Texas: Tyler stunned by teen's arrest in parents' deaths
Patty
By David Snyder / The Dallas Morning News
The crime and the context don't seem to add up: a well-known couple
with deep roots in Tyler shot in their bed on Christmas morning, just
as the wife seemed to have recuperated from a life-threatening illness.
Their daughter, a 17-year-old former honors student, has been charged
in the shootings. She had no criminal record before a Dec. 6 arrest for
forgery.
The family appeared to be doing well, friends and neighbors said. Until
Christmas Day.
Stephanie Catherine Barron was charged on Christmas with two counts of
capital murder in connection with the shooting deaths of her parents,
Carla Barron, 43, and Stephen Wayne Barron, 44.
Mrs. Barron was shot in the face and in her left arm; Mr. Barron was
shot once in the back of the head. Both were shot while lying in their
bed, police said.
The deaths were the 11th and 12th slayings in Smith County this year -
the highest number in the county since 1987, police said.
Police found the .38-caliber pistol thought to have been used in the
attack wrapped in a sweat shirt in Stephanie Barron's closet, Smith
County Sheriff J.B. Smith said.
Authorities said they have submitted the gun, a blood-spattered T-shirt
and part of a rubber glove to the Texas Department of Public Safety
crime lab in Tyler for analysis.
Police were called to the home about 4 a.m. Christmas Day. They
arrested Ms. Barron that afternoon.
"The way she gave us the story was inconsistent with the physical
evidence," Sheriff Smith said.
Aside from her forgery arrest Dec. 6, Ms. Barron had no previous
criminal record, Sheriff Smith said.
Ms. Barron was an honors student in her early years at Chapel Hill High
School in Tyler, said David Hoover, an elder at the East Texas
Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, of which Mrs. Barron was a member.
But she left school near the beginning of her junior year and hadn't
returned , Mr. Hoover said.
She had been studying for her GED, he said.
Last year, doctors found that Mrs. Barron had a brain tumor. She seemed
to have recovered after treatment but still had symptoms "like those
from a stroke," Mr. Hoover said.
Ms. Barron, who would have graduated from Chapel Hill this spring, left
school about the time her mother's tumor was diagnosed.
Mr. Barron, who worked in construction, often had to leave town for
extended periods to work, Mr. Hoover said.
The families of both parents have deep roots in Tyler, Mr. Hoover said.
Mr. and Mrs. Barron grew up in Tyler and were married in Smith County
in 1980, state records show.
Mr. Barron's father, Kenneth Barron, was the Smith County judge in the
late 1970s.
Mrs. Barron's parents, Margaret and D.C. Toner, live next to the
Barrons' home and depended on their granddaughter for daily tasks, Mr.
Hoover said.
Mr. and Mrs. Toner declined to comment on the arrest.
"They are really devastated," Mr. Hoover said. "They don't know what to
think about why this happened. I don't think they know what to think
about all this."
Pauline Chase, who lives a few houses down from the Barrons' large
mobile home, described the family as quiet and "very nice people."
"I couldn't believe it," said Ms. Chase, who has lived in Tyler for
about eight years after moving from Long Beach, Calif. "Because I come
from a big place, I didn't really expect that kind of stuff out here.
It's a shock."
Ms. Barron was denied bail Monday, Sheriff Smith said.
"She has yet to shed one tear," he said. "Either for her parents or for
the fact that she's in jail."
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