Missouri man charged in 1966 killing in suburban Chicago, based on DNA evidence

CREVE COEUR, Mo. — A 79-year-old Missouri man is accused of killing a woman in her suburban Chicago home — a crime that happened nearly 60 years ago.

James Barbier was arrested Monday at his St. Louis County home and charged with first-degree murder in the November 1966 death of 18-year-old Karen Snider in Cook County, Illinois.

The breakthrough came when police reopened the cold case in December 2022 and sent blood evidence to a lab, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The blood matched Barbier’s. After his arrest, he was extradited to Cook County.

Prosecutors said Barbier was released Thursday — prosecutors did not try to keep him in jail because of his age and “physical infirmities.” He has been banned from leaving Missouri or Illinois and had to surrender his passport and firearms. He will be heard in court again on May 21.

It was not clear whether Barbier had an attorney. Phone calls to his home on Saturday went unanswered.

Snider’s body was found by her husband, Paul, on the night of Nov. 12, 1966, after he arrived home late at their home in Calumet City, Illinois, prosecutors wrote in court documents. The couple’s two-month-old daughter lay unharmed in a crib.

Karen Snider was stabbed approximately 125 times, according to the medical examiner. Barbier, who worked with Paul Snider in a rail yard, was arrested in 1966 but never charged. Authorities did not say why.