Minn. dad charged with murder of son, 10, found in river
MINNEAPOLIS - The father of a 10-year-old boy whose body was found in the Mississippi River was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder.
Pierre Barlee Collins, 33, is charged in the death of his son, Barway. A criminal complaint cited cellphone location data that police said places him near the spot in the river where Barway Collins' body was found, on the day the boy disappeared. Police had previously said they had electronic evidence showing he was in that area.
The complaint also said Collins holds two life insurance policies on his son. Collins called the insurer on one of the policies two days before Barway's disappearance to ask about raising the coverage from $30,000 to $50,000, according to the complaint.
CBS Minnesota reports Collins was unemployed, but his wife wasn't aware.
"Both of them were unemployed and we knew they had debts," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, according to the station.
The complaint alleges that Barway's feet were bound with duct tape and there was also duct tape on his torso. His cause of death has not been released.
Freeman said Tuesday authorities have no witnesses to the crime and didn't have a possible motive beyond the insurance. But he added: "We think it's a strong circumstantial case."
Collins has said he is innocent. A family spokesman, Pastor Harding Smith, said earlier Tuesday that Collins maintains that he had nothing to do with Barway's death and hoped the community would withhold judgment.
Collins was arrested Monday and remained in jail Tuesday, with a court appearance scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. He is being held on $2 million bail, according to CBS Minnesota.
Volunteers had helped search for the missing fourth-grader in recent weeks. On Saturday, searchers from a Boy Scout troop found his body in the river and notified authorities. Officials said the body was discovered about 10 feet from the river's edge in Brooklyn Center.
Barway was last seen after school on March 18. Video surveillance from his apartment complex shows he was about to go inside, but then turned around as if he was called over to the parking lot by someone he knew, and he walked away, police said last month.
Video from a school van shows that right before he was dropped off, he had said that he saw his dad and a man who he referred to as his "uncle" nearby.
In a March 25 interview with the Star Tribune, Pierre Collins said he was not home when his son disappeared and he was upset to be considered a suspect.
"I've been working with the police just to bring my son home," he told the newspaper. "I will do whatever they want just so Barway can come home. I have nothing to do with Barway's missing."
His wife and Barway's stepmother, Yamah Collins, also said she and her husband didn't know who took the boy, and they pleaded for his safe return.
The family told the Star Tribune that Barway emigrated from his home country of Liberia to stay with his father in 2011. The father said he wanted "to make him better" and for Barway to eventually go to college. Barway's mother lives in Liberia.
Barway attended Evergreen Park World Cultures Community School in Brooklyn Center, where Principal Sheryl Ray said she remembered him as a "very friendly student" with "a broad smile" and many friends.