http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/10979672.htm?1c </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Suspect's wife says he's not a murderer
By Melody Mcdonald and Deanna Boyd
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
FORT WORTH - Trish Barbee wants the world to know that her husband loves children and is "not capable" of killing a pregnant woman and her 7-year-old son.
"It's impossible," Barbee said in a tearful interview Wednesday night. "He is the sweetest man in the world."
Stephen D. Barbee, 37, her husband of two months, is in the Mansfield Jail, accused of capital murder in the slayings of Lisa Underwood, 34, and her son, Jayden.
"I'm not mad at him," said Barbee, 39. "I don't hate him. I still love him."
Barbee said that she talked to her husband in jail Wednesday for the first time since his arrest Tuesday in Tyler and that he was doing "awful."
"He said everyone has this all wrong," she said. "I said, 'What do you mean?' And he just started crying. He just kept saying how much he loved me."
Barbee said her husband told her that he was not sure he was the father of Underwood's unborn child and that Underwood had been calling him, threatening to tell her about the baby.
"She was trying to blackmail him," Barbee said in an interview with the Star-Telegram. "She wanted his money. She said she wanted his business. ... She even said that she wanted to take him to the cleaners."
Investigators in the case gave little credence to Trish Barbee's allegations.
"I wouldn't expect any other response from an accused killer's wife," said Detective R.A. Gallaway of the major case unit.
Homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton said Barbee's comments didn't "merit a response.
"Actions committed by a suspect in a case like this cannot be reasonably explained or justified," he said.
Barbee said she first learned about Underwood in 2003, a few months after she and Stephen Barbee started dating.
She said Underwood came to Stephen Barbee's apartment and started banging on the door one morning.
"He said it was the girl he used to go out with," Barbee said. "He told her to go away and don't come back."
Later that day, she said, they found a note Underwood had stuck under a windshield wiper on Stephen Barbee's car.
"She said on the note: 'How come you haven't called me? Why haven't you returned my calls? What did I do wrong?' " Barbee said. "She wrote, 'Please call me,' and she underlined it. She signed it Lisa."
Barbee said Stephen Barbee, a former reserve police officer in Blue Mound, told her that he had dated Underwood a few times and that the woman now wouldn't leave him alone.
"I asked him if he told her about me and he said, 'Yes.' "
She said that she and Stephen Barbee got married in Las Vegas in December and that she had no idea Underwood was still calling her husband. She said she didn't learn that Underwood was pregnant until police came to talk to her husband Saturday night, after Underwood and her son were reported missing.
Barbee said she asked her husband who they were talking about and he said it was the same woman who had banged on his apartment door.
"That is all he told me at that time," she said.
On Monday, Barbee said, she and her two children accompanied Stephen Barbee to Tyler, where he was cutting trees.
She said police called them on a cellphone and they met the officers at the Tyler police station. There, Barbee said, her husband was interviewed for three and half hours before being arrested.
Barbee said her husband told her after his arrest that he had been keeping the phone calls a secret because "he thought I would leave him.
"He said he couldn't live without me. He said he was sorry. He didn't mean to hurt me."
Barbee, who works as a secretary for a Fort Worth law firm, said her husband told her that Underwood had told him another man was the father of her unborn child.
Nevertheless, Barbee said, her husband told her that he went to Underwood's home Friday night to talk to her about the pregnancy and, perhaps, child support.
"He wanted to talk to her and work something out," Barbee said. "She started arguing with him and yelling at him. She hit him and kicked him and he said she wouldn't stop.
"That's all I'm going to tell you that he said."
Gallaway, a lead investigator in the case, said allegations that Underwood attacked Stephen Barbee appear untrue.
"I'm confident that the evidence presented to the district attorney's office will contradict that statement," Gallaway said.
Debbie Lindley, a close friend of Underwood's, vehemently denied the accusation that Underwood was harassing Stephen Barbee or trying to blackmail him.
Lindley said the only thing that Underwood ever asked of Barbee was that he provide health insurance for the baby.
"If you call asking for medical care for your unborn child 'blackmailing,' then that's what she was asking for," Lindley said.
Lindley said Underwood had no reason to demand money from Barbee.
"She had a house. She'd lived there for three years. She was able to pay her bills. She lived independently. ... She was making it on her own just fine. Why would she do that?"
Barbee said she met Stephen Barbee 13 or 14 years ago when he worked with her ex-husband, Michael Reinhardt, who is the father of her two children.
Barbee and Reinhardt divorced in 2001 and, in September 2003, she and Stephen Barbee reconnected.
"We got to talking and he knew I was divorced," she said. "He asked me out and we started dating."
She characterized Barbee as a romantic who often brought her flowers.
"He called me all day everyday, He just wanted to hear my voice."
She said he adores her 6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, as they do him.
"He is absolutely the most wonderful man in the world," she said. "He loves those kids and they love him so much. He is not capable of this. He is just not. He wouldn't hurt a fly, and he loves children."
In fact, Barbee said, the couple were planning on having a child of their own.
Barbee stressed that her husband is not a violent man.
"He and I have never had a fight," she said. "... He has never even yelled at me.
"All he cares about is taking care of me and making sure we're comfortable," she said. "I don't think he did this. It's impossible. I'm not supposed to talk to anyone, but I can't stand for people to think he's bad because he is not."</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">
