Cook County cold case: Man accused of killing young mom in 1966 allegedly worked with her husband

CHICAGO - A local family expressed their thanks to the Calumet City Police Department on Monday for solving the 1966 murder of their loved one.

Karen Snider was just 18 years old when she was stabbed more than 120 times at her home in Calumet City in 1966. At that time, police arrested a man, but didn't have enough evidence to charge him with the murder.

About 18 months ago, Snider's family called detectives and asked them to take a fresh look at the evidence. 

"I was just at work one day. I was reading up on it, and I was like, ‘Alright. Maybe after 57 years, some sort of technology can be used to figure out who committed the crime,’" said Kevin Seeley, one of Snider's family members. 

A pair of Calumet City detectives found critical information stored in the department's evidence locker. 

"All the evidence was still there. So, there was a lot of blood evidence. There was multiple physical pieces of evidence that were recovered back then, and obviously, the case files," said Calumet City Police Chief Kevin Kolosh. 

Karen Snider

Detectives submitted the bloody clothing to the Illinois State Police crime lab, then went to Missouri with a search warrant and obtained a DNA sample from 79-year-old James Barbier, a former coworker of Snider’s husband. Barbier was arrested at the time of the murder, but released for lack of evidence. 

"It was one of the best phone calls I’ve ever received," said Paula Larson, daughter of murder victim Karen Snider. "And the second best phone call was the other day when they called to tell me that the man was in custody and arrested."

Last week, prosecutors charged Barbier with Snider’s murder. 

"I believe my father died way early because of this. Because of the fight he had internally, the knowledge he had 98 percent that this was the killer," said Larson. "I had to drive past the cemetery the other day. I was alone in the car and I said out loud, ‘Mom and Dad, we got him!’"

The detectives who interviewed Barbier said he indicated that he knew this day would eventually come. Because of his age, he has been allowed to return to his home in Missouri and will be back to appear in court on May 21.