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[Music] a computer hard drive holds hundreds of secrets every keystroke every download
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every deletion tells a story but if someone downloads a song about murder does it make him a killer
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[Music] [Music] it was a hot august night in jacksonville florida and a time of celebration for april and justin barbour
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it was their third wedding anniversary and april was about to finish her training as a radiology technician
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april barber had gone into the field of oncology specifically radiology type treatment for cancer
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patients which was inspired by her mother's death with cancer justin had good news too he just got a
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job as a financial analyst for a large lumber company he was a very good guy i mean very smart
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very successful everything going for him i mean just like my sister i mean they were
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two of a kind i guess the couple's anniversary dinner was at an italian restaurant
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later they took a walk along the beach [Music] but their romantic evening ended there
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when a man with a gun demanded money give me your money april diverted the man's attention
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justin tried to grab the gun shots were fired and that's the last thing justin
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remembered [Music] when he regained consciousness he realized he had been shot and was
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bleeding [Music] he found april unconscious and faced down in the water [Music] justin dragged april's body about 100
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yards toward their car but his wounds made it impossible to carry her up the long flight of stairs
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so he left her near the boardwalk and drove for help he flagged down a motorist a few miles
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away uh well now here's your emergency i think somebody's been shot is he
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conscious at all yeah he's cautious he's trying to keep him that way okay do you see a gunshot
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wound guys or staff can't actually tell justin told the ambulance crew that april was down on the beach
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by the time they got there she was dead from a single gunshot wound to her face people were calling me telling me my
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sister was shot i was in shock it was i mean it was nothing i expected at the hospital emergency room doctors
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treated justin for four gunshot wounds he survived but was unable to provide a good
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description of their attacker justin couldn't see his face it's too dark and truthfully i believe that it is
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too dark to see anybody's face out there at the beach police didn't find much evidence just
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the impressions from justin dragging april's body in the sand and the tides were rising
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soon there would be nothing left of the crime scene initially it looked like a robbery gone
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wrong a man demanded money from april and justin barbour while they were walking
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on the beach and they were both shot but robbery may not have been the motive when they looked at april barber's body
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she had on her jewelry an expensive ring earrings and her watch if this were a robbery why was nothing
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taken at the autopsy the medical examiner discovered foam around april's mouth
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the foam was still present around their nose or mouth or both and it's due to the damage the salt
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water causes to the lining of the lung dr steiner also noticed that the blood from april's gunshot wound
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was on top of the phone meant that april had almost drowned but survived and was shot afterwards
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my conclusions were that she had suffered a near-grounding episode and she had been shot while she was alive
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if she had been dead from the drowning there wouldn't have been any vital reaction to the gunshot
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there wouldn't be any hemorrhage into the sinus but why did the autopsy findings differ
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from justin's version of the incident it would be very traumatic the incident
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itself was very traumatic to him if it occurred as he stated his wife is now missing he's been shot four times
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and i wouldn't expect a lot of detail from a person who just went through that
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type of traumatic experience eventually as justin recuperated from his wounds he provided a much better
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description of the assailant good enough for police to create a sketch he was taller than me
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heavier but he wasn't he wasn't overweight right his his shirt was dark it was
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he had a dark hat on like like a baseball cap incredibly the police sketch resembled a local man
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30 year old david alan shuey who had previous arrests for sexual assault [Music]
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in fact chewie allegedly used a gun while committing an assault on the same beach where justin and april were shot
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he went down to the beach to find a female she was sunbathing like topless on the beach gentlemen came up
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somehow confronted her certainly intended on doing some type of sexual assault sexual battery to her
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fortunately the victim got away but she later identified chewie as her attacker so police questioned chewie regarding
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his whereabouts on the night of april barber's murder he denied any involvement and claimed he
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had an alibi we ran all his credit cards because he was all over the country unfortunately
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committing rapes we know from his credit card records that he was in connecticut with living
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with his fiancee at the time of this homicide so we absolutely know he was not the assailant
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next investigators looked into justin barbour's background i talked to justin
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and i said well tell me about your marriage we had a happy and normal marriage have you ever had an affair
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no never but investigators dug deeper and learned that justin was having an affair with
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his tennis partner shannon kennedy so i'd say justin listen here's the deal i
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got shannon in the next room she's saying y'all are engaged in the extramarital affair i'm going to bring
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her in here and we're going to get to the bottom of it he's like no don't do
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that we are i don't want to get her involved so i'm thinking well why in the heck is this guy lying about this
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i mean your wife is dead don't lie to the guy that's trying to help you i mean
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who knows where that could lead and april's friends told police that she knew all about her husband's affair i
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mean she told everybody would listen to her justin's having an affair i know he is i confronted him about it
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at the time it appeared that he was only dating one other person but it appeared that he had as many as
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five extramarital affairs and during the three year marriage police asked justin barber for
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permission to search his home and he was happy to comply he also made his computer available
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he had it all boxed up ready for when the detectives came and he said here it is and hands it to him
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justin's computer went to chris hendry of florida's computer evidence recovery
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section when i made a copy of justin's home computer hard drive the next thing i did was go through and
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look for anything that would have been deleted such as folders and files one of the first things henry noticed
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was that justin downloaded a song onto his computer just hours before his wife's death
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the lyrics are violent they're about killing somebody it was a song by the group guns and
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roses with the lyrics i used to love her but i had to kill her she drove me nuts and now i'm happier
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this way it's kind of strange this is deleted hours before we actually got the machine
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[Music] was this merely a coincidence after all it was only a song [Music] justin barber told police
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that a robber shot his wife april in the head and shot him four times while they
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were walking on the beach he claimed he passed out later regained consciousness and found his wife face
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down in the ocean but the forensic evidence contradicted parts of justin's story
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she had evidence of abrasions small abrasions on their collarbone by your ear and on the back of the neck
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they are consistent with force or pressure being placed there could this have been caused by
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forcefully being held in the water yes and on justin's computer forensic experts found evidence of a
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possible motive apparently justin had been trading stocks on the internet and he wasn't
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doing very well we have his e-trading he got himself quickly into fifty to sixty
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thousand dollars in debt just on that it didn't appear that any of his trades
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really paid off and lost quite a bit of money to cover the losses justin borrowed
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money against his credit cards at very high interest rates you can't get any worse than that i mean
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you're borrowing money at 21 to pay off money that you lost in the stock market
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justin barbour should have been a little bit brighter with his money i mean that was a time of low interest
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home equity loans that's really significant when you talk about somebody who's a finance major and has an mba in
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business and also it's important to note the psychological effects of a lot of
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consumer debt that affects people's psyche also suspicious investigators learned that april owned a
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two million dollar life insurance policy which she bought primarily to support her younger brother and sister in the
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event of her death know we didn't have our mother we didn't have our father and so april felt like
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it was her responsibility to take care of us you know if something happened to her and justin knew that too and that
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was a big part of the reason for those but justin was the sole beneficiary which meant
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he could have done anything he wanted with the money was this enough motive to kill his wife and then
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shoot himself four times to cover it up risky but people do a lot of crazy things for over
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two million dollars using an ultraviolet light crime scene reconstructionist jerry
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findley examined the shirt justin was wearing on the night of the attack you could see some visible gunshot
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residue or what appeared to be gunshot residue and looking at it with the ultraviolet light i wanted to see the
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extent of the pattern the gunshot residue could have come from justin being in close contact with the
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assailant but the angles of the bullet wounds to justin's body were another matter one
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shot went through his left hand the other three shots were directed away from vital organs and bone
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a remarkable coincidence to me the location of them was not consistent with them with a mugger even
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somebody struggling over a gun if you've already shot and killed one person and
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you've shot another one four times you're not going to leave a witness investigators also analyzed april's
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clothing and found another inconsistency justin claimed that he carried april's
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body a hundred yards up to the base of the stairs after they had both been shot by the assailant
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one of the gunshot injuries that he had sustained is on his left hand so his hand would have been bleeding and
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bleeding quite a bit and there should be blood all over the waist line the waist in the front of
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those pants of april barber and in fact there was none if she's bleeding from
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this gunshot one she did not have it on her body or clothing and he doesn't have
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it on his so i think that speaks for itself and by the direction the blood traveled
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from the wound investigators could tell april's body had not been moved after
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she was shot blood flow on april barber was in one direction which was straight down to the
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left from the gunshot wound and if the body had been moved in various positions the blood flow would have changed
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and finally there was something else that bothered investigators why didn't justin use april's cell phone
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that was in her purse in the car why wouldn't he just call on her cell phone anyway and get help he had to get
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rid of the gun unfortunately police couldn't find the murder weapon in the thick vegetation
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along the 10-mile stretch of road but they did discover one last tantalizing piece of evidence on
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justin's computer almost more valuable than finding the murder weapon [Music]
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on justin barbour's computer forensic experts found email evidence of his extramarital affairs and financial
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records proving he was deeply in debt but that wasn't all forensic experts also discovered that in
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the weeks and months leading up to april's murder justin searched various websites looking for information on
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blood loss and gunshot wounds to the right chest what's the chances of somebody
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researching that thing very specifically gunshot wounds to the right chest and then six months
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later getting shot in the right chest i just don't believe that's possible
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prosecutors believe that when april barbara learned about her husband's infidelity and his
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financial problems she wanted a divorce i believe april barbara had a very good idea of how bad
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the debt was she told her loved ones you know the marriage was failing that she tried numerous times to to try and
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straighten it out or or fix things with justin but that they weren't improving
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prosecutors also believe that justin wanted the two million dollars from april's life insurance
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policy so he searched computer websites to learn how to shoot himself without inflicting serious injury
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justin believed if he drove to the hospital with gunshot wounds everyone would believe his robbery story
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justin barbers wanted all he wanted in my belief to show up with his bride in the suv at the hospital as a
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hero as somebody who is not only a hero but also a victim collect the money have everybody feel sorry for him move
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on with his life from there but it didn't turn out that way they say when you commit a homicide you
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make about 30 mistakes and you can't remember but about five the first mistake that night happened
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just after 5 p.m justin downloaded the guns and rose's song i used to love her
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but i had to kill her prosecutors believe that april told justin over dinner that she wanted a
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divorce after that justin enticed april to go for a walk along the beach possibly to
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continue their discussion about how to end their marriage amicably but right away his plan fell apart
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perhaps april sent something was amiss or she saw the gun either way there was a struggle
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justin subdued her by holding her head under the water until she lost consciousness he then carried her
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towards the car but there was no blood transfer because at that point neither one was bleeding
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[Music] he fired a single shot into april's head [Music] the blood from her head wound was now on
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top of the foam produced by the near drowning justin then shot himself four times
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careful not to break any bones or hit vital organs [Music] but the excruciating pain and the
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daunting task of carrying april's body up the long flight of stairs required a
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change of plans he had no choice but to leave april's body there justin got rid of the murder weapon
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somewhere along the highway then tried to gather his thoughts and compose a possible explanation for the
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water in april's lungs he drove for 10 miles passing numerous homes and businesses along the way
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before he asked a fellow motorist to call 911. justin said that he didn't want to stop
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at one of the houses because he did not want to wake up an old man or something to that effect
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perhaps the oddest piece of forensic evidence was that justin erased the guns and
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rose's song from his computer just an hour or so before turning it over to police
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that's hard to hear that he did it i mean he was somebody i trusted and that
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i looked up to i'm very sad i mean there's not a day that goes by that i don't think about my
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sister in june of 2006 justin barber went on trial for the first degree murder of his wife april
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the forensic evidence was simply too much to overcome he was convicted and sentenced to life
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in prison investigators describe it as one of the most unusual and cold-blooded cases
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they've ever seen if you take somebody like justin barber who's probably a sociopath he's probably
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narcissistic he looks at everything as how it suits him he did not want the stigma of a
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divorce there were no independent witnesses other than the decedent and the murder
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and you know there are only two people in that on the beach so in this case forensics made the entire case but the
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truth of the matter is with the physical evidence we have once we developed it analyzed it and had it in its final form
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and compared it to the story it revealed that justin barber is a liar [Music] [Music]
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[Music] you