EVERETT — Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives announced this afternoon that they have solved a cold case homicide that was a mystery for 33 years.
Marsha Sitton, 24, was found June 24, 1977, in the backseat of her Chevy Nova. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Police say the slain woman’s husband, Kerry Sitton, is responsible. Forensic evidence taken from a 12-inch piece of rope found at the crime scene has linked him to the murder, Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.
“This office is committed to solving cold cases,” Sheriff John Lovick said. “We never give up hope, even if it takes 33 years.”
Kerry Sitton died in December 2004. Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe has reviewed the case and determined that if Sitton were alive today, he would be charged with murder.
Cold case detectives suspect that Marsha Sitton was planning to divorce her husband. They believe he killed her in their home and left her in her car on a gravel road near Mill Creek. Investigators suspect that Kerry Sitton walked less than three miles back to the couple’s home, cleaned up and disposed of evidence.
Detectives back then suspected Kerry Sitton was responsible, but there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him and the case went cold.
In 2003, sheriff’s detectives sent evidence from the crime scene to the Washington State Patrol crime lab for DNA analysis. Investigators in 2004 visited Kerry Sitton, who had since remarried, and interviewed him. They took a DNA sample from the man. He agreed to take a polygraph, but the test had to be cancelled because Sitton was suffering from seizures caused by a brain tumor, Hover said.
He died before he took the polygraph.
Detectives learned in 2004 that forensic samples recovered from Marsha Sitton’s body matched her husband’s profile. That wasn’t enough to close the case since the two were married and Kerry Sitton told detectives the couple had been intimate before his wife’s body was found.
Despite his efforts to hide his involvement, Kerry Sitton left behind one piece of evidence that led detectives to him, Hover said. Investigators suspect that he had used a rope to strangle his wife. The rope was cut off, but a 12-inch piece was found at the crime scene, behind Marsha Sitton’s neck, Hover said. That rope contained the forensic evidence to link him to the crime.
Investigators had wanted to have the rope tested for forensic evidence but that kind of special analysis wasn’t available at the state crime lab at the time. The technology became available and earlier this year the scientists at the state crime lab conducted advanced testing on the rope.
Kerry Sitton’s DNA was found on the end of the ligature.
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