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The Beach Went Black
For couples craving solitude, the beach at Guana River State Park is an ideal spot for a late-night tryst. Hidden by thickets of saw palmetto, the ribbon of sand unspools along a lonesome stretch of Route A1A south of Jacksonville, Florida. Entry after sunset is officially forbidden, but intrepid lovers often park on the roadside and follow wooden walkways into the dunes.Justin Barber, 30, and his wife April, 27, had done just that on August 17, 2002. They were tipsy and amorous, Justin later recalled, having celebrated their third wedding anniversary with dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill in Jacksonville, followed by cocktails at a bar. Around 10:30 p.m., as they strolled along the water's edge, April suddenly squeezed Justin's hand. A tall man in a baggy T-shirt was approaching. He waved a pistol and yelled something about cash and car keys. Justin stepped in front of April. The gun went off. He grappled with the stranger. The beach went black.
When Justin came to, he found he'd been shot four times -- in both shoulders, under the right nipple, and through the left hand. The man was gone. Justin called April's name, then spotted her floating facedown in the surf. There was a .22-caliber hole in her left cheek. He dragged her up the beach until his strength gave out, then left her and staggered to the road to flag down passing cars. When none stopped, he climbed into his Toyota 4Runner, turned on the flashers and gunned it. Nearly ten miles down the road, a motorist signaled him to pull over and called 911. As Justin was transferred to a hospital, police and rescuers searched the beach for April.
Lt. Ben Tanner of the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department found her. "She was lying with her head to the north, facing the ocean," he says. "She didn't have a pulse."
April's photo is etched into her tombstone; it shows a woman with a brilliant smile, corn-silk hair and exquisite cheekbones. But her beauty wasn't just skin-deep. April was a survivor of family tragedy who poured her energy into helping others, from her younger siblings to the cancer patients she served as a radiation therapist. "She put more value on relationships than most people do," says her best friend, Amber Mitchell, an Internet entrepreneur in Oklahoma City. "She didn't take life for granted."
Who would want to snuff out such a vibrant spirit? Justin would tell investigators that he thought the culprit was a crazed mugger. But a few of those close to April developed their own theory. They suspected the killer was someone she knew very well.
April grew up in Hennessey (pop. 2,024), Oklahoma, an island of century-old storefronts and modest homes in a sea of prairie. She stood out as sharply as the local grain elevator: an A student, thoughtful yet popular, as comfortable at a rodeo as in biology lab.
During April's senior year of high school, her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and died after six months of agony. April's father, an oil field worker, was too traumatized to care for the kids. Though other relatives took them in, April became a surrogate mom to her siblings Julie, then nine, and Kendon, one. Still, she kept her grades up and was named her class's salutatorian. She went on to the premed program at Oklahoma State University, then studied radiation therapy at the University of Oklahoma.
In October 1998, Amber Mitchell introduced April to one of her business school classmates -- a handsome blond named Justin. The two clicked instantly. April had dated a string of men for whom fidelity was not a strong point; Justin seemed different. He spoke of his Christian values. He had grown up in a town even smaller than Hennessey, herding cattle with his older brother on their parents' 120-acre spread. A quiet and solitary boy, he'd blossomed into a star athlete in high school and graduated as valedictorian. He'd married in college and spent a few years drifting between low-paying jobs. When he met April, however, he was newly divorced and aflame with ambition. "He was among the best and brightest in our class," says Amber. "April was attracted to his drivenness."
April and Justin quickly became engaged; then he moved to Dallas, taking a job as a financial analyst for a wood-products corporation. The two carried on a long-distance romance until August 4, 1999, when they married in a small ceremony in the Bahamas.
They relocated for Justin's job to Douglas, Georgia, where April found work at a hospital. A month later her siblings moved in, and the trouble began. Julie was 15 then, and a rebellious teenager; her behavior infuriated Justin, sparking fights between him and April. At one point, according to several of April's confidants, he threatened to never let April bear his children. Within a year, Julie and Kendon were back in Oklahoma.
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