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
Maybe I can find the strength not to hate.
But it does get more difficult to be a Christian.
I hear you, but there are some 'yellow' people around here who think otherwise.
[I certainly didn't read an implication that she deserved to be dead. I suppose your mileage (and appparently that of many others here) varied. I read it to say something that needs saying, and even more so needs listening to.
Some men are scumbags (as are some women). Ladies, girls, females in general, you do NOT deserve to die because you choose badly. But if you choose well, you are decreasing the chances that you will be murdered. ]
Learn this lesson well, grasshopper.
You people are sooo wise.
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
No wonder people are turning gay.
"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."
So true and so unfortunate.
Sorry about the shouting.
:-)
Very sad news. They lived not far from my office in Ft. Worth.
Good Lord, not the free speech screed.
My son in school at UNT.
I'm off from work.
"The really sad thing is that a lot of threads are turning out this way on FR lately. Lots of pontificating by morally superior people willing to cast truck loads of stones."
So it seems. This one struck me as particularly ugly, though. A very few posters seemed to want to put the blame for this on the victim, and I just find that offensive.
I suppose those who were doing that lead perfect lives, themselves, and have never done anything they should be ashamed of or made a bad judgment. If so, then they are truly remarkable people.
I've made bad judgments, yet I'm still alive. I guess I should feel guilty about being alive, eh?
This is such a sad story. A young woman with one child, and another on the way, is now murdered, along with those children. Where is the empathy in the people who choose to criticize her? Amazing!
Well then, all the more reason she should learn the difference before something bad happens!!
sundero
Precisely.
Of course, we could NOT take the bait, but then that leaves all the tacky remarks unchallenged on the thread for all the world to read, leaving lurkers, etc., to think we all AGREE with these mean-spirited people.
The ones that constantly do it, IMO, have a need to make every thread about themselves. And I freely admit to not having in self-control while responding to them.
"The little boy was just there when it happened...he was a witness"
How did you come up with this?
HUH?
:-)
Yeah, that little boy was murdered because his mom was an unwed mother. Gee, too bad she didn't have an abortion. Could have saved the world so much trouble.
You are a Grade-A JERK. You'd be right at home with the kind of people who are unforgiving of and/or stoned women who have children out of wedlock. Or maybe you're an atheist. You must be to have such a cold, heartless attitude about this murder. Her life was not perfect. No one person's life is. She did not deserve to die. Nor did her (what you would call a bastard) seven-year-old son. God have mercy on them both.
Glad I'm not married to you. That is if any woman would have you after passing your " perfect purity" test. I pray to God that you haven't furthered your genes. That would be a travesty.
No mistake a woman would ever makes means she should be murdered.
How dare you blame this poor woman for what happened to her and her children.You have no right to put blame on this mother .This guy most likely conned her into thinking he was a nice guy and when she saw him for what he truly was she had nothing more to do with him.You are a heartless bastard.l feel sorry for any woman that gives you the time of day.You are a sick piece of sh.
You missed the point, didn't you???
That being that her perception of 'normal' may be a bit skewed from yours. If she was raised with a father that was gruff, cold, yelled lot, she might be attracted to a mate with like characteristics.
People go with knowns. There isn't a 'difference' if you dont' see it as a 'difference'.
Guess he thought a free ride off the taxpayers for awhile was better.....
I know of a man (friend of a friend) who killed himself when he settled his divorce settlement. He didn't want to work for the Ex and 3 kids the rest of his life so he killed himself.
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