Posted on 02/22/2005 10:09:10 AM PST by Dubya
FORT WORTH -- The bodies of a missing seven-months pregnant woman and her 7-year-old son were found Tuesday morning off Farm Road 407 in Justin, just hours after police arrested a Fort Worth man charged with capital murder in their disappearance.
It was not immediately disclosed how Lisa Underwood, 34, and her son, Jayden, were killed.
Stephen Barbee, 37, who previously had been romatically involved with Underwood, was taken into custody in Tyler and held initially with bail set at $2 million. He was later released to Fort Worth police and transported back to Tarrant County.
Police on Monday found Underwood's Dodge Durango abandoned in a creek bed off Farm Road 2449, just east of Interstate 35W in Denton County, about 10 miles north of where the bodies were found.
Lt. Gene Jones confirmed an arrest had been made in the case but declined to comment further.
Sources said major case detectives traveled to Tyler on Monday night by helicopter after requesting that Tyler police locate Barbee and take him to their headquarters to be interviewed by Fort Worth police.
It was unknown how police knew Barbee was in Tyler.
About the same time that Tyler police were taking Barbee into custody, Fort Worth police raided a residence in the 4100 block of Walnut Creek in north Fort Worth, a home where Barbee lived with a woman named Trish.
A neighbor who did not want to be identified said she was awakened by flashing police lights and noise about 3 a.m. Tuesday. She said officers went to the back of the residence and later came out the front carrying four or five bags of evidence.
The house, she said, had been under police surveillance since Sunday with officers in unmarked police vehicles cruising through the neighborhood.
About 8 p.m. Sunday, she said, officers came to her home asking "when was the last time I saw them and what kind of cars did they drive." She said she told them she last saw Barbee earlier Sunday.
At 11 a.m. Monday, she said, she saw officers rummaging through trash bags that had been set curbside outside the residence.
The discovery comes more than three days after relatives last heard from the 34-year-old mother, seven months pregnant with her second child.
Police issued an Amber Alert for the mother and son Saturday after relatives discovered a pool of blood inside Underwood's north Fort Worth home and noticed her sport utility vehicle missing.
On Monday, the search for the pair shifted to Denton after authorities found Underwood's blue 2002 Dodge Durango abandoned in a creek bed off Farm Road 2449, just east of Interstate 35W.
The search ended about 6:30 p.m. Monday before resuming this morning.
Party planned
Saturday was supposed to be a day of celebration.
Underwood is expecting a little girl, and her friends and family had planned to throw her a baby shower at Boopa's Bagel Deli, which she co-owns with her best friend, Holly Pils.
Marla Hess, who had traveled from Wichita Falls for the shower, looked forward to prying out of Underwood the name she had chosen for her unborn child.
Because "Jayden" is such an unusual name, family and friends assumed that Underwood had also picked an unconventional name for her daughter.
"She had a name that she wasn't going to tell us," Hess said. "We were going to try to make her."
But Underwood never made it to the party.
A farmer discovered the SUV about 8:28 a.m. Monday and called Denton police.
Throughout the day Monday, searchers scoured nearby pastures and wooded areas, some in helicopters, others on horseback and on foot with trained scent dogs.
Kamper said searchers found the keys to Underwood's SUV but declined to comment on whether they found blood in the vehicle or other evidence inside it.
The area where the SUV was found is largely isolated farmland, although signs along Farm Road 2449 point the way to a new housing subdivision just to the north. Monday afternoon, dozens of patrol vehicles, unmarked cars and media trucks lined the rural road.
Meanwhile, about 30 miles away, more police vehicles and yellow crime scene tape encircled the Underwoods' modest red brick home in the 3700 block of Chaddybrook Lane.
Neighbors talked quietly outside their homes as children rode bikes and drew on the sidewalks with colored chalk.
"They are awesome," said neighbor Vicki Wilson. "They are the nicest people anyone would want to meet. They are very, very sweet."
Wilson said Jayden and the other neighborhood children often played soccer together or came to her house to play on the swing set or swim in her pool.
Jayden was "kind of shy, but ... a smart, intelligent, happy little boy," Wilson said.
Jayden was a first-grader at North Riverside Elementary School. Today, extra counselors will be on hand to talk to the students, said Jason Meyer, a spokesman of the Keller school district.
Customers knew 'Boopa'
Outside Boopa's Bagel Deli, well-wishers left messages and trinkets of hope.
A large brown teddy bear, several notes and balloons graced the window.
Scrawled in colored markers were the words "God Bless Lisa and her two little angels." Another one read: "We're praying for you! Lisa, Jayden and Baby Underwood."
A lined piece of notebook paper bore a child's handwriting: "I'm sure she's OK. I miss her as much as you do. I hope you're going to be OK."
It was signed with a heart and a face with a frown.
Pils said Lisa Underwood had named her bagel shop "Boopa" after a nickname that her mother, Sheila, had bestowed upon her grandson.
Jayden expressed pride in having his nickname adorn his mother's business.
"He wanted to be referred to as one of the owners because he said, 'My name is on the building,'" Pils said.
Deli customers knew Jayden and often asked for him by name.
"They would say, 'Is Boopa here today?'" Pils said.
Pils said that Jayden often passed the time helping her and his mother in the shop, in Fossil Creek Plaza at Western Center Boulevard and Beach Street.
"He would sweep better than our employees," she said. "He loved being at the bagel shop, he was just a real special guy. I love being around him. He is a joy, just a complete joy."
Pils said Underwood has worked hard to provide for her son, who is active in Cub Scouts and soccer and can easily beat Pils at chess.
"He was a wonderful child because she was a wonderful mother."
Pils said Underwood has been looking forward to becoming a mother a second time.
"She felt like, 'I have a perfect boy. Now, I want a perfect girl,'" she said.
Staff Writers Kelly Melhart and Alex Branch Contributed to This Report Deanna Boyd, (817) 390-7655 dboyd@star-telegram.com
I think you just made yellowdog's point. She rejected him too late.
This sounds like something my husband says and that I have observed. Women like the bad boys (he says) and think they can always change him or that he USED to be like that but he is different now (I observe). The facts are often there if one would look at them objectively and before getting physically and/or emotionally involved. Nowadays, as movies and TV teach us, you have sex and THEN you find out if you are compatible, a good person, etc.
Yellowdog may be making an insensitive point on a thread that is very tragic but it does not mean he is totally wrong!
Social conservatives regularly bemoan the breakdown of the family and insist that it is not desirable for children to be raised by unmarried single parents. But whenever someone cites a specific case--often one in which children have been hurt or killed, especially by a mother's boyfriend--the response sounds like a Bleeding Heart Liberal discussion. We get "Who are you to judge?" and "You're blaming the victim!" and so forth.
I think that it's just as you said, the criticism hits close to home. It reminds people of themselves, their friends and possibly their own children. It's become so common to rear children in undesirable situations--occasioned largely by parental selfishness unchecked by moral restraint--that it's become the norm for our society and now it's possible to discuss it only in the most general terms without touching somebody's raw nerves. That's as true for conservatives as it is for those on the Left.
The only kind of living arrangement you can still safely criticize, even here on Free Republic, is a same-sex relationship. But most of the victims of bad lifestyle choices are not in that sort of situation.
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Get a clue, bub.
I don't need Oprah. I'm from a divorced home. Didn't see my father for nearly 17 years. My mother provided a stable, loving environment and never received a dime of child support. Of course in today's society, with the "no responsiblility generation", she and I would probably end up dead in a ditch. And you guys would be finding fault with her!
You go watch Oprah. Maybe you could learn a thing or two.
Who are these people?
Why?
Why on Earth do people do such horrible things?
I mean can't folks just let others live thier lives and thier dreams?
Why a young mother, expecting with joy and anticipation, the birth of a little girl and why a wonderful and intelligent little boy?
I need some answers!
This is crazy!
Why wasn't these two beautiful people (really three, with the EXPECTED child) permitted to live?
What happened to thier right to life?
Why? Why? Why?
Maybe if men would stop murdering women at the onset, middle and end of relationships...maybe men should use better judgment, period!
I apologize for these baffoons.
And say hey to your mother!
HA HA, didn't even realize the similarity of names. That is the only association as far as I know. Why?
Four counting the perp. He just will be moving around for a few more years. I see a needle in his future.
I am not agreeing with you! I am saying that you are blaming the woman for making a poor judgement with this man. I say how is she to know the real man? He hid the fact that he was married with kids already. It looks as if she made the "right" choice in breaking it off with him and it got her and her children killed.
Thanks for the update!
I don't know who they were but I know it angers me that thier right to life and the right of the unborn child to live have been violated!
"I will never again post on Freepers.
Promise."
If you are too thin skinned to survive responses of disagreement from Freepers, you are too tender to surf the net.
While the death penalty may or may not be a deterent, it sure cuts down on repeat offenders. Fry the guy. Whoops, make that inject the insect.
It is just beyond reasoning why anyone would murder - this guy will rot in Hell
Who died and named you God? Judge not, lest ye be judged.
I'm tired of stupid men, thinking they can just kill a woman when she becomes an inconvenience in their lives. They're not man enough to just break up with her or keep their pants zipped.
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