Nashville now and then: A moment of closure?

Marcia Trimble's murder impacted the lives of a generation of young people in Nashville, as well as many of their elders. If the crime has been solved, more than just those immediately affected will be able to cast aside emotional baggage that has been with them for a long time.
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Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

The rape and murder of Marcia Trimble, who lived on quiet Copeland Drive in Green Hills, has been the most talked-about unsolved crime in Nashville history.

This weekly history column is often about events that happened and people who flourished long ago. Today, it is about a history that I share with many of you who are reading.

My connections to the Marcia Trimble murder case are tenuous, like many of yours: I am slightly older than Marcia and never met her. But those links are substantial enough that I feel required to preface this piece, and make known to readers of its companion piece, the ways that the Trimble saga intersects with my personal history.

Both Marcia's father and the owner of the home where her body was found were classmates of my father at the old Woodmont School. Girls in my class at Percy Priest School were friends of Marcia's. I live today fewer than 300 yards from where her body was found.

My wife Nicki, who grew up on the street where we now live, knew several of the families directly affected by the case. She knows March Egerton, who lived under police scrutiny for years, as a fellow food writer. And John Egerton, his father, is a former business partner of mine.

In the late 1980s, I briefly worked for a company that employed one person whose name had come up in press accounts of the Trimble case. I recognized his name immediately and tried to make sure, when we were introduced, that he did not detect that recognition. My boss at that company had moved to Nashville from the upper reaches of New England. Days after I came aboard, he took me aside.

"What's all this whispering I keep hearing about ____ possibly being a child-murderer?" he asked.

My most direct connection is not one that touches on any possible conflict of interest. As an 11-year-old Boy Scout in March 1975, I was among hundreds or perhaps thousands of volunteers who searched every vacant quadrant of Davidson County for Marcia. I vividly remember being assigned to search the grounds surrounding Nashville's airport, Berry Field, and turning to ask the scoutmaster just before our troop set off:

"What are we supposed to do if we find her?"

Our adult leader found some way to evade directly answering that question, thus preserving the fiction that we might find her alive, which is what I had in mind when I asked. I don't think I was capable of imagining that she was dead.

There's at least one more connection that has preyed on my mind this past week. Marcia Trimble was a 9-year-old 4th-grader at Julia Green School when she perished. My daughter is the same age, in the same grade, at the same school.

Memories, unfiltered

This week, I have appealed to numerous friends and acquaintances who found their lives touched by the Trimble case to tell their stories. I gave all the option of anonymity, and although only some asked for it, I think it appropriate to treat all of their comments the same way.

The two exceptions include one current colleague and one friend whose encounter with the case happened on a professional level. The latter is Pat Nolan, now a well-known political commentator and a senior vice president at public relations firm Dye, Van Mol & Lawrence. Pat's e-mailed recollections are as follows:

I was just about to begin my career at Channel 5 when Marcia Trimble disappeared in late February, 1975. By the time I came on board in the newsroom the next month (March 3) at the age of 23, it was the lead story on every newscast every night.

Obviously, the nature of the story had a lot to do with that kind of coverage . But technology may have played a role too, at least in how the story was covered. TV stations were just beginning to add electronic news gathering (ENG) capabilities to their reporting from the field. Channel 5 was one of the first stations in the nation to have such capabilities, which included using videotape cameras rather than film cameras. That allowed the station to be able to instantly show what was happening rather than having to wait to process and develop film. More importantly, ENG used small microwave trucks which could send back live reports and/or video tape direct from the field.

The other local stations quickly scrambled to catch up. For example, Channel 4 had a large mobile production truck that wasn’t used all that often. But as the Trimble search continued, it was put into daily use so reporters could give the latest on every newscast live from the scene about what was happening.

All that came to a final, sad conclusion when Marcia’s body was found some weeks later. The discovery was made on Easter Sunday.

As the years went by, the investigation continued. I remember once when an arrest was made, I had the assignment to do a reaction story talking with the people who were neighbors in the boarding house (just off West End Avenue) where the suspect was living. Those charges were later dropped.

I guess because of that, while I certainly hope and pray Marcia’s murderer is one day brought to justice, I have been reluctant to jump to any quick conclusions about the case being solved.

My colleague and fellow Nashville native Ken Whitehouse, who is younger than I but shares my passion for local history, sent this recollection:

Former Davidson County Sheriff Fate Thomas was a friend of mine, and occasionally, just before he passed away, I'd go out to see him when he was working out at Bob Frensley's car dealership. One day we were talking about famous Nashville murders, mainly the Capitol Chevrolet murder and the Trimble murder.

When I asked about Trimble, Fate lit up with a fire I hadn't seen in a long time. He pounded his desk, exclaiming: "I checked that damn refrigerator the day before, the whole garage — she wasn't there!!!"

Mind you, this conversation took place in 1999 (we were also talking about Al Gore's presidential chances, which is why I remember when), shortly before Fate died. After all that he had been through in his own life, his fortunes rising and falling in the interim, you could see that he still was upset, pissed-off even, that this was a case that had gone unsolved.

I also spoke with my Mom about this the other day. I told her that I remembered not being allowed to play in the yard with my sister when all of this happened. Sure, a police dragnet was evident all over the place, but I was only four and really wasn't aware, so you're talking about a kid who was mainly upset that he couldn't go outside.

Before I could ask what she recalled, Mom said very softly, with her voice trailing off:

"I still can hear the helicopters."

Others who sent me their recollections include relatives, old friends, and friends of friends:

Most of us recall an idyllic youth spend with few restrictions on movement of liberties as young children.

I can recall summer-time rules such as "be home by the time the street lights come on," and unchaperoned walks/bike rides to the commercial district in the third grade.

All that changed with the Trimble case. It rightfully horrified parents that our suburban paradise could thus be violated.

— a local stockbroker, 11 years of age when Marcia disappeared, who lived about two blocks away

The whole thing truly did change not just Nashville, but put a face on death for me at a very young age. I will never forget driving in the car on Easter Sunday 1975 and hearing how they found her body in the ______s' garage. There was no way a parent can sugar-coat that kind of news to a 9-year-old kid.

Now with an almost 9-year-old kid myself, I would hate for him to go through losing a friend like I did. We all grew up too fast at that point. In a way, this arrest would be closure not just for the Trimbles, but for me and every other kid in that neighborhood who knew Marcia.

A couple of years after her death, I had an old camera that my grandmother had given me. I had forgotten about it and took the film in it to be developed, and it came back with 12 pictures taken one day — one with a picture of just Marcia on it sitting on her front porch when me and her and another kid were playing in her front yard.

— a successful entrepreneur now living away from Nashville, 10 years old when Marcia disappeared, who grew up close to her home

I remember the helicopters as well. Surprisingly, there wasn't much parent panic, at least that they let us see. What I remember most about it was the endless speculation about which of the disturbed young men from the neighborhood was actually the perpetrator.

We also had many policeman searching through the yard (maybe with dogs) and they looked in our crawl-space — which really frightened me, wondering if they would find a body.

— a Nashville woman, 10 years old when Marcia disappeared, who grew up close to her home

I remember that a guy about my age named ____ ______ [ed. note: neither Jeffrey Womack nor March Egerton] lived in that neighborhood, and he was questioned several times over a period of many years by the police. I can remember playing against him in a church basketball game two or three years after the murder and it feeling awkward — as most of our teammates and our parents were thinking that we might be playing church ball against a guy who had possibly gotten away with the rape/murder of a 9-year-old girl.

I remember my own instincts telling me then: There’s no way this guy is guilty (he was a very nice kid) and what an injustice it was that so many people seemed inclined to think he was just because no other perpetrator had been caught yet.

When it was reported on the news the other night that the DNA was a match with that murderer, I immediately thought of ____ ______ and how his life would surely have been much better if they had caught this guy in 1975 instead of now.

— a Nashville banker who was a few years older than Marcia

You know, Tom, I am consumed by guilt, as I had assumed that the town gossip was correct: The death was a result of teenagers engaged in a sex game with Marcia that got out of control.

I know we were frightened and activities were curtailed. The aftermath for those neighborhood boys haunts me, if, in fact, they had nothing to do with it. I think it has in some ways scarred them.

— a Nashville entrepreneur, female, close to Marcia's age

A little lightness

A coda to this week's column, and perhaps an antidote to the horror and sadness it involves, comes from an ad in the Evening Tennessean from this week in 1930:

Attention, children of the Depression! Get your $2.49 velocipedes! Get your 98-cent scooters! Right here at Silverfield's Toyland...

Birthdays of note this week:

• Waller attorney and all-round mensch James Weaver, Dollar General CEO David Perdue — December 10
• State Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet), singer Brenda Lee, and Owen biz school finance expert Hans Stoll — December 11
• Frist Foundation President Emeritus and former First American CEO Ken Roberts — December 12

Each week, this column is made freely available to NashvillePost.com subscribers and non-subscribers alike. If you would like to be alerted by e-mail as each new edition is published, let us know at tom.wood@nashvillepost.com. Your personal information will not be shared with any outside entity.