'Mom and dad, we got him': Arrest made in 1966 murder of Calumet City mother

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Calumet City detectives have brought a Chicago southland family one step closer in their long struggle to bring a killer to justice, with an arrest made after nearly 60 years.

“Mom and dad, we got him,” Paula Larson said at a press conference Monday.

Larson was 2 months old when her mother Karen Snider was killed in Calumet City. Snider, who was 18 at the time, was stabbed more than 120 times by her attacker, who has remained free since her murder in 1966.

“I believe my father died way early because of the fight that he had internally, the knowledge that he 98% felt that this was the killer,” said Larson.

The case was re-examined after a December 2022 phone call from relative Kevin Seeley, whose grandmother had long repeated the story of Karen Snider’s death with a sense of frustration over the lack of justice.

“I was at work one day, and I was reading up on it, and I was like, ‘All right, maybe after 57 years, some sort of technology can be used to figure out who committed the crime,’” he said.

Seeley would receive a call from Calumet City detectives 16 months later, when he was told that a suspect — 79-year-old James Barbier — had been arrested.

Calumet City Police Chief Kevin Kolosh said Calumet City detectives, with assistance from the St. Louis County Police Department, took Barbier into custody on April 29. Kolosh also credited the original investigators on Monday for locating and preserving evidence that helped present-day police make the arrest.

Now in custody, Barbier had long been accused by Snider’s family and will appear in a Cook County courtroom later this month.

“My father fought from the day he found her until the day he died [to] try and bring this to justice,” Larson said.

Larson said her mother was beautiful and that “her family loved her very, very much.”

Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!
Sign up and follow WBBM Newsradio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok