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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2009 > August > 27
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Missing woman: Two testify that Barker confessed to killing girlfriend
DAYTON — Days after Shelly Sue Turner disappeared, Harold Barker confessed to an old friend that he wanted heroin so that he could commit suicide, the friend testified Thursday, Aug. 27.
“He said ‘I want to commit suicide because I killed my girlfriend,” Victor Turner said. He is no relation to Shelly Sue Turner.
Turner was one of two people who testified Thursday that Barker admitted killing his girlfriend. The two witnesses do not know each other.
Prosecutors rested after Victor Turner’s testimony. Defense attorneys, who maintain there is no evidence that Barker had any role in his girlfriend’s disappearance, did not present any witnesses. Closing arguments will start Friday morning.
Barker, 55, is on trial this week on charges of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence. All charges deal with Shelly Sue Turner’s disappearance. The trial, before Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara P. Gorman, started Monday.
Shelley Sue Turner vanished Sept. 30, 2006. She was last seen with Barker.
Victor Turner, who is on parole for a 1980 murder conviction, said he has known Barker since about 1985. The two friends ran into each other in downtown Dayton one day in early October 2006.
Later that day, while at Belmont Billiards, 820 Watervliet Ave., Barker made his statement about wanting to die. Barker also said he cut up his girlfriend’s body, Victor Turner said.
Victor Turner said he did not believe Barker at that time.
About two weeks later, Victor Turner said, he saw Barker outside the Fricker’s, 1818 Woodman Drive. Barker told him that he chopped up his girlfriend, put her in a barrell and buried it where no one would find it, Victor Turner said.
A mutual acquaintance then got angry when he heard Barker talking about it and confronted Victor Turner, who then left the area to avoid a fight, Victor Turner said.
Victor Turner also said that he saw Barker in downtown Dayton in 2008. Victor Turner told Barker that a police detective had tried to get information about Barker’s involvement in his girlfriend’s disappearance, but Victor Turner falsely told Barker that he hadn’t said anything to the detective.
At this point in Turner’s testimony, Barker angrily yelled “You know you got to answer to God for all this,” before a sheriff’s deputy told him to stop talking.
Before Victor Turner testified, another old friend of Barker’s, Tonya Ruby, took the witness stand.
Ruby said that she had not seen Barker in years. Then one day in early October, he stopped by her home. They began hanging out for about seven to 10 days.
After they had been hanging out for a few days, Barker told her that he got angry at Shelly Sue Turner and went to slap her, but accidentally hit her in the throat, Ruby said.
“He said she was gurgling and choking on her blood,” Ruby said.
Barker said he did not take her to a hospital because “it was too late” and he covered her up with some debris, Ruby said.
Ruby said she did not initially believe Barker’s story. But after she saw a news broadcast about Shelly Sue Turner’s disappearance, she thought “Oh, my God, he really did it.”
During cross examination, Ruby said she had a history of using illegal drug use and at least one felony conviction.
Earlier Thursday, Dayton Det. Dan Hall testified that police had searched for Shelly Sue Turner’s body in a swampy 40-acre parcel just west of Woodman Drive, bordering the city’s Belmont neighborhood. They did not find any trace of her, Hall said.
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