He didn’t prosecute the murder case in 1982, but Robert L. “Skip” Jarvis Jr., state attorney for the Third Judicial Circuit in Live Oak, Fla., was working in the state attorney’s office at that time. He remembered the case and its details, so when he was notified that the convicted murderer had a parole hearing scheduled, he went to defend the state and the victim’s rights.

Jarvis appeared before the parole board in Tallahassee, Fla., last week to ensure that Orin Dale Edenfield will remain in jail after convincing the board to set a prison presumptive release date of May 11, 2107. Edenfield pled guilty to first degree murder in November 1982 for the strangling death of Sally Rae Trimmer of Valdosta.

In contact recently with the last surviving member of Trimmer’s immediate family, Jarvis said, “I appear at each and every one of these hearings because the victims cannot. Many times there will be family members also testifying, but in some cases, such as this, there are not. Sally Rae Trimmer was a person, not a statistic, and should not be forgotten.”

According to Jarvis, both of the victim’s parents are deceased and her lone sibling no longer lives in the area. She was 29 at the time of her murder, unmarried, with no children.

Trimmer was last seen Friday, May 7, 1982 and reported missing by a coworker early Saturday morning, May 8. A story dated Sunday, May 9, 1982 in The Valdosta Daily Times, ‘Security Guard is Missing Here,’ said Trimmer was the vice president of Watch Security Company. When she didn’t come to work, which was very unlike her, her coworker went to her house, where a horrific scene awaited. The walls and carpet of her home were splattered with blood. Her keys, car, cash, purse and the clothes she was last seen wearing were in her home on Claudia Circle.

According to the story, she was known to be an expert with a gun, but hers was in the house, untouched. Her co-worker speculated that she was taken by surprise, as she had told friends she was going home Friday night to shower.

On May 13, 1982, a story in the Times, “Madison Man Questioned in Disappearance Here,” stated that a suspect, Orin Dale Edenfield, 26, of Madison, Fla., had been arrested on a

probation violation and was

 being questioned in the case.

The story stated that police took evidence from his home and seized his

brown Ford Van.

The story also states that, according to police, on the previous Friday, a woman driving on Madison Highway said a woman in a robe jumped out of a brown van at an intersection and was screaming for help. A man dragged her back into the van. The witness said she contacted a family member for help in following the van, but they lost it. However, they did get the license plate, which, according to Jarvis, is how police tracked down Edenfield.

The next story in the Times, on May 14, “Florida Body Believed Trimmer,” began reporting that the body of a female had been unearthed by law enforcement in a field off Florida Highway 150 near Pinetta belonging to a relative of Edenfields. The police stated in the story that they had received a tip from someone not connected with the case who had seen Edenfield’s van in that area.

The following day, Edenfield was charged with first degree murder. The Times’ story stated, “Trimmer Murder Suspect Gave Self Cocaine Shot.” According to Jarvis, Edenfield told police he was high at the time and could not remember what happened.

A Times’ story on May 15, 1982, stated that Trimmer was strangled by a curtain which came from Edenfield’s van. There was no sign of sexual assault.

Jarvis said that, at the time, Edenfield’s story kept changing, and at one point he claimed that he had tied Trimmer to a tree and she somehow “strangled herself.” He said reports show that she was killed within a day of being taken to Florida.

Jarvis said “no motive for the killing was ever found,” but that Edenfield had also shown up at her house while detectives were inside looking for evidence.

“We don’t know if he came back to clean up or to steal something, but he was seen at the residence while police were there.”

On Nov. 19, 1982, Edenfield pled guilty to first degree murder in a plea bargain to escape the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Jarvis said Florida has since revised the law that allowed parole for a first degree murder conviction, but since Edenfield was sentenced under the law at the time, he became eligible for a parole hearing.

At the hearing last week, Jarvis said he spoke for the victim and for the family. Although the parole board agreed to the conditional release date of 2105, at which time Edenfield will be 151 years old, a mandatory parole hearing has to be scheduled every seven years.

According to Jarvis, Edenfield had a long criminal history, which began in Lowndes County in 1974, when he was 18 years old. He was arrested for burglary, put on probation, was re-arrested in Jackson, Ga., in 1975 for burglary, and was again put on probation. In 1977, Jarvis said, he was caught again and given a six-year sentence. After serving two years, he was released under supervision. At the time, he was living in the Lowndes County area but moved shortly after to Madison, Fla., where he married.

Jarvis said Edenfield was on probation at the time of the murder for a domestic dispute that occurred in October 1981.

Edenfield, now 54, began his sentence in Florida and was transferred to a Colorado prison that specializes in housing inmates under protective custody. He is not registered in either Florida or Colorado databases as an inmate, and Jarvis said he does not know when or why Edenfield was moved, but for security reasons, the state’s Department of Corrections will not release the name of the facility where he is currently incarcerated.