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
Here we go again. Another pregnant woman AND her son? are murdered? WHAT is going on in this world? I don't suppose he'll be charged with the babies murder. Isn't Texas one of the states that doesn't recognize the "baby" in utero?
Fox is reporting 3 murder charges.
The guy confessed and told them where the bodies were.
Pinz
Dream on! No matter how many stories we read about women and children being hurt (and sometimes even killed) by "boyfriends" with whom they have set up quasi-family relationships, the breakdown of the family in this country continues. It's the "smart" thing to do--as in "I'm too smart for anything like that to happen to me."
You are right I am sad to say. If we could put the family back together we could solve many of societies problems.
The people who got all bent out of shape about these very reasonable observations are the very same people who ask the rhetorical question "WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO???" whenever a shady boyfriend beats up a woman and/or kills her child by another man. They don't really want to know what's behind the behavior because too often the facts of the matter call their own judgments into question.
This is Texas.
The ultimate is Capital Murder.
Isn't he not being charged with Capital Murder? Premeditation or intent isn't required to charge?
Sorry, but murder should never be the consequence for a bad choice. Wonder if you'd feel differently if it were your daughter/mother that was murdered.
But this is an example of some fast police work. Killed on Friday or Saturday, confessed by Tuesday.
Truthfully, if it were my daughter I would be angry enough to rip the perp apart with my bear hands. But, after time had gone by, I'm sure I would start to wonder what could have been done to prevent it from having happened. At that point, I might well begin to wish she had made different choices that would not have put her into contact with this evil man.
sundero
§19.01. Types of criminal homicide.
(a) A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual.
(b) Criminal homicide is murder, capital murder, manslaughter, or criminally negligent homicide.
§19.02. Murder.
(a) In this section:
(1) "Adequate cause" means cause that would commonly produce a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror in a person of ordinary temper, sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection.
(2) "Sudden passion" means passion directly caused by and arising out of provocation by the individual killed or another acting with the person killed which passion arises at the time of the offense and is not solely the result of former provocation.
(b) A person commits an offense if he:
(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual;
(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual; or
(3) commits or attempts to commit a felony, other than manslaughter, and in the course of and in furtherance of the commission or attempt, or in immediate flight from the commission or attempt, he commits or attempts to commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.
(c) Except as provided by Subsection (d), an offense under this section is a felony of the first degree.
(d) At the punishment stage of a trial, the defendant may raise the issue as to whether he caused the death under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause. If the defendant proves the issue in the affirmative by a preponderance of the evidence, the offense is a felony of the second degree.
§19.03. Capital murder.
(a) A person commits an offense if the person commits murder as defined under Section 19.02(b)(1) and:
(1) the person murders a peace officer or fireman who is acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty and who the person knows is a peace officer or fireman;
(2) the person intentionally commits the murder in the course of committing or attempting to commit kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, obstruction or retaliation, or terroristic threat under Section 22.07(a)(1), (3), (4), (5), or (6);
(3) the person commits the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration or employs another to commit the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration;
(4) the person commits the murder while escaping or attempting to escape from a penal institution;
(5) the person, while incarcerated in a penal institution, murders another:
(A) who is employed in the operation of the penal institution; or
(B) with the intent to establish, maintain, or participate in a combination or in the profits of a combination;
(6) the person:
(A) while incarcerated for an offense under this section or Section 19.02, murders another; or
(B) while serving a sentence of life imprisonment or a term of 99 years for an offense under Section 20.04, 22.021, or 29.03, murders another;
(7) the person murders more than one person:
(A) during the same criminal transaction; or
(B) during different criminal transactions but the murders are committed pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct; or
(8) the person murders an individual under six years of age.
(b) An offense under this section is a capital felony.
(c) If the jury or, when authorized by law, the judge does not find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of an offense under this section, he may be convicted of murder or of any other lesser included offense.
My guess is that if they wanted 'premeditated' in the code it would have been written in... jmo.
"Please keep in mind my earlier post where the issue is not blame... under no scenario can it be said the mother is to blame, but at the same time, this situation was avoidable."
Yes I agree it was avoidable. Okay, ladies. Here's how to avoid it:
Never trust a man.
Never go outside.
If you go outside, never speak to a man.
Never assume you have the same sexual freedom that men have.
Never .... on and on
Aaron, all murders can be avoided. But there is definitely a problem in this country with men killing wives, girlfriends, pregnant and not pregnant. I assume you are a guy...what's the real reason?
I refuse to place any blame on this woman or her children. I think it is sad that people are sitting out there right now thinking more about how she caused this by becoming intimate with someone. The killer is to blame. No one else.
"Truthfully, if it were my daughter I would be angry enough to rip the perp apart with my bear hands. But, after time had gone by, I'm sure I would start to wonder what could have been done to prevent it from having happened. At that point, I might well begin to wish she had made different choices that would not have put her into contact with this evil man.
sundero"
YOU have ABSOLUTELY NO WAY of knowing how you would feel if this really happened to your child. You may think you do, but you don't.
What a shallow contemptuous thing to say.
So it's now her fault?
how ridiculous.
Thanks... I guess if you're gonna commit murder, don't do it TX.
For decades American women have been considered by the media as being political-beings moreso than human beings. After decades of mass media, popular culture and educational indoctrination in marxist political theory applied to gender relations many American women now consider themselves as primarily political beings and apply political theory to practice in their dealings with men.
It's quite unfortunate that gender relations have been corrupted by marxist political designs to the point of warfare being waged upon and in the American family; first with high divorce rates, abortions and ruinous alimony/child-support payments and now apparently, outright murder.
It is no surprise gender-marxism has led to gender warfare and in war people are killed. In warfare killing is the means of obtaining and protecting political control. When classless, clue-less, unsophisticated political sychophants bring gender marxism into their hearts and their homes is there any wonder the end result is murder?
Although the murderer's motivation is unknown at this point I think this crime is so horrendous the political theory behind it reveals itself. Of course there are probably many on this board who will require 10,000 murders before they begin to question their television god and marxist cultural beliefs.
"I refuse to place any blame on this woman or her children. I think it is sad that people are sitting out there right now thinking more about how she caused this by becoming intimate with someone. The killer is to blame. No one else."
The killer is to blame. But surely you can see why a mother should not place herself or her child in quasi-family situations. It's been scientifically proven that children of divorce or far better off being rasied in one-parent homes than in mixed family - Emtionally and physically
truthluva - I suspect I'm about to make myself really unpopular, but there it is. You said, obviously in sarcasm: "Never trust a man.
Never go outside.
If you go outside, never speak to a man.
Never assume you have the same sexual freedom that men have.
Never .... on and on"
I gotta take issue with the sexual freedom part (you atheists cover your eyes). Women ARE different from men. Duh. One of the ways we are different is the God-given gift of being able to bring children into the world. Whether we like it or not, whether it's "fair" or not, it is. This confers upon us a different and perhaps greater responsiblity. The consequences are certainly different.
I'm not speaking to this particular woman and her children, because I don't know enough about them to speak to her situation. But, because of the unavoidable facts of our being, women do not have the same sexual freedom that men have. We can try, but someone always pays when we do, and often it is the children who end up paying.
In years past, women were seen as the civilizing factor in all societies. Therefore, they were treated with respect and protected by most members of society.
At this point you have to come to the realization that men and women are different.
The only thing women got with sexual freedom was less respect, more STDs, more out of wedlock pregnancies, less commitment from men who didn't have to work at a relationship. I'm not so sure that sexual freedom was a good thing for women!!
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