Post by marion on Jun 12, 2006 2:14:44 GMT -5
Jury to decide if wife's beachfront murder was husband's plot
Justin Barber is charged with killing
his 27-year-old wife, April, during a
late-night stroll on the beach. The
financial analyst insists a mugger
killed his wife and shot him four times.
By Harriet Ryan
Court TV
June 9, 2006
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — On a summer night four years ago, a 30-year-old financial analyst named Justin Barber stumbled out of a sport utility vehicle on A1A, the beachfront highway that runs along Florida's Atlantic coast, and flagged down a passing motorist.
Barber had been shot four times and was bleeding heavily. He told police and rescue workers that a mugger attacked him and his wife on the beach. He had left her lying injured on the sand to go for help, he said.
As a helicopter flew Barber to a hospital, officers from the St. Johns Sheriff's Department rushed to the beach and found April Barber. The 27-year-old was dead from a single gunshot wound to her head. Investigators delivered the grim news to her husband in his hospital bed.
In the following days and months, authorities began to suspect the mugger was an invention, and the grief-stricken man in the hospital gown was not a victim but a calculating killer. There was a $2.3 million insurance policy, a string of lovers and Internet activity that hinted at premeditation. After two years of investigative work, detectives arrested Barber.
On Monday, Justin Barber will go on trial on a first-degree murder charge that could send him to death row. He insists he is innocent and says he fought to save his wife's life.
"I did not murder April, I did not kill her, and I didn't plan to," he said two years ago when he took the unusual and ultimately unsuccessful step of testifying before a grand jury to try to clear his name.
The trial is expected to focus on evidence of the motive, forensic analysis of the crime scene, and the injuries that both Barbers suffered.
Romantic stroll turns deadly
Guana River State Park, a pristine stretch of beach between St. Augustine and Jacksonville, officially closed to visitors at sunset, but at about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 17, 2002, the Barbers parked their SUV along the highway and used a wooden walkway to cross the dunes onto a secluded beach in one of the most isolated areas of the park.
Barber told police that not long after they began strolling on the beach, a man appeared out of the darkness and demanded cash.
"A struggle ensued and the two victims were shot," according to a sheriff's office press release issued the day after the shooting.
Barber said he lost consciousness after a bullet struck him. When he awoke, he said, he found he had four bullet wounds, one in his left hand, another just below his right nipple, a third in his right shoulder and a fourth in his left shoulder. The gunman was gone and so was his wife. He said he found her several minutes later floating in the surf. She had a bullet hole below her left eye.
Barber said he tried to carry his wife to their car, but was hobbled by his injuries. He told detectives that he managed to drag her 100 yards to the walkway over the dunes, but then continued on alone to his vehicle.
He said he drove north, trying to wave cars over, but it was 10 miles before he caught the attention of another motorist.
Barber said that, because of the darkness and the speed of the attack, he did not get a good look at the attacker. While he was being treated in the hospital, sheriff's officers used helicopters, dogs and foot patrols to scour the park for the assailant and the murder weapon. They found nothing.
Justin and April Barber were
married in 1999.
Two-home marriage
As they worked the case, detectives pieced together a picture of April and Justin Barber and their three-year marriage. The couple, who earned bachelor's and graduate degrees at Oklahoma State University, lived together in southern Georgia until the year before the murder. Justin Barber moved to Jacksonville to take a job as a business analyst and management trainee with Rayonier, a timber products company.
His wife stayed behind to continue her work at a cancer treatment center where she was a dosimetrist, a technician who helps gauge and administer the proper amount of radiation for patients. Her own mother had died from lung cancer while April was in high school, and family members later said April, a bright young woman who had been salutatorian of her class, felt called to work with those suffering from the disease.
April Barber drove from Georgia to her husband's condominium in Jacksonville each weekend, and on the surface, it appeared the Barbers were succeeding at their long-distance marriage.
The crime scene, though, raised questions about Justin Barber's account. Detectives interviewed Barber repeatedly about the incident. At one point, they returned with him to the beach and asked him to reenact the crime while they videotaped. Almost immediately, investigators felt his story was suspicious. April Barber had suffered a single, fatal gunshot wound from a .22-caliber gun, a relatively small weapon. By contrast, Barber was shot four times, but none of the wounds were serious enough to require surgery and some officers felt they were superficial. If the killer had fired some of the shots while Barber was unconscious on the sand, why didn't he aim for the head?
There was also the matter of the dried blood on April Barber's face. Her husband recounted dragging and carrying her 100 feet, even throwing her over his shoulder at one point, but the blood stained only one side of her face, suggesting, authorities felt, that she had not been moved after she was shot. If she wasn't moved, detectives thought, she must have been shot near the crosswalk where she was found and not by a mugger 100 feet away on the beach.
The medical examiner concluded that April Barber was "incapacitated" by being "nearly drowned" and then moved to the location where she was shot.
With their suspicions raised, investigators began looking for a motive. They soon found life insurance policies totaling $2.3 million, including one $2.1 million policy April Barber bought the year before the murder.
Investigators delved into Justin Barber's finances and determined he had serious money troubles. His wife's aunt, a county judge in Oklahoma, told police that when Barber arrived for the funeral, he said he couldn't afford to pay for the burial, headstone or flowers. According to court papers, he told the judge that he would reimburse her once the insurance policy paid out. Later, Barber tried to collect the money, but his wife's siblings and aunt successfully filed suit to block the payout, arguing that he was still a suspect in the crime.
Detectives also found evidence that Justin Barber was a serial philanderer who had affairs with three women in Georgia, one in Florida and another in New Zealand. He saw one of the women just days before the murder.
Web of suspicion
Searches of his computer hard drive uncovered suspicious Internet activity, according to court papers. On Valentine's Day, about six months before the murder, someone used a search engine on Barber's computer to query "trauma cases gunshot right chest." A week later, the computer was used to search for "medical trauma gunshot chest."
According to other court papers, the same computer review found searches after the murder for information about relocating to Brazil. In a motion filed this spring, prosecutors said Barber acknowledged in grand jury testimony that he believed Brazil did not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.
The computer analysis also showed a series of strange searches that hinted at curiosity about faking one's death. The searches included "American death certificate Mexico"; "murder missing corpse large amount of blood presumed dead"; "how much blood loss is required to be declared dead"; and "frozen blood storage."
In addition, a wrongful death suit filed by the victim's heirs alleged that Barber downloaded and then deleted a potentially telling song by Guns N' Roses. The lyrics of "Used to Love Her" from the rock band's 1988 "Lies" album include the lines "I used to love her, but I had to kill her/ She pregnant doged so much/ She drove me nuts/ And now I'm happier this way."
In July 2004, prosecutors in St. Augustine convened a grand jury to consider charges against Barber. By then, Barber's company had transferred him to Portland, Ore., but when he learned the grand jury was taking up his wife's murder, Barber returned to Florida to testify. He spent three hours describing the shooting and answering questions about the prosecution's evidence.
According to First Coast News, a television station that obtained a copy of his testimony, Barber acknowledged five affairs, but brushed off suggestions they were a motive for murder.
"If you're having an affair with someone else, you would look like a prime suspect in a homicide," a prosecutor remarked.
"It never crossed my mind," he said.
When one of the jurors pressed him about the Guns N' Roses song, he replied, "If you're asking me was I downloading music because I planned to kill my wife, I certainly was not."
Despite emphatic denials of any involvement in the crime, Barber was indicted shortly after he concluded his testimony. He was arrested as he sat outside the grand jury room.
Trial strategy
At his trial, prosecutors are going to lean heavily on the medical evidence of drowning as well as the bloodstain on April Barber's face. At least three experts are expected to testify that she died on the walkway and not by the water's edge. At a court hearing earlier this year, prosecutor Robin Strickler said their forensic findings destroy Barber's credibility.
"It is impossible for the defendants' statements about how this occurred to be true," he said. "If the court believes our opinions are correct, we have someone who is lying — lying to cover up the murder of his wife."
Jurors are not likely to hear all the motive evidence. Circuit Court Judge Edward Hedstrom has indicated that computer searches conducted before the killing are admissible, but inquiries afterwards, including the searches about Brazil, are not admissible.
The judge may also limit evidence of infidelities that did not occur close in time to the murder. Jurors are expected to hear from the woman who was having an affair with Barber at the time of the murder. That woman, a car rental employee, has characterized the relationship as one limited to casual sex.
Like the prosecution, Barber's defense is expected to emphasize forensics. The defense witness list, includes two pathologists, a crime scene analyst and an expert in tire tread analysis.
In a hearing earlier this year, a lawyer for Barber ridiculed the prosecution's suggestion that Barber shot his wife after dragging her from the surf to the crosswalk, which was closer to what the attorney called "civilization."
"Why wouldn't he just keep holding her under and finish the job?" defense attorney Robert Willis said.
The defense is likely to focus on the account of two motorists who passed the beach at the time of the murder and saw two vehicles: the Barbers' SUV and a Chrysler. The Chrysler had vanished by the time police arrived to look for April Barber and the defense has suggested the killer escaped in the car.
At one time, the defense seemed to be considering implicating a convicted rapist named David Shuey. About a year after the murder, the 33-year-old was arrested for sexually assaulting women near the beach where the crime occurred.
In court papers, Willis said his client saw a photo of Shuey in a newspaper and found him "similar in appearance" to the mugger. But Shuey turned out to have a strong alibi for the day of the murder. His cellphone and credit card records indicated he was a thousand miles away in Connecticut at the time.
Justin Barber is charged with killing
his 27-year-old wife, April, during a
late-night stroll on the beach. The
financial analyst insists a mugger
killed his wife and shot him four times.
By Harriet Ryan
Court TV
June 9, 2006
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — On a summer night four years ago, a 30-year-old financial analyst named Justin Barber stumbled out of a sport utility vehicle on A1A, the beachfront highway that runs along Florida's Atlantic coast, and flagged down a passing motorist.
Barber had been shot four times and was bleeding heavily. He told police and rescue workers that a mugger attacked him and his wife on the beach. He had left her lying injured on the sand to go for help, he said.
As a helicopter flew Barber to a hospital, officers from the St. Johns Sheriff's Department rushed to the beach and found April Barber. The 27-year-old was dead from a single gunshot wound to her head. Investigators delivered the grim news to her husband in his hospital bed.
In the following days and months, authorities began to suspect the mugger was an invention, and the grief-stricken man in the hospital gown was not a victim but a calculating killer. There was a $2.3 million insurance policy, a string of lovers and Internet activity that hinted at premeditation. After two years of investigative work, detectives arrested Barber.
On Monday, Justin Barber will go on trial on a first-degree murder charge that could send him to death row. He insists he is innocent and says he fought to save his wife's life.
"I did not murder April, I did not kill her, and I didn't plan to," he said two years ago when he took the unusual and ultimately unsuccessful step of testifying before a grand jury to try to clear his name.
The trial is expected to focus on evidence of the motive, forensic analysis of the crime scene, and the injuries that both Barbers suffered.
Romantic stroll turns deadly
Guana River State Park, a pristine stretch of beach between St. Augustine and Jacksonville, officially closed to visitors at sunset, but at about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 17, 2002, the Barbers parked their SUV along the highway and used a wooden walkway to cross the dunes onto a secluded beach in one of the most isolated areas of the park.
Barber told police that not long after they began strolling on the beach, a man appeared out of the darkness and demanded cash.
"A struggle ensued and the two victims were shot," according to a sheriff's office press release issued the day after the shooting.
Barber said he lost consciousness after a bullet struck him. When he awoke, he said, he found he had four bullet wounds, one in his left hand, another just below his right nipple, a third in his right shoulder and a fourth in his left shoulder. The gunman was gone and so was his wife. He said he found her several minutes later floating in the surf. She had a bullet hole below her left eye.
Barber said he tried to carry his wife to their car, but was hobbled by his injuries. He told detectives that he managed to drag her 100 yards to the walkway over the dunes, but then continued on alone to his vehicle.
He said he drove north, trying to wave cars over, but it was 10 miles before he caught the attention of another motorist.
Barber said that, because of the darkness and the speed of the attack, he did not get a good look at the attacker. While he was being treated in the hospital, sheriff's officers used helicopters, dogs and foot patrols to scour the park for the assailant and the murder weapon. They found nothing.
Justin and April Barber were
married in 1999.
Two-home marriage
As they worked the case, detectives pieced together a picture of April and Justin Barber and their three-year marriage. The couple, who earned bachelor's and graduate degrees at Oklahoma State University, lived together in southern Georgia until the year before the murder. Justin Barber moved to Jacksonville to take a job as a business analyst and management trainee with Rayonier, a timber products company.
His wife stayed behind to continue her work at a cancer treatment center where she was a dosimetrist, a technician who helps gauge and administer the proper amount of radiation for patients. Her own mother had died from lung cancer while April was in high school, and family members later said April, a bright young woman who had been salutatorian of her class, felt called to work with those suffering from the disease.
April Barber drove from Georgia to her husband's condominium in Jacksonville each weekend, and on the surface, it appeared the Barbers were succeeding at their long-distance marriage.
The crime scene, though, raised questions about Justin Barber's account. Detectives interviewed Barber repeatedly about the incident. At one point, they returned with him to the beach and asked him to reenact the crime while they videotaped. Almost immediately, investigators felt his story was suspicious. April Barber had suffered a single, fatal gunshot wound from a .22-caliber gun, a relatively small weapon. By contrast, Barber was shot four times, but none of the wounds were serious enough to require surgery and some officers felt they were superficial. If the killer had fired some of the shots while Barber was unconscious on the sand, why didn't he aim for the head?
There was also the matter of the dried blood on April Barber's face. Her husband recounted dragging and carrying her 100 feet, even throwing her over his shoulder at one point, but the blood stained only one side of her face, suggesting, authorities felt, that she had not been moved after she was shot. If she wasn't moved, detectives thought, she must have been shot near the crosswalk where she was found and not by a mugger 100 feet away on the beach.
The medical examiner concluded that April Barber was "incapacitated" by being "nearly drowned" and then moved to the location where she was shot.
With their suspicions raised, investigators began looking for a motive. They soon found life insurance policies totaling $2.3 million, including one $2.1 million policy April Barber bought the year before the murder.
Investigators delved into Justin Barber's finances and determined he had serious money troubles. His wife's aunt, a county judge in Oklahoma, told police that when Barber arrived for the funeral, he said he couldn't afford to pay for the burial, headstone or flowers. According to court papers, he told the judge that he would reimburse her once the insurance policy paid out. Later, Barber tried to collect the money, but his wife's siblings and aunt successfully filed suit to block the payout, arguing that he was still a suspect in the crime.
Detectives also found evidence that Justin Barber was a serial philanderer who had affairs with three women in Georgia, one in Florida and another in New Zealand. He saw one of the women just days before the murder.
Web of suspicion
Searches of his computer hard drive uncovered suspicious Internet activity, according to court papers. On Valentine's Day, about six months before the murder, someone used a search engine on Barber's computer to query "trauma cases gunshot right chest." A week later, the computer was used to search for "medical trauma gunshot chest."
According to other court papers, the same computer review found searches after the murder for information about relocating to Brazil. In a motion filed this spring, prosecutors said Barber acknowledged in grand jury testimony that he believed Brazil did not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.
The computer analysis also showed a series of strange searches that hinted at curiosity about faking one's death. The searches included "American death certificate Mexico"; "murder missing corpse large amount of blood presumed dead"; "how much blood loss is required to be declared dead"; and "frozen blood storage."
In addition, a wrongful death suit filed by the victim's heirs alleged that Barber downloaded and then deleted a potentially telling song by Guns N' Roses. The lyrics of "Used to Love Her" from the rock band's 1988 "Lies" album include the lines "I used to love her, but I had to kill her/ She pregnant doged so much/ She drove me nuts/ And now I'm happier this way."
In July 2004, prosecutors in St. Augustine convened a grand jury to consider charges against Barber. By then, Barber's company had transferred him to Portland, Ore., but when he learned the grand jury was taking up his wife's murder, Barber returned to Florida to testify. He spent three hours describing the shooting and answering questions about the prosecution's evidence.
According to First Coast News, a television station that obtained a copy of his testimony, Barber acknowledged five affairs, but brushed off suggestions they were a motive for murder.
"If you're having an affair with someone else, you would look like a prime suspect in a homicide," a prosecutor remarked.
"It never crossed my mind," he said.
When one of the jurors pressed him about the Guns N' Roses song, he replied, "If you're asking me was I downloading music because I planned to kill my wife, I certainly was not."
Despite emphatic denials of any involvement in the crime, Barber was indicted shortly after he concluded his testimony. He was arrested as he sat outside the grand jury room.
Trial strategy
At his trial, prosecutors are going to lean heavily on the medical evidence of drowning as well as the bloodstain on April Barber's face. At least three experts are expected to testify that she died on the walkway and not by the water's edge. At a court hearing earlier this year, prosecutor Robin Strickler said their forensic findings destroy Barber's credibility.
"It is impossible for the defendants' statements about how this occurred to be true," he said. "If the court believes our opinions are correct, we have someone who is lying — lying to cover up the murder of his wife."
Jurors are not likely to hear all the motive evidence. Circuit Court Judge Edward Hedstrom has indicated that computer searches conducted before the killing are admissible, but inquiries afterwards, including the searches about Brazil, are not admissible.
The judge may also limit evidence of infidelities that did not occur close in time to the murder. Jurors are expected to hear from the woman who was having an affair with Barber at the time of the murder. That woman, a car rental employee, has characterized the relationship as one limited to casual sex.
Like the prosecution, Barber's defense is expected to emphasize forensics. The defense witness list, includes two pathologists, a crime scene analyst and an expert in tire tread analysis.
In a hearing earlier this year, a lawyer for Barber ridiculed the prosecution's suggestion that Barber shot his wife after dragging her from the surf to the crosswalk, which was closer to what the attorney called "civilization."
"Why wouldn't he just keep holding her under and finish the job?" defense attorney Robert Willis said.
The defense is likely to focus on the account of two motorists who passed the beach at the time of the murder and saw two vehicles: the Barbers' SUV and a Chrysler. The Chrysler had vanished by the time police arrived to look for April Barber and the defense has suggested the killer escaped in the car.
At one time, the defense seemed to be considering implicating a convicted rapist named David Shuey. About a year after the murder, the 33-year-old was arrested for sexually assaulting women near the beach where the crime occurred.
In court papers, Willis said his client saw a photo of Shuey in a newspaper and found him "similar in appearance" to the mugger. But Shuey turned out to have a strong alibi for the day of the murder. His cellphone and credit card records indicated he was a thousand miles away in Connecticut at the time.
