Convicted serial killer Billy Mansfield confessed to abducting 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett from her Daytona Beach hotel room in the middle of the night and then killing the young woman, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
A convicted serial killer, child molester and sex offender confessed to the murder of a high school student, according to authorities.
Billy Mansfield confessed to abducting 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett from her Florida hotel room in the middle of the night and then killing the young woman, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
That confession comes 44 years after police discovered Barrett's body in a ditch along the side of a highway on March 24,1980.
Her friends provided information about the teen's abductor to authorities and a sketch was made of a suspect, but no leads emerged and the murder investigation soon became a cold case.
Then, in 2017, Barrett's case was reexamined by the JSO cold case unit, who after reviewing all available evidence, decided to reopen the investigation into the murdered teen.
Three years later, Mansfield went from being a person of interest to a suspect in the case, according to the JSO.
"In September 2022, after multiple interviews spanning two years, Billy Mansfield advised that he was in fact the suspect in the police sketch completed following the abduction," says the JSO in its statement. "He went on to confess to the abduction from the Daytona Beach Shores hotel, as well as to her murder shortly thereafter."
It was just one year after Barrett's murder when a search of the property Mansfield shared with his brother turned up the remains of four young women.
Mansfield was also charged with the murder of a California woman whose body was found dumped in a ditch on the side of the road, just eight months after Barrett's body was found similarly disposed of by her killer.
The State Attorney's Office in the 4th Judicial Circuit says that no charges will be filed against Mansfield for Barrett's murder, as he is already serving a life sentence for murder in the state of California as well as four concurrent life sentences in Florida for the murders of the women whose remains were discovered on his property.
Authorities also note that Mansfield is cooperating with officials to help solve other cold cases.
