The Victimization of Velma Tharpe and Paul Garrett
A decade after Garrett completed a prison sentence for Tharpeâs killing, another man is charged with the murder
Tweet
Share
In late 2004, a little more than a year after a Nashville man named Paul Garrett was sent to prison for the killing of a sex worker named Velma Tharpe, police and prosecutors received a piece of information that should have set off alarms. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had run a DNA sample taken from Tharpeâs stomach and vaginal area and run it through the national Combined DNA Index System. They found a match, but it wasnât Paul Garrett: The DNA was from a Nashville man named Calvin Atchison. But this revelation led to little more than a yellow sticky note in a prosecutorsâ case file. The note read, âSomeone should look into this.âÂ