Murder of Sarah Yarborough

Sarah Yarborough was a 16-year-old student at Federal Way High School in Washington. On December 14, 1991, she arrived at the school before a drill-team competition and was killed on a brush-covered hillside near the grounds. Investigators preserved biological evidence, but the case remained unresolved for decades.

Forensic genetic genealogy later helped investigators develop Patrick Leon Nicholas as a lead. Detectives recovered cigarette butts he discarded, and the Washington State Patrol crime laboratory compared that DNA with the preserved crime-scene profile. Nicholas was arrested in October 2019 and prosecuted in King County.

In 2023, a jury found Nicholas guilty of first-degree murder with sexual motivation. On May 25, 2023, the trial court imposed an exceptional sentence of 548 months, or 45 years and eight months. That term cannot be presented as the settled current sentence because Nicholas appealed it.

On May 5, 2025, the Washington Court of Appeals rejected his challenges to the conviction and otherwise affirmed, but remanded for resentencing after finding one stated basis for the exceptional sentence invalid. The first-degree-murder conviction therefore remains standing while the sentence is subject to the remand. No later docket-confirmed resentencing was located through the July 13, 2026 audit cutoff. The solved classification reflects the standing conviction; the ongoing warning is used as the closest available schema flag for the unresolved legal proceeding.