosecutors say the charge doesn’t require proving the killer actually wanted anyone dead — only that they knew their actions would likely kill someone and didn’t care.

Prosecutor Jennifer Harrison: We have to prove … that he did it with … reckless disregard for the value of her life.

Dietrich gave “48 Hours” an example.

Prosecutor James Dietrich: If I take a gun and just randomly shoot it into a crowd, I may not necessarily want or care that anybody dies. … But … that is such a grossly reckless act that someone’s likely to die.

Prosecutors also charge Ryan with a slightly lesser charge, involuntary manslaughter, plus two counts of drug distribution and one count of possession with intent to distribute.

Opening statements begin on August 16, 2023. There are no cameras in court but there is an audio recording.

PROSECUTOR JENNIFER HARRISON (in court): Behind closed doors he was conducting a deadly medical experiment on his 25-year-old patient-turned-employee turned live-in girlfriend.

The prosecution portrays Ryan as a controlling older man who got his glamorous young girlfriend hooked on drugs.

PROSECUTOR JENNIFER HARRISON (in court): He was stealing dangerous sedation drugs from his business and administering them to his girlfriend Sarah Harris.

Prosecutors say the proof of Ryan’s guilt is largely in those text messages: Ryan offering to get rid of Sarah’s anxiety in six seconds, telling her he gave her ketamine while she was sleeping, and on the night before her body was found, apparently agreeing to bring ketamine home to her.

PROSECUTOR KIMBERLY CISSEL (in court): Can you tell us about Sarah? What was she like?

TINA HARRIS: Mm-hmm. I don’t know where to start.

TINA HARRIS (in court): She was my baby (crying).

Tina Harris, who was the first to testify, is emotional as she relives Sarah’s downward spiral just months before dying.

TINA HARRIS (in court): I asked to see her arms. And she said, “no, mama.” But I grabbed her arms and I pulled up the sleeves and her little arms were covered in needle marks and bruises (crying).

And the medical examiner tells the jury about the dangerous drug cocktail that brought her life to a tragic end.

MEDICAL EXAMINER (in court): When people use … all three together, those just … cause profound strong sedation …

The drugs can be so dangerous, in fact, the prosecution tells jurors that doctors who use these drugs have equipment and protocols in place to revive patients if needed.

Prosecutor Jennifer Harrison: Even though Dr. Ryan would follow all of those safety protocols in his own office, he would never follow those …  at home.

Nikki Battiste: She was chemically dependent on him.

Janice Miller: She was chemically dependent on him.

Prosecutors also call social worker Janice Miller who says that kind of power imbalance is a hallmark of abusive relationships.

Janice Miller: The drugs were the way that he controlled her and really ensured that she wouldn’t leave the relationship … 

Det. Ian Iacoviello: He’s created an addict.

Dr. Ryan and his attorneys did not agree to be interviewed by “48 Hours.” But at trial, they argue Sarah Harris may have played an important role in her own demise; suggesting that after wrestling with mental illness, she was now losing her battle with anxiety, depression and drugs.

Mary Fulginiti: Their focus on Sarah Harris is obviously her mental illness …

The defense suggests Sarah may have begun stealing the drugs herself. They want the jury to know about her Facebook post about seeing her deceased brother “soon,” but the judge won’t allow it. But they are allowed to tell jurors about a text Sarah sent Ryan months before her death.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY (in court): She says “… I’ve lost my will to live …”

Nikki Battiste: Do you think there’s any chance Sarah was suicidal?

Tina Harris: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: Where’s the indication of a suicide on the scene? There is none.

Iacoviello says the drug bottles found in Sarah’s purse were too far from her body for her to have given them to herself.

Det. Ian Iacoviello: These drugs are fast acting … She’s gonna be out in seconds. … how she … put all the medication in her purse … then went and lay down, not possible.

Prosecutor James Dietrich: She wouldn’t have cleaned up .. Somebody else had to have done it.

But according to CBS News consultant Mary Fulginiti, the defense argues that detectives mishandled the scene; that there’s no way to know exactly what happened, including who administered the fatal dose.

Mary Fulginiti: They didn’t test … to see if his DNA or fingerprints were on those syringes.

Ryan chooses not to testify. The defense argues he was a loving partner who was just trying to help Sarah.

Mary Fulginiti: This is a case about … caring for somebody … and — and possibly loving them to death.

His lawyers call a friend who saw Sarah using drugs before she began dating Ryan, and a relative who saw them as a happy couple.

In closings, prosecutors remind the jury that to convict Ryan of depraved-heart murder, it doesn’t matter whether or not he actually put the drugs in Sarah’s body…or even whether or not he wanted her to die.

Prosecutor Jennifer Harrison: … the act of giving her the drugs is … –him handing her a loaded gun …

But would the jury agree?

THE VERDICT

For as long as Kyle Stevens can remember, his friend Dr. James Ryan has done right by people.

Kyle Stevens:  He was pretty straight lace, clean-cut … guy.

Nikki Battiste: When he talked about Sarah, how did he sound?

Kyle Stevens: In the beginning … he … seemed enthusiastic and excited.

But Stevens says at a certain point, Ryan did reach out with a concern.

Kyle Stevens: He had asked about how to best be helpful and supportive to someone … in that place of depression and possibly addiction.

Nikki Battiste: Did it make you wonder if he was actually asking about Sarah?

Kyle Stevens Yeah. … but I didn’t press.

So Stevens says he had no idea what was really going on between the two. Then he discovered his friend was arrested and headed to trial.

Nikki Battiste: When you heard the verdict — what did you think?

Kyle Stevens: I was … taken back.

After a nearly two-week trial, it takes jurors less than three hours to reach their decision.

On Aug. 25, 2023 they find James Ryan guilty of the second-degree depraved-heart murder of Sarah Harris.

Prosecutor Kimberly Cissel: Relief.

Prosecutor Jennifer Harrison: Yeah. Relief.

They also convict Ryan on the manslaughter and drug charges.

Tina Harris: … my heart just felt satisfied …

Tina and Rachel Harris speak at a press conference after the verdict.

RACHEL HARRIS (to reporters): She was this beautiful beauty queen and she wasted away at the hands of Dr. James Ryan.

And again at Ryan’s sentencing months later.

RACHEL HARRIS (in court): He is a predator. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

TINA HARRIS (in court): Please! (crying) … Put him behind bars, until his life is done.

But James Ryan’s lawyers had submitted supportive letters from his friends and a legal filing which detailed that Ryan had his own struggles with drugs and mental health. Ryan addresses the court and insists he didn’t administer the lethal dose but takes responsibility for not preventing Sarah’s access to the drugs that killed her.

JAMES RYAN (in court): The words do not exist to convey and express the level of remorse I feel.

Though the guidelines suggest a sentence of 15 to 25 years for this case of depraved-heart murder, the judge has something else in mind.

JUDGE: It is the sentence of this court that you be committed to the Maryland Division of Corrections for a period of 40 years. …

With more time for the other counts, it’s a total of 45 years in prison.

Nikki Battiste: A 45-year sentence puts James Ryan in a category with some violent murderers.

Mary Fulginiti: You know, 45 years for James Ryan is basically life … Patients rely on doctors and their expertise and their advice. … and I think she’s sending a very loud message to the medical community.

And State’s Attorney John McCarthy wants to send a message to lawmakers: The depraved-heart murder charge may have worked in this trial, but it’s a difficult crime to prove in other overdose cases.

John McCarthy: We need tougher laws.

As early as 2015, McCarthy began pushing to streamline Maryland law so state prosecutors can more easily convict dealers and distributors who supply the drugs that lead to overdose deaths. But it hasn’t been easy.

John McCarthy: We’re not at a place in Maryland right now that the legislature seems very interested in creating new crimes and new penalties.

Ian Iacoviello, who read “murder” between the lines of this case, and retired after the trial, says he still thinks of Sarah often.

Det. Ian Iacoviello I did everything I could, um, for her.

So does her ex-boyfriend Henry Peterson, who looks back at their breakup with regret.

Henry Peterson: I guess I always thought she was gonna be there.

A regret Sarah seemed to share. Peterson showed “48 Hours” a letter she wrote him years earlier when their relationship ended.

Henry Peterson (reading letter): You made me feel alive … now that you’re gone … I feel so many pieces and parts have died with you …

As if to preserve his connection to Sarah, Peterson still practices a violin concerto he played at her grave.

It’s the place where, today, a mother who faced great loss — with even greater courage — struggles to face the future without Sarah and her brother, who were so close in life and death, that she actually buried their ashes in the same casket.

Tina Harris:  I hear Sarah telling me, “mama, it’s OK.”

Nikki Battiste: What do you want your daughter’s legacy to be?

Tina Harris: I want people to remember my Sarah as a light, a brilliant young woman who cared about others and loved life, loved it.

James Ryan will likely be eligible for parole in 20 years. He is appealing his conviction.

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Produced by Josh Yager and Kat Teurfs. Michelle Sigona and Tamara Weitzman are the development producers. Atticus Brady, Gary Winter, Michelle Harris and George Baluzy are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

This story originally aired on Nov. 18, 2023. 

Sarah Yarborough was a 16-year-old honors student on her way to drill team practice, when she was found murdered on the campus of her high school. Investigators had DNA evidence and eyewitnesses, but it would take almost three decades to identify Sarah’s killer. As “48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales reports, this case had a big impact on her family, friends and generations of investigators.

A HORRIFIC DISCOVERY

Natalie Morales: How often do you think about Dec. 14th, 1991, and what happened on that day? 

Drew Miller: Quite a bit. It’s a very traumatic thing to go through. 

It’s been over 30 years, but the details of that day have never faded for Drew Miller. 

Drew Miller: I had my friend spend the night at my house. We woke up that morning … watched cartoons, ate cereal, left to go skateboarding.

Miller, who was just 13 at the time, lived down the street from Federal Way High School near Seattle, Washington.

Natalie Morales: The school grounds have changed quite a bit, right?

Drew Miller: Drastically, yes … The tennis court is the only thing that’s still here.

Miller often took shortcuts through the school to go skateboarding, as he and his friend did that day.

Drew Miller (outside Federal Way High School): We used to hop the fence, right here … and cut through here (pointing ) … It was freezing cold that day. There was ice in all of the mud puddles. We just, you know, started smashing them because it’s fun … sounds like breaking glass. 

That’s when Miller says they noticed a man in the bushes.

Drew Miller: Right where you see the edge of this dugout right here (points) … That was all bushes that were probably this tall (positioning his hand near his shoulders). So, we couldn’t see him until he stood up.

Drew Miller: He’s just staring at us from the bushes. That was pretty jarring. But then he just walked out of the bushes. So, then we just assumed he was just smoking weed or something.

The mysterious man kept to himself and walked ahead of the boys. Miller says they didn’t think much of it until they came across a horrendous scene. There in the bushes, where the man had just been, was the body of a young woman.

Drew Miller: It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. The way that he left her body. … She clearly fought for her life. 

Miller says his shock turned to fear when he realized the man, who was still just feet in front of them, was now staring directly back at him. 

Natalie Morales: Does that look still haunt you?

Drew Miller: Oh yeah. Yeah …  It’s frozen in my mind. 

Natalie Morales: The boogeyman then. 

Drew Miller: Legitimate boogeyman.

The boys raced to Miller’s house and police were called to the scene.

Scott Strathy: When we approached the victim … on one of the pieces of clothing we saw the name “Sarah.”

Detective Scott Strathy with the King County Sheriff’s Office was one of the first officers on the scene.

Scott Strathy: And of course, later we found out that that was Sarah Yarborough.

Scott Strathy: Even for experienced investigators, this scene was really hard to deal with. Just the innocent nature of this young woman. In her school drill team uniform. With her hot curlers still in her hair. … This was just pure unadulterated evil. 

Investigators believed this was a sexually motivated murder.

Scott Strathy: She was partially clothed, her jacket, her undergarments, her bra had been removed … and placed next to her body.

Police discovered that the car Sarah had driven that morning was parked in the school parking lot – about 300 feet from where her body was found. 

Det. John Free: There didn’t really appear to be any sort of a struggle in the car itself.

Detective John Free with the King County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit would later join the investigation. 

Det. John Free: She had a container of orange juice that she had made that morning. It was just sitting in the front seat. Nothing was tipped over. So the question was, how did she get from her car to this hill? What lead her there? 

Scott Strathy: Sarah was one of these people that would help anyone with anything at any time. And part of our working theory was, was she coaxed into following, you know, the suspect. Did he say something like – I’m looking for my lost dog or I can’t find my car keys? Perhaps Sarah, in an attempt to assist this person, may have followed him to that area.

Natalie Morales: (pointing to photo of Sarah in her drill team uniform): Tell me about this one.

Laura Yarborough: That was less than a week, I think, before she died. I said, “could I take your photo because your Great Grandma really wants a picture of you in your drill team.” And she said, “OK.”

Laura Yarborough: It was just too incredible to believe that it could even happen.

Laura Yarborough: I mean who thinks that your daughter’s gonna be murdered? 

Sarah’s parents, Tom and Laura Yarborough, had the excruciating task of having to tell their two sons the tragic news. Sarah’s youngest brother Andrew was just 11 years old at the time.

Andrew Yarborough: At that age, probably never seen or heard your parents cry much. But that pain in the voice, is very, very vivid.

Sarah, who had just started her junior year in high school, had big plans for her future — starting with college.

Laura Yarborough: She didn’t want to go to a state school. She wanted to go to a school far away (laughs). She loved to travel.

Liberty Barnes: I actually would hear her say … “I can’t decide if I wanna be a museum curator or an engineer like my father.” … And I was always rooting for the museum curator (laughs).

Liberty Barnes, Kristi Gutierrez, Amy Parodi and Mary Beth Thome were some of Sarah’s closest friends.

Mary Beth Thome (pointing at the group photo seen above): So, this was after the last day of tenth grade. When we were just kinda goofing around afterwards. And that totally, I mean you can see, there’s Sarah right in the middle of it. Just being goofy.

Natalie Morales: The fiery red hair, was that her personality a little bit?

“Yes,” Sarah’s friends replied in unison.

Amy Parodi:  She was artistic, she was creative, she was smart. She was feisty …

Liberty Barnes: Imaginative.

Amy Parodi: All of those things.

Kristi Gutierrez: She would be the last one to wait for someone. … Always be there with a smile. She would help with homework. … It was her ultimate kindness. 

After Sarah was ripped from their lives, they say their sense of safety was gone forever.

Amy Parodi: You grow up getting all the safety conversations with your parents and bad things can happen and its sort of a vague possibility out there. And then all of a sudden, it was like no, no, no, no it can really happen. It really did just happen.

Scott Strathy: It was all hands on deck. The Sheriff’s Office put everything they had into solving this case as soon as they could.

And the killer left behind important evidence. Sarah had not been raped, but the killer’s DNA was found on pieces of her clothing.

Det. John Free: There was semen found on her underwear and on her jacket. … We had a full male DNA profile.

DNA technology was new back in 1991, but investigators hoped that DNA would someday lead them to Sarah’s killer. In the meantime, they had eyewitnesses.

Drew Miller: I thought for sure somebody would know him. 

Miller and his friend who was with him the morning they found Sarah’s body, worked with police and a sketch of the man they saw in the bushes was released to the public. Police would later release a more elaborate sketch.

Kristi Guiterrez:  I very vividly remember going through yearbooks. Going, “OK, who looks like the sketch?” Everyone … it felt like at one point was, was a suspect.

But as days went by and as leads dried up, police kept coming back to Drew and his friend.

Drew Miller: They just made me feel like I was the only person that could help them solve this. … I know that wasn’t their intent. I know the officers were just doing their best.

Natalie Morales: How much pressure were you feeling?

Drew Miller: It’s unimaginable pressure.

And despite everyone’s best efforts, it would take years to find Sarah’s killer.

Scott Strathy: This case was never forgotten.

IN SEARCH OF A DNA MATCH

In early June of 1993, a year-and-a-half after Sarah Yarborough’s murder, local media were there as students gathered in the courtyard of Federal Way High School to honor her. 

KOMO/ABC NEWS REPORT: Bill Fuller, a family friend who helped spearhead the move for a memorial to remember Sarah unveiled it with help from Sarah’s younger brother Andrew.

Bill Fuller: It was quite a day. … A lot of tears as they looked at it. You could see Sarah in that bench.

Bill Fuller has known the Yarboroughs for years, and his daughter was in Sarah’s class. 

Bill Fuller:  Sarah … she was fun to be around … probably what we missed the most is she was fun to be around. 

The bench reads “Carpe Diem” — “Seize the day” — a mantra Sarah lived by. Encased in bronze are some of her favorite possessions — ballet shoes, a replica of Sarah’s beloved dog “Gibby” and books.

KIRO-TV NEWS REPORT (1993): Andrew Yarborough: It’s nice that people cared about her so much.

Andrew Yarborough, now an adult, admits that he struggled as a young teenager. It was especially difficult to see those sketches around town of the man police believed murdered his sister.

Andrew Yarborough: There was drawings of the person’s face all over in businesses and towns. I do recall that quite a bit, having that kind of a constant reminder. 

Tom Yarborough: Looking back, I feel like we didn’t do a very good job with the boys. … But we were just so consumed by our own grief that we didn’t take time to help them. 

Laura Yarborough: I think we didn’t really know how to help them. It wasn’t something we had experience with. We didn’t know anything about grieving ourselves or how to help them through it.

And they weren’t alone in their grief. Shannon Grant, the last friend to see Sarah alive, says she lived with constant regret. 

Shannon Grant: I wish we could go back and do it all over again. That I would have asked the other drill team members what time practice was. You know, maybe dropped her off. I mean there are a lot of the what ifs. 

The milestones were especially painful.

Liberty Barnes: There was survivor guilt. Like why am I filling out my college applications when Sarah wanted to go to college? This isn’t fair. 

Mary Beth Thome: Every joyful occasion had this sorrow that went with it. There’s one missing from the crowd here.

Graduation day, June 12, 1993, was an emotional day but even more so since it fell on what would have been Sarah’s 18th birthday. Laura Yarborough came to support her daughter’s friends. 

Liberty Barnes: I do not know where she found the strength to do that.

Laura Yarborough says Sarah’s friends helped ease her grief somewhat and she thinks she filled a void for them, as well.

Laura Yarborough: Sometimes they would say, “Well, I’m gonna date this person and I just wanted to let you know cause I wasn’t sure if Sarah would approve of this person” (laughs).

Natalie Morales: So, they would seek approval through you. You became sort of their surrogate.

Laura Yarborough: Yes (laughs). 

As life slowly moved forward, investigators kept working the case. 

Det. John Free: I describe it as a relay race where the baton was handed off from one detective to the next over the years and decades. … I kind of refer to myself as the fifth Beatle in this investigation.

By the early 2000s, investigators had received over 3,000 leads. And advances in technology made them hopeful. They entered the DNA from the crime scene into the recently established CODIS system – a national DNA database that includes profiles of convicted offenders.

Det. John Free: The strategy was to continually try to see if there would ever be a match … while also investigating leads. 

But over time there appeared to be no match. 

Det. John Free: For us to have DNA evidence from the suspect, but not have that link to anybody, it just didn’t make sense. It seemed hard to believe the suspect had not committed any other prior crimes where his DNA wouldn’t be in the system.

That’s when he says detectives realized they had to go in a different direction. 

Colleen Fitzpatrick: My name’s Colleen Fitzpatrick and I’m one of the pioneers of forensic genetic genealogy. 

In 2011, investigators reached out to Fitzpatrick to inquire about using forensic genetic genealogy — the practice of using software to compare unknown DNA profiles to information from public DNA databases and searching family trees to identify suspects. Genetic genealogy is well known now and has been used to solve numerous cold cases, but at that time, it was in its infancy.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: When I started in this field, it didn’t exist. 

Fitzpatrick says most police agencies had been skeptical of this new investigative tool. 

Colleen Fitzpatrick: The police, you know, thought I was crazy, this little old lady with a crazy idea. I was actually almost laughed out of the room …

But the King County Sheriff’s Office took a chance on Fitzpatrick.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: It was for free. I just wanted to see if it worked. What are you gonna lose if you try something? 

The Yarboroughs were encouraged. 

Tom Yarborough: I think it wasn’t until we met Colleen Fitzpatrick that I really began to think, OK, they’re gonna find this person.

And it didn’t take long before Fitzpatrick came up with a name of a possible suspect that surprised just about everyone.

Mary Beth Thome | Sarah’s friend: Everyone went “Pff. No way.”

TECHNOLOGY CATCHES UP WITH THE INVESTIGATION

Colleen Fitzpatrick: From the beginning it was very promising. And the story took some really bizarre twists.

In 2011, 20 years after Sarah’s murder, when forensic genetic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick started working the Yarborough case, she traced Sarah’s killer’s family tree back to a man named Robert Fuller, whose family had come to America on the Mayflower.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: I found numerous matches to the name “Fuller.”

When Fitzpatrick gave the name “Fuller” to the King County Sheriff’s Office, they immediately knew of one person with that last name. Bill Fuller — the Yarborough’s close family friend who helped get that memorial bench built for Sarah.

Det. John Free: Naturally, that piqued our interest.

From the beginning, Sarah’s family and friends believed Bill Fuller had nothing to do with Sarah’s murder.

Laura Yarborough: He didn’t look at all like the suspect. The wrong hair color. He’s short, he’s not tall. He just didn’t fit the profile at all.

Fuller’s age didn’t match the profile either. He’s 79 years old now but was 48 years old at the time of Sarah’s murder — at least two decades older than the man Drew Miller described.

Bill Fuller: There was no way that I could be even remotely connected to this case.

He fully cooperated with police and voluntarily gave them a DNA sample. It didn’t match the DNA found at Sarah’s crime scene, yet Fitzpatrick remained optimistic.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: The good news is that we came up with a possible last name to investigate and this was the first break in the case in 20 years.

Fitzpatrick knew that Sarah’s killer was in the Fuller family tree somewhere, so she and her team went back to work. And as the years went by she knew she was only getting closer — especially after 2018 when forensic genetic genealogy was used to identify the Golden State Killer.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: The Golden State Killer really started the big revolution.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: … things had evolved that we had the data to work with. The technology was in place that we could go for it.

Then, in September 2019, Fitzpatrick’s team made a breakthrough. They came up with two new possible suspects: brothers Edward and Patrick Nicholas, who, as the DNA showed, were distant cousins of Bill Fuller.

Colleen Fitzpatrick: This is eight years of on-and-off and looking at it and never giving up. … This is it. This is exciting.

Det. John Free: Edward Nicholas … was a registered sex offender. His DNA was in the system. Was in CODIS.

But Edward’s DNA wasn’t a match. So they zeroed in on his brother Patrick who, in 2019, was a divorced loner who lived a couple of towns away from Federal Way.

Det. John Free: We learned that he was working at an auto part store. … Lived alone. No children, no friends or acquaintances that would even visit him. … Everything that he did was mostly by bus. … He wasn’t driving.

Detective Free says he discovered that when Sarah was murdered, the bus route Patrick Nicholas often took happened to go past Federal Way High School. Back then, Nicholas was just 27 years old and around that time looked very much like the description of the sketch.

Det. John Free: It looked promising at that point, but we still needed to get a DNA sample from him to match up to the DNA evidence that we had.

So, in late September 2019, investigators came up with a plan.

Det. John Free: We assigned a team of undercover detectives to start doing surveillance on Patrick Nicholas. In the hopes of obtaining a surreptitious DNA sample.

Eventually, undercover detectives followed Nicholas to a laundromat.

Det. John Free: They saw him go outside and smoke a cigarette. … And Patrick Nicholas was seen throwing the cigarette butt on the ground that was collected by our detectives.

Natalie Morales: That’s what you needed.

Det. John Free: Yes.

Natalie Morales: Right there, that cigarette butt.

Det. John Free: Yes. Actually he dropped two cigarette butts and a napkin that fell out of his pocket and all three items were collected.

The DNA samples were rushed to the crime lab and within days detectives received the call they had been waiting for.

Det. John Free: The DNA matched. This was our suspect.

Natalie Morales: Perfect match?

Det. John Free: Yes.

Patrick Nicholas was arrested.

Natalie Morales: There were so many suspects over the years, was Patrick Leon Nicholas ever named a suspect?

Det. John Free: Out of 4,000 tips. He was never named.

Andrew Yarborough: I was, I was pretty in shock.

The news was a relief for Sarah’s family and friends who had never given up hope that they would get answers.

Laura Yarborough: One thing the detectives kept telling us was … eventually technology’s gonna solve this case. … I trusted that, and they turned out that they were right.

Kristi Gutierrez : And I remember going out to my car … and bawling, just bawling. … Finally. Finally they got him.

When Drew Miller — who had seen Sarah’s killer back in 1991 — saw Patrick Nicholas’s face, he says he knew they had the right person.

Natalie Morales: What did he look like?

Drew Miller: The same guy, just older.

Natalie Morales: Same face?

Drew Miller: Evil eyes. Those evil eyes stayed the same.

Natalie Morales: All these years later?

Drew Miller: Yeah.

But it was not over yet.

DETECTIVE (interrogation): Why do you think you’re here?

PATRICK NICHOLAS: I have no clue.

During his interrogation …

PATRICK NICHOLAS: What am I am being charged for?

… when detectives specifically asked him about Sarah’s murder, he gave an alarming response.

DETECTIVE: What we’re investigating is the death of a young girl. Her name is Sarah Yarborough.

PATRICK NICHOLAS: What year?

Det. John Free: Interestingly he asked what year this was, and that really sent up a flag.

Natalie Morales: Why?

Det. John Free: Why would you ask that? He’s being told this is a murder case. We’re wondering at this point, are there other victims?

PATRICK NICHOLAS (interrogation): This is it. I’m not gonna say anything …

After an hour and a half, Nicholas asked for an attorney and stopped talking. But his criminal record would speak volumes.

Anne Croney: I am the one that got away.

A CRIMINAL PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR

On a quiet morning in June 1983, eight years before Sarah’s murder, 21-year-old Anne Croney was sitting by her car along the Columbia River in Richland, Washington, when a man approached her.

Anne Croney: He seemed normal. … kind of friendly, actually, just friendly … I had asked him if he’d done any water skiing yet because he said he had just moved to town and he said he couldn’t swim. … And he said, “my name is Pat Nicholas.”

After a few minutes of small talk, she became uncomfortable.

Anne Croney: I noticed his voice was getting shaky and I told him I had to go. … I went to close the door and he put a knife to my throat. … Everything kind of stopped at that moment. … He told me to take my clothes off.

Nicholas stuffed Croney’s underwear into her mouth to prevent her from screaming, forced her out of the car, and led her to the riverbank.

Anne Croney: We got about halfway down the bank, and he told me to stop … I ran … and dove in the river because I was thinking he couldn’t swim … swam as hard as I could.

Natalie Morales: Swam for your life.

Anne Croney: I swam for my life.

Passersby found Croney at a dock nearby and called police. As it turns out, 19-year-old Patrick Nicholas was no stranger to law enforcement and had a record. He had raped two women and attempted to rape a third.

Anne Croney: He’d been convicted … of rape as a juvenile and had actually only just been out for a few months when he attacked me.

Days after Croney’s attack, he was tracked down, arrested, and pleaded guilty to attempted rape. He told authorities, “I realize that I have a problem concerning raping girls.” At his sentencing hearing, Croney spoke out.

Anne Croney: I was actually very angry and asked the judge for the maximum sentence and the judge did agree and sentenced him to 10 years. … So, I thought it was over. I thought that justice had been served.

But Patrick Nicholas did not serve the full 10 years in prison. He was released after just three-and-a-half years. Croney was never notified. She barely thought of him again until October 2019.

Anne Croney: The police knocked on my door … and said that there were detectives in Seattle that wanted to talk to me about a cold case.

They informed Croney that Patrick Nicholas had been arrested again — this time for the murder of Sarah Yarborough.

Anne Croney: They told me that there were similarities in the cases, and I was crushed. … It had never occurred to me that what I escaped from was a murderer.

What’s more, if Nicholas had served his full prison sentence he would have still been behind bars that December morning in 1991 — unable to murder Sarah Yarborough.

Natalie Morales: How angry are you to hear that he was released that early?

Anne Croney: Very. It brought up a lot of the old anger and even more anger because the system failed.

King County deputy prosecuting attorneys Celia Lee and Mary Barbosa describe him as a serial predator with a clear pattern.

Celia Lee: All of the women were approached at or near their car. … he would strike up conversation and then pull a knife and tell them that they needed to walk … where he would order them to take off their clothes and then rape them.

Nicholas had also been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor in 1994, three years after Sarah’s murder. Five sexual assaults that investigators knew of – none of which had required him to submit his DNA so there was no record of him in the CODIS database. But in pre-trial hearings, the judge ruled that Nicholas’ criminal history could not be entered in as evidence.

Celia Lee: She found that it would be unfairly prejudicial to the defendant.

But the prosecutors were hopeful their case was strong enough. In early 2023, more than 30 years after Sarah Yarborough’s murder, her accused killer – now 59 years old – went on trial. Sarah’s childhood friends were there.

Kristi Gutierrez: I so clearly remember … the morning before the trial started just going, “I don’t know if I can do this.” Like, you know I had so many different emotions flowing through, and it was like, “no, we need to be there.”

Liberty Barnes: There was this absolute love for Sarah and the Yarboroughs that was so strong.

Natalie Morales: Did you feel like they were a lifeline for you?

Laura Yarborough: Yeah … You weren’t in it alone. You were all in it together.

As the trial got underway, the focus was on the DNA.

Natalie Morales: What was your strategy then, in trying this case.

Mary Barbosa: Well, we needed them to trust the science.

CELIA LEE (in court): There was a field that was emerging called forensic genetic genealogy.

Patrick Nicholas’s public defender, David Montes, challenged how forensic genetic genealogy was used to first identify Nicholas — the first time that kind of defense had been used in Washington State.

DAVID MONTES (in court): I want to dig into the science …

DAVID MONTES (in court): They used technology that was not only unproven, but just wacky really …

DAVID MONTES (in court): He’s not the person that killed Sarah Yarborough. … the police … needed an answer more than they needed the right answer … And, so, they turned to new novel, untested technology.

David Montes: Genetic genealogy is a new field … it really hasn’t been tested out … should we be making important decisions based on something that is not well or deeply understood?

But the prosecutors said that argument was moot because Patrick Nicholas’ DNA matched the DNA found at the Yarborough crime scene. And Detective Free says the numbers were astronomical.

Det. John Free: The odds were 1-in-120 quadrillion –

Natalie Morales: Quadrillion –

Det. John Free: Right. That it was somebody else.

If the numbers pointed to Nicholas’ guilt, law enforcement says so did evidence found at his house near the time of his arrest in 2019.

Det. John Free: it was almost like a lair … there was no working electricity at this house … stacks of pornography all throughout the place … We also found a newspaper from 1994 that had on its front page an article about the Sarah Yarborough case. … and going through one of the kitchen drawers, we found … a torn photograph … taken from a magazine of a woman in a cheerleading outfit.

Liberty Barnes: When the prosecutors showed that photo in the courtroom, the oxygen left the room.

Montes downplayed their significance.

David Montes: Both those pieces of evidence were not especially strange, given the general state of his house. … There were stacks and stacks of newspapers all over his house.

Patrick Nicholas didn’t flinch as the evidence was shown, showing no emotion throughout the trial. But Sarah Yarborough’s presence was felt. Especially when now-retired Capt. Scott Strathy carefully unpackaged and displayed Sarah’s clothing that had been in storage for over 30 years: her drill team jacket, shoes, sweater and even her nylon stockings.

Det. Scott Strathy: This was like opening a — a time capsule.

Amy Parodi: All of a sudden … they were real things. They weren’t even photographs … they were the things she had on her body when she died. … you just, you sort of felt yourself crumble …

After nine long days of testimony, the case went to the jury. It took them just over a day to reach a verdict.

Mary Beth Thome: I was shaking. And like, just that — like there was so much adrenaline and so much anticipation.

Kristi Gutierrez: Everything just dropped. It was like — what?

SARAH’S LEGACY

Sarah Yarborough’s loved ones had waited over 30 years for this moment, but then — shock.

“… not guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree, premeditated …”

Patrick Nicholas was found not guilty of the first charge: premeditated first degree murder.

Shannon Grant: I remember dropping my head to my hands … I was angry. I was in disbelief.

Amy Parodi: When that first one came in not guilty, I closed my eyes.

But there were other charges, and there was still hope of a conviction.

 “… Guilty of the crime of murder in the 1st degree”… “guilty … in the second degree …”

Patrick Nicholas was found guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree murder. The jury ruled both had been committed with a sexual motivation.

Celia Lee: I remember hearing the family behind me cry. … And I made eye contact with the jurors and nodded at them, you know, they got it. They got it, right.

Liberty Barnes: I feel so grateful for those detectives. For the boys, for the previous victims, for every witness who took the stand … so grateful that all these people came together.

Two weeks after Nicholas’ conviction, dozens of people who had been involved in every part of Sarah’s case gathered back at the courthouse for his sentencing hearing. Prosecutors asked the judge to impose extra time to take into account all of Nicholas’ crimes.

Liberty Barnes: The sentencing hearing was exhilarating in a way that I never expected. … it was probably the most raw human courage I have ever seen in my life.

LAURA YARBOROUGH (in court): Sarah’s death left our family broken, and we’ve never been the same …

ANDREW YARBOROUGH (in court): The pain in my father’s voice over the phone telling me Sarah was dead …

Person after person took to the podium to say all that Patrick Nicholas had taken from them.

DREW MILLER (in court): Coming face-to-face with pure evil that day has deeply impacted my entire life …

AMY PARODI (in court): He took her life, and what was sure to be a brilliant future from her. … In taking Sarah, he took the innocence of every one of us.

SHANNON GRANT (in court): Patrick Nicholas is pure evil.

Liberty Barnes: To face Patrick Nicholas and to say what they had been wanting to say to his face for 30 years. … there was so much power in the room. It was electric.

And then Anne Croney, who wasn’t allowed to testify at Sarah’s trial, started speaking.

Liberty Barnes: He just did like a double take and shuddered when Anne stood up.

Natalie Morales: Like he saw a ghost?

Liberty Barnes: Yes. 

Anne Croney: I’m sure he didn’t expect to ever see my face or hear my name ever again.

ANNE CRONEY (in court):  We rely on a system of justice that is designed to protect us from predators like Nicholas. And this system failed me. It failed Sarah, her family, friends, and countless others … I ask the court to please not make the same mistake.

After everyone spoke, Judge Josephine Wiggs addressed the court.

JUDGE JOSEPHINE WIGGS (in court): When I think about this poor child. This poor child. And what she experienced, fighting for her life.

Mary Beth Thome: Wiggs put her fist on the thing and said, “this was a child. … she kept saying that. And all I could think was — that’s right. We were children.

Nicholas received a sentence of almost 46 years. For Sarah’s family and friends, the sentence brought mixed emotions.

Mary Beth Thome: I don’t know that this is justice. It is a verdict, and it is putting someone away for something that they did, but he got 30 years … that she didn’t get.

Laura Yarborough: It makes me mad that he was free for so many years … and who knows how many other people were hurt during that time. I — I don’t know that we’ll ever know. And that could have been avoided.

Forensic genetic genealogy helped solve Sarah’s case, but prosecutors say similar technology could have identified Patrick Nicholas years earlier if only familial DNA searches were allowed in Washington State. In a familial DNA search, an unknown DNA sample is compared against profiles already in CODIS to search for possible family members. Patrick Nicholas’ brother had been in CODIS for years.

Mary Barbosa: The legislation just doesn’t exist in this state to allow that search …

Natalie Morales: California uses it. The UK, as I understand has —

Celia Lee: New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Florida …

Natalie Morales: Do you think it’s time to get that law changed?

Mary Barbosa: We do.

Celia Lee: We do.

The Yarboroughs agree and hope that Sarah’s case can make a difference.

Laura Yarborough: I would like to know that other parents don’t have to wait 30 years. …

Natalie Morales: What do you hope her legacy is?

Laura Yarborough: Well … I think her legacy is she was always someone who brought people together … she’s brought all the people together that attended the trial … that’s the kind of person she was.

For Drew Miller, who at 13 found Sarah’s body, the connections made at trial finally brought him some peace.

Drew Miller: Knowing he’s in prison is fantastic. But knowing her family and friends is way more important to me because that’s what’s given me the actual healing that I needed.

Sarah’s friends will always remain bonded by the past, and Sarah’s stolen future.

Kristi Gutierrez: Not only was she beautiful, her soul was beautiful … and the grace and the beauty that she carried and left with all of us. … We won’t forget her. We will never forget her.

Investigators have not linked Patrick Nicholas to any additional crimes, but his DNA is now in the CODIS database.

“48 HOURS” POST MORTEM PODCAST

Correspondent Natalie Morales along with producers Chris Young Ritzen and Lauren Clark discuss how a man who’d been in and out of prison for crimes against women was able to slip through the cracks for decades, and that forensic genetic genealogy ultimately connected him to Sarah’s murder. 

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Produced by Chris Young Ritzen and Lauren Clark. Greg Fisher is the development producer. Michael Loftus is the associate producer. Gary Winter, Joan Adelman and Doreen Schechter are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.