Merkel man gets 25 years for sexually abusing Lubbock girl in 2007 - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Farrar admitted to the abuse, which happened back in 2007. The jury, made up of six women and six men, spent about five hours deliberating on Sept. 16 in the 140th District Court before handing down the quarter-century sentence.

The case sat unresolved for almost two decades before reaching a courtroom in Lubbock County. For the girl at the center of the case, now an adult, the verdict closes out a legal process that stretched across most of her life. Cases like this remind people here how long the wheels of justice can turn, and how a crime committed in 2007 can still land someone in prison in 2024.

For families in Lubbock, the sentence sends a clear signal that old cases do not disappear. Prosecutors and the 140th District Court followed through on an allegation from nearly two decades ago, proving that a long gap between crime and conviction does not mean a case goes cold for good.

Farrar was 38 when the jury delivered its verdict, meaning he was still a teenager when the abuse happened in 2007.