IL IL - Nicole Willis, 16, Centreville, 3 Oct 1989

'Justice for Nicole': Man charged with 1989 murder of Centreville teen

http://www.bnd.com/2013/02/13/2495112/i-will-take-delayed-justice-to.html

Just a few months later, Willis, 16, was walking home from a bus stop at the intersection of 68th and State streets in Centreville. The next morning, Oct. 4, 1989, Willis' grandfather found her partially nude body in an empty lot at 215 N. 69th St. -- about a block from her home. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted.
 
http://www.bnd.com/2014/05/20/3216216/mother-of-victim-testifies-about.html?sp=/99/166/

Marva Willis lived another nightmare on Tuesday when she testified the night her 16-year-old daughter went missing and the morning her daughter's half-naked body was found less than two blocks away from home.

Willis was the first witness called in the prosecution's case against Carlos Garrett, who is charged with the 1989 murder of the Cahokia High School junior...

Garrett, 53, was charged with the murder after Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Dave Wasmuth reopened the case in 2013. When the evidence taken from the scene was re-examined, scientists discovered DNA taken from under Willis' fingernails which were cut during a post-mortem examination of her body.
 
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/jurors-say-not-guilty-in-centreville-murder-case-based-on/article_ae7f7bb5-584d-5bcb-9364-82ff9ece45ae.html

Jurors in St. Clair County Circuit Court acquitted Garrett despite Special Assistant State’s Attorney Ali Summers’ insistence that there was ample evidence to convict him.

Defense lawyer Thomas Q. Keefe III reminded jurors that Garrett’s boss provided an alibi for about the time Willis disappeared on Oct. 3, 1989. Keefe noted there had been other suspects besides his client, and that the DNA at issue, found under Willis’ fingernails, did not necessarily come from her killer.

An Illinois State Police expert testified during the trial that the DNA probably did come from the attacker, and belonged to Garrett with a certainty of 3.2 quadrillion to one.
 

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