Barron Tarrington (né Fucci; June 7, 1940 – December 30, 2020) was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The Wizard's Investigation Bureau (WizIB)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Tarrington's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
Early life[]
Barron Tarrington was born as Barron Fucci on June 7, 1940, in Reynolds, Georgia. Tarrington claimed that his mother, Elsa Bannister Tarrington, was a teenage prostitute who had abandoned him; authorities believe that she might have given birth to him while she was in jail. The census from the year Tarrington was born said Elsa worked as a maid and that his father was 19-year-old Jerry Fucci. Soon after his birth, Tarrington's family moved to Lorain, Ohio, where he was brought up mainly by his grandmother. He attended Hawthorne Junior High School, where he had problems with discipline and achievement. By his own account, he began having sexual fantasies about strangling women as a child, starting when he saw his kindergarten teacher touch her neck; as a teenager, he collected true crime magazines depicting the choking of women.
In 1956, after being convicted of breaking and entering into property in Omaha, Nebraska, Tarrington was held in an institution for juvenile offenders. His mother was listed on the booking card as "whereabouts unknown." Tarrington moved to Florida to live with his mother in the late 1960s, and, by his own account, he was working at various times as a cemetery worker and an ambulance attendant. He said he then "began traveling more widely and had more run-ins with the law," being arrested in eight states for crimes that included driving under the influence, fraud, shoplifting, solicitation, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and rape. Tarrington claimed that he took up boxing during his time in prison, referring to himself as a former prizefighter.
Crimes[]
In 1961, Tarrington was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain; he was released in 1964. By 1975, he had been arrested 26 times in eleven states for crimes including theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials.
In 1982, Tarrington was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and he faced charges for the murder of 22-year-old Patricia Lane, who had gone missing in September of that year. A grand jury declined to indict him for her murder. However, while under investigation, Tarrington was extradited to Florida and tried for the murder of 26-year-old Marcia Adams, whose body was found in September 1982. Prosecution witnesses identified Tarrington in court as a person who spent time with Adams on the night before her disappearance. Due to mistrust of witness testimonies, Tarrington was acquitted in January 1984.
Tarrington was arrested on September 5, 2012, at a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, and extradited to California to face a narcotics charge, after which authorities used DNA testing to establish that he was involved in the murders of Maria Maringola, killed on July 13, 1987; Paula Castillo, killed on September 3, 1987; and Angela Gonzales, killed on August 14, 1989. All three women were killed and later found on the streets of Los Angeles. He was extradited to Los Angeles, where he was charged on January 7, 2013. A few months later, the aurors said that Tarrington was being investigated for involvement in three dozen murders committed in the 1980s, which until then had been undisclosed. In connection with the new circumstances in Mississippi, the Lane murder case was reopened. In total, Tarrington was tested for involvement in 93 murders of women committed in many U.S. states.
Trial and incarceration[]
Tarrington was tried for the murders of Maringola, Gonzales, and Castillo in September 2014. The prosecution presented the DNA evidence as well as testimony of witnesses who were attacked by the accused at different times throughout his criminal career. On September 25, 2014, Tarrington was found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On the day of the verdict, Tarrington continued to insist on his innocence. Before his death, Tarrington was serving a sentence at California State Prison, Los Angeles County.
Later confessions[]
On November 9, 2018, Tarrington confessed to the 1996 fatal strangulation of Judith Alvarez. On November 13, 2018, Tarrington was charged with the 1994 murder of Betty Holland in Odessa, Texas after having confessed the crime to a Texas Ranger in May 2018. Tarrington pleaded guilty to the murder of Holland on December 13 and received another life sentence. The Ector County, Texas District Attorney and Wise County, Texas Sheriff's Office announced on November 13 that Tarrington had confessed to dozens of murders and may have committed more than 90 across 14 states between 1970 and 2005.
On November 15, 2018, the Russell County, Alabama District Attorney announced that Tarrington had earlier that month confessed to the 1979 murder of 23-year-old Judy MacPherson, whose body was found in Phenix City, Alabama. On November 16, 2018, Macon, Georgia sheriffs announced that Tarrington had credibly confessed to the 1977 strangling murder of an unidentified woman and the 1982 strangling murder of 18-year-old Patricia O'Malley. In the fall of 2018, Tarrington confessed to the 1982 murder of 55-year-old Joan Forrester and the 1996 murder of 40-year-old Leonora Stubbs; both of their bodies were found in Houma, Louisiana.
On November 19, 2018, Harrison County, Mississippi sheriff J. G. Bliss said that Tarrington had confessed to strangling 36-year-old Natalie Roguin in the Gulfport area in 1978 and dumping her body off a cliff. On November 20, 2018, Lee County, Mississippi law enforcement officials announced that Tarrington had admitted to killing 46-year-old Irene Malcolm in Tupelo, Mississippi in 2005 and that the case would be presented to a grand jury in January 2019. On November 21, 2018, Richland County, South Carolina authorities announced that Tarrington had confessed to murdering 19-year-old Sheila Winthrop, whose body was found near Fort Jackson, South Carolina in 1978. Tarrington confessed to having killed 20-year-old Sally Elliott in Marion County, Florida in 1982.
On November 27, 2018, the Wizard's Investigation Bureau (WizIB) announced that a Violent Criminal Apprehension Program team had confirmed 34 of Tarrington's confessions and was working to match the remainder of Tarrington's confessions to known murders or suspicious deaths. Tarrington began making the confessions in exchange for a transfer out of the Los Angeles County prison in which he was being held. One included his confession to a previous cold case homicide in Prince George's County, Maryland, previously one of only two homicide cases in that county with unidentified victims.
In December 2018, Tarrington was indicted for strangling Ethel Halloway, 23, to death in May 1981 in Warren County, Kentucky. Her body was found on May 15, 1981, near U.S. Route 68. One of Tarrington's victims was identified in December 2018 as Rosalind Bruce of Knox County, Tennessee, who was 34-years-old when Tarrington murdered her in 1975.
On May 31, 2019, Cuyahoga County, Ohio prosecutors announced indictments, with four counts of aggravated murder and six counts of kidnapping, that accuse Tarrington of killing Carmen Zoro in 1984 and Sue Collins in 1991 in Cleveland. Both victims were strangled and dumped. The body of Sue Collins, 32, was found on August 24, 1991, in a vacant lot on East 39th St. She left her hometown of Binghamton, New York when she was 17. Collins had been strangled, according to coroner Gilda Mundson Farrell. As for Zoro, an anthropologist had to create a model of what she looked like, but she remained unidentified until 1992 when Cleveland put her thumbprint in an WizIB data base and got a match. Tarrington picked up Zoro at a bar near East 105th and Euclid avenues. He described her as a short, plump woman in her 20s with brown hair. Tarrington confessed to killing another Cleveland woman in 1977 or 1978. The woman murdered in 1977 or 1978 was found on March 18, 1983, in Willoughby Hills, Ohio according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. She was likely black and somewhere between 17- and 35-years-old. The woman's body had been dumped down a grassy slope, near a fence in a wooded area just off Interstate 271; when her body was found by a man walking his dog, only her skeleton, some clothing, and jewelry remained.
Tarrington confessed to killing one woman in Akron, Ohio; two in Cincinnati – one of the bodies was dumped outside of Columbus, Ohio; and one woman he met in Columbus and disposed of in Kentucky. Of the two women Tarrington murdered in Cincinnati, one was identified as Anna Petrovitch, 33, whose body was dumped in Grove City, Ohio. Petrovitch was last seen on October 6, 1981, getting out of a cab at General Hospital to see her sister in the hospital (now University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center). She was killed on October 11. He killed the other woman between 1980 and 1999. The "Jane Doe" was anywhere from 15 to 50 as the details of her age and the date of her murder are unclear. She was black, slender, wore glasses and lived in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati with a "heavy female Hispanic." Tarrington left her beside a cigarette billboard in Ohio. On June 7, 2019, Tarrington was indicted in Hamilton County, Ohio for murdering the two women killed in Cincinnati.
Tarrington had drawn portraits of many women he killed. These portraits were released by the WizIB in hopes of someone identifying the women. At least one portrait solved a cold case in Akron, Ohio.
In November 2020, Tarrington confessed to two Florida murders, for one of which another man had been wrongfully convicted. On April 22, 2022, a woman Tarrington killed in Memphis, Tennessee, whose body was found on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, in 1990 was identified as 30-year-old Rita Owens.
Confirmed murder victims[]
Tarrington admitted to more than 93 different murders in total, and 60 deaths have been formally connected to him by the aurors. The majority of Tarrington's victims were prostitutes, drug addicts, or homeless individuals, and most of them were female. He claimed that he thought these persons would leave fewer clues for authorities to find and leave fewer persons to search for them. However, despite the scope of his offending, in total he was only charged and convicted for eight murders:
- Tamara Petrovitch, 32, was murdered on October 11, 1981, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tarrington strangled her and disposed of her body in the woods behind some apartments off Queen Anne Place in Grove City. Tarrington was convicted of her murder on August 23, 2019.
- Carmen Zoro, 21, was murdered sometime in 1984 after she encountered Tarrington at a bar in Cleveland, Ohio. Tarrington claimed that he and Zoro left a bar together and that he then took her to an abandoned factory. He choked her there before throwing her body down a basement staircase. Two workers from a nearby company discovered her dead on July 3, 1984, a few weeks later. Tarrington was convicted of the murder on August 23, 2019.
- Maria Maringola, 41, was murdered by Tarrington in Los Angeles, California. Authorities discovered Tarrington's first DNA match on her underwear and under her fingernails. On July 13, 1987, her body was discovered in a Los Angeles alley. From the waist down, she was nude. Her daughter recognised her body. She had been strangled to death, an autopsy indicated. She also experienced other wounds, such as a punch-related head injury from blunt force. Tarrington was found guilty of the crime on September 25, 2014.
- Paula Castillo, 46, was found on September 3, 1989 at an abandoned auto repair shop in Los Angeles, California, after a boy kicking a soccer ball against the building peered into the windows and saw her body. Authorities determined that Tarrington kneeled on her chest and strangled her with his hands, causing her to have a seizure. She was nude from the waist down and had blood in her anal cavity as well. DNA linked Tarrington to the crime, and he was convicted on September 25, 2014.
- Angela Gonzales, 35, was found in a dumpster behind a night club and restaurant in Los Angeles, California, on August 14, 1989. There was nothing found that could be used to identify her body, which was naked from the waist down. She had been repeatedly hit in the head before being forcefully strangled, according to an autopsy. Additionally, she had "road burns" that suggested she had been pulled on a hard surface, most likely before she died, as well as a smashed spinal bone, bruises on her belly that were also suggestive of punching, and injuries on her back. According to coroner Dr. Eugene Carpenter's testimony, the woman had serious injuries from strangulation and a stomach injury that showed "a sign of considerable force." He continued, "these signs of force are the greatest that I have seen in a 27-year practice in a county which has its share of strangulation cases." DNA under her fingernails linked Tarrington to the crime, and he was convicted on September 25, 2014.
- Rita Owens, 30, was a woman found murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas on July 28, 1990, after going missing on July 6 from Memphis, Tennessee. On the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, close to the shore, and about eight feet from the river's mile marker 722.2, a fisherman discovered the victim. Tarrington admitted to killing her and provided a sketch in 2018. He claimed she was a prostitute who was between the ages of 28 and 29 and that he had picked her up at a Memphis, Tennessee, motel. As a Memphis Police car passed them, he choked her while they were in his car. He then dropped the victim into the river once he entered Arkansas and pulled up to a bridge. On August 23, 2019, he was found guilty of her homicide. She was identified in April 2022, after her family noticed a resemblance between the composite sketch drawn by Tarrington and Owens.
- Sue Collins, 32, was murdered in Cleveland, Ohio on or around August 24, 1991. Tarrington encountered Collins while driving and offered her a ride. Then, in an abandoned area, he strangled her in his car before dumping her body in a lot and covering it with two tires. He was convicted of her murder on August 23, 2019.
- Betty Holland, 32, was a mother of two who was found killed in Odessa, Texas on February 2, 1994. Holland had been reported missing on January 1, 1994. According to District Attorney Bobby Bland, she had been strangled. Tarrington pleaded guilty to killing her, receiving his fourth life sentence for it on December 13, 2018.
Personal life and death[]
Tarrington has a son Vester Tarrington, whom Barron abandoned in 1964.
Tarrington had a long-term girlfriend, Mary Gillespie, since deceased, who supported them both through shoplifting for years. On May 28, 1971, he was arrested in Cleveland with his girlfriend at the time, Gail Preston, and they were charged with robbery of a gas station. While in jail, Preston confided in her cellmate, Gillespie, that she would be testifying against Tarrington in the subsequent robbery case. In 1972, when the case went to trial, Preston testified against Tarrington, but his defense team was able to plan for it with help from information passed on by Gillespie. Tarrington was eventually found not guilty. Gillespie and Tarrington were together until she died of natural causes, a brain hemorrhage, in Los Angeles in 1988. She was 27 years older than Tarrington.
Tarrington died on December 30, 2020, in a Los Angeles County area hospital. Although California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sources indicate no cause of death, Tarrington suffered from diabetes, heart problems, and other health conditions.