A woman who had planned to murder her five-month-old baby left a chilling note on her truck moments before taking the baby’s life.
“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do,” wrote María Rodríguez-Barnes, in a message left on the truck’s console while she called her husband and said something similar.
The 30-year-old woman then proceeded to kill her son Jaxxon by shooting him once in the chest, before also shooting herself.
The March 2020 murder occurred after he filed for divorce and shot himself in an attempt to take his own life, Florida prosecutors said.
Earlier this week, Rodriguez-Barnes was found guilty of premeditated murder and will spend the rest of her life in prison for the murder.
Rodríguez-Barnes, 30, killed her five-month-old son in the same place where her husband, Richard Barnes, had proposed to her years before.
“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do,” wrote María Rodríguez-Barnes, in a message left on the console of her truck while she called her husband and said something similar.
Rodríguez-Barnes had killed the young man in the same place where her husband, Richard Barnes, had proposed to her years before.
The court heard how Rodriguez-Barnes had placed his son in his Nissan pickup truck and drove to The Boardwalk, a coastal area with restaurants and shops in Fort Walton Beach on the Florida peninsula.
While in the parking lot, she shot Jaxxon before turning the 9mm pistol on herself. Police later found bullet casings inside the vehicle.
Witnesses in the area recalled how they had seen Barnes rolling back and forth on the ground in his own blood before they called 911.
When a deputy asked her what happened, she only said she was having trouble breathing and didn’t say anything about her son.
It wasn’t until an officer searching for the gun found her son’s body on the floor of the truck, slumped on a pillow.
It was also later revealed that he had sent his plans to family members via text message and email.
A jury convicted Rodriguez-Barnes, now 35, of murder earlier this week. She was sentenced to life in prison and will spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Addressing the courtroom, Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Sandler said: ‘She took the only valuable thing about their relationship, which was the physical representation of their relationship.
“And since it was really over, he said, ‘I’m done,’ she decided to kill her son.”
“There is no statement that demonstrates more premeditation and more planning than that,” prosecutor Sandler said.
The 12 jurors unanimously accepted the guilty verdict, and Circuit Judge John T. Brown imprisoned her for life.
