To Love, Honor, and Kill

I had watched the 48 Hours episode on this case. I was surprised by how case of homicide received such attention. Both husband Justin Barber and his wife, April Lott Barber, were quite an attractive couple but looks can be deceiving. This book paints Justin as an abusive, two-dimensional character. We don't know much about Justin's upbringing or what created him to be a monster behind closed doors. To everybody else, he made appearances as a good husband and surrogate father to April's younger brother and sister who lived with her and her new husband. It was a disaster. April had instincts to call off the wedding in the Bahamas two weeks before but she never did. Had she have followed her instincts? She probably would still be alive and living in Hennessy, Oklahoma. They were a young couple, beautiful and promising but underneath it was nothing but fights and constant abuse mostly from Justin's behavior. He had affairs, took out a 2 million dollar life insurance policy, refused to give his suffering wife a divorce because he hated failing at his second marriage. Justin blames everybody else for his problems including their financial woes. They should have been happy with their income but they were in debt mostly because of Justin's crazy spending on cars and himself. When I watched him on television, I felt sorry for him but I don't anymore because he really cares only about himself. You can't believe the story about murder on the beach because it's just impossible to hear his story. I had to skim through most of the book after his arrest which was pretty vague because I felt that it was just repetition of information already provided. Butcher has written an excellent account of this case with specific details but it gets tedious and redundant at times.