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A few days later, Debra Barton went to Alabama to spend Labor Day weekend with her mother in a lakeside trailer. Barton stayed home with their children Mychelle and Matthew--or at least that was what he told the authorities. By the end of the weekend, the bodies of Debra Barton and her mother Eloise Spivey were found in a trailer, hacked to death by an axlike tool that police never recovered.
Less than an hour after his wife's funeral, police showed up at Barton's home looking for evidence. He played a cat-and-mouse game with the investigators, who searched his possessions and sprayed the house with Luminol, a chemical that causes blood to glow in the dark. Although he was a chemist, Barton claimed never to have heard of it but then added, "I had seen it on one episode of Columbo." The police got a positive reaction in Barton's car, on the ignition switch and a seat belt. Barton had no explanation for why there might be blood there, but he did have a challenge for them: "If there is a ton of blood in my car, why aren't you arresting me?" He said, "Well, now, why am I not in handcuffs?" The police admitted there was not enough blood evident to require an arrest.
Barton later made a trip to Alabama to offer a reason for the blood in his car. It had occurred to him, he told police there, that he had cut his finger to the bone during the summer before his wife's murder. If there was any blood in the car, he insisted, it was his own. But Barton refused to give blood or saliva samples for DNA testing or take a lie-detector test. In the end, the authorities had strong feelings Barton was guilty, but there were no witnesses to place him at the campground, no fingerprints and only inconclusive forensic evidence. Before they could retest the blood traces in his car, Barton claimed to have spilled a soft drink on them, destroying the evidence.
Within a week of Debra's death, Leigh Ann was spending nights at the house with Barton and his kids. The month after Debra's murder, Leigh Ann's divorce was final, and six months later, the two moved in together. By then Barton was living in Morrow, Ga., where neighbors knew nothing about his first wife's murder--until last week. His second marriage, however, gave little promise of a happily-ever-after life. Leigh Ann would often pick up and leave, and neighbors would gossip about problems at home. There had been family trouble in February 1994, when Mychelle, then 2 1/2, told a day-care worker that her father had sexually molested her. During the mental evaluations that followed, a psychologist said Barton "certainly was capable" of committing homicide. However, given Mychelle's age, it was difficult for state attorneys to build a solid case around her against Barton or prevent him from keeping custody of the kids. "It was disturbing enough to have a trained psychologist and competent prosecutors reporting these things back to us back then," says David McDade, the Douglas County district attorney who has reviewed the 1994 custody hearing. "It's absolutely chilling to think about it now."