JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A suspect has confessed to the murder of an Ohio teen found in Jacksonville from more than 40 years ago, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
On March 23, 1980, 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett was visiting Daytona Beach while on Spring Break from Zanesville, Ohio with a group of high school friends, JSO said. Carol was abducted by an unknown assailant at approximately 2:00 a.m. from the Treasure Island Motel in Daytona Beach Shores. Carol’s friends that had been in the room at the time of the kidnapping were interviewed by investigators and a police sketch of the suspect was completed.
Barrett's family said that she had wanted to go to Florida for spring break and had saved the life of a younger friend at a pool party a week prior. According to Project Cold Case, the man who entered the hotel room told them to get naked, robbed them and threatened that if they tried anything he would kill one of them. The man then said he was going to take one of them to make sure they wouldn’t call the police after he left.
Barrett volunteered to go instead of a friend. Barrett's body was discovered by a passerby in a ditch line along Interstate-95 near Pecan Park Road in Jacksonville the next day. Her death was ruled a homicide.
The case went cold after years of detective work by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office along with the original jurisdiction, the agency said.
However, Barrett's case was revisited in 2017 and reopened by the JSO’s Cold Case Unit after reviewing the available evidence.
In 2020, a person of interest had been identified as a suspect: 65-year-old Billy Mansfield, Jr. He would have been 24 at the time of Barrett’s Murder, the sheriff's office said. Following two years of interviews, Mansfield said he was in fact the suspect in the police sketch from the abduction.
He later confessed to the abduction from the Daytona Beach Shores hotel and her murder shortly after.
The State Attorney's Office in the 4th Judicial Circuit determined it would not seek prosecution as Billy Mansfield will remain in prison in California on one life sentence for murder in addition to four concurrent life sentences in Florida for murder in separate cases. Sets of remains were also found at his Hernando County home more than 40 years after his arrest.
Mansfield continues to cooperate with detectives in other jurisdictions regarding additional Cold Cases, the agency said.
Barrett's niece, Claire Gilligan, said she was ecstatic the Cold Case was solved. She said it was comforting to know Mansfield had been in jail since the early 1982, preventing more murders.
"Carol is finally getting the recognition she deserves," Gilligan said. "It's finally like we can rest a little bit."