Secrets In The Sand

A Wife Is Murdered, Her Husband Shot Four Times. Who Pulled The Trigger?

(CBS) 
Deliberations dragged into a second day, then a third.

"By the third day I was beginning to fear that the jury was hung," Amber remembers.

But jurors were still trying to sort it all out and finally rendered their verdict on the fourth day of deliberations: guilty.

April's family and friends were overcome, but their emotions were mixed.

"I was happy, but then again it breaks my heart," Julie told Dow.

"Relieved for an instance and then heartbroken for Justin's mother," was April’s aunt’s reaction to the verdict.

But Justin’s family did not have mixed emotions: they were simply furious.

His mother Linda told Dow she had lost faith in the criminal justice system. "It didn’t work at all this time," she said. "I would love to know what those jurors saw that made them think that he did this. Because he didn’t and they didn’t prove that he did it. So I don’t know what they went by."

The jurors say they were swayed by many factors, especially the blood evidence.

"If she had been shot out on the beach, there would have been some smearing, some blood flow in another direction," one female juror explained. "Also, there was the computer that he had searched for gunshot wounds," she added.

"I really can't tell you on national TV what I think about him. But it's not good. It's not good at all," a male juror told Dow.

Pressed, the juror said, "I think he's a dirty son of a bitch.

But Justin—who might now be sentenced to death—is defiant. "If that jury thinks I killed April, then they should execute me. I would never ask for mercy for the person who killed her."
Asked why not, Justin says, "Because they don't deserve it. And if that jury believes that I'm that person, then they should send me to death row."

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The jury did recommend the death penalty for Justin Barber. The judge, however, sentenced Justin to life in prison, without parole.

Barber’s attorneys are working on an appeal. They are also investigating other possible suspects in the murder.