A serial killer already serving time in California confessed to a 44-year-old murder case after two years of hard pressing from the police.
Billy Mansfield Jr, 68, admitted to kidnapping and killing 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett while she was on spring break with her friends in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Barrett disappeared from the Treasure Island Motel shortly before 2am on March 23, 1980.
Her body was discovered in a ditch the following day in Jacksonville, nearly 90 miles south of where she was last seen.
Police created a sketch of Barrett’s assailant thanks to the testimony of her friends, who had been inside their rooms when she was kidnapped.
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Her death was ruled a homicide but the trail soon ran cold and the case remained shut until 2017, when the Cold Case unit at the sheriff’s office decided to review the evidence.
Three years later Mansfield Jr. was identified as a potential suspect and after two years of intense investigation, he finally confessed to murdering Barrett.
Despite his admission, the State Attorney’s Office of the 4th Judicial Circuit said they would not prosecute Mansfield on the 43-year-old case.
The 68-year-old is currently serving a life sentence in California and four concurrent life sentences in Florida for a series of murders committed between 1975 and 1980.
He buried four victims in the grounds of his family home in Spring Hill, Florida. Mansfield then travelled to California, where he raped and murdered a woman.
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The Hernando County Sheriff’s Department discovered the bodies in April 1981 after receiving aa tip about human remains at the Florida property.
The bodies were later identified as 21-year-old Sandra Jean Graham, who had disappeared in 1980, and 16-year-old Theresa Fillingim, who was only IDd in 2022 thanks to genetic genealogy testing.
A third victim, believed to have been approximately 13 at the time of her death, is still listed as Jane Doe.
Mansfield pleaded guilty to the murder of his California victim to avoid the death sentence in Florida.
The Sheriff’s Office noted Mansfield has also been collaborating with officers in other states about other cold cases.
