Prosecutors say blood provides clear answers in cold-case murder
Sondra Better’s daughters waited more than 20 years for an arrest in their 68-year-old mother’s brutal killing inside a Delray Beach consignment shop.
But they only had to wait about five months for the trial of Todd Barket to begin Monday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, on first-degree murder and robbery charges.
The 51-year-old Brandon man demanded a speedy trial, an unusual move for homicide cases — especially those with old evidence and faded memories — that can take years to be heard by a jury.
Prosecutors, however, say that the blood and fingerprints from the crime scene of Aug. 24, 1998, provide clear answers for the panel picked to decide the case.
“Blood can tell a compelling story, even 21 years later,” said Assistant State Attorney Richard Clausi.
In his opening statement, the prosecutor explained that the case turned cold until Barket applied for a job that fingerprints for a check.
Delray Beach detectives said that led to a match with a fingerprint that was lifted from a decorative marble ball found near Better’s body.
At the time she was bludgeoned and stabbed to death, the Highland Beach woman was planning to retire from the parttime position at the Lu Shay store, 3175 S. Federal Highway. Her husband, Seymour “Zeke” Better, died in 2015.
After the fingerprint hit, investigators trailed Barket and obtained his DNA. They said it matched drops of blood preserved in evidence, leading to Barket’s March 27 arrest.
“There is no other explanation for his blood being everywhere the killer’s blood and robber’s blood would be,” Clausi said, pointing at Barket seated in the courtroom. “He’s the one that did it.”
But Assistant Public Defender Joseph Walsh then declared it’s not so simple: “Things aren’t always required his background what they seem.”
Barket’s lawyer told the jury that shoddy police work raises plenty of questions, such as fingerprints from two other decorative balls that were never matched to potential suspects.
“What you see when you look deeper at the evidence … there was a failure in how the processing of the crime scene was done in this case,” Walsh said.
He said the ball allegedly containing his client’s fingerprint is long gone.
“You’ll never see the ball that Mr. Barket is alleged to have touched,” Walsh said. “This is a case about Todd Barket’s innocence to the crimes that are charged, and law enforcement’s efforts to jump to the wrong conclusion.”
Barket was 29 and lived in Lantana at the time of Better’s killing, police said. Over the years he may have worked in a nursing home and avoided trouble with the law, authorities said.
Police said their big break came when Barket applied to the state to become a certified nursing assistant. In January, those prints matched evidence police submitted to a national database two decades earlier.
The trial continues Tuesday with prosecution witnesses, including a shopper who says she saw Better speaking to a man somewhat fitting Barket’s description, just before the killing.
Circuit Judge Cheryl Caracuzzo told the 12-member jury that their work on the case should end by Friday.