Free Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal by Ann Rule

her mother in artistic talent. While Narda was the professional artist, who painted with sweeping free-form technique, Jenn was far more precise, drawing and painting with exquisite balance and straight lines, angles and intersections that fit neatly.
    When Jenn went off to college, she headed for Savannah, that picturesque and sultry city—rife with history and live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss—that sits far south of Atlanta, almost on the Georgia-Florida state line. Jenn enjoyed her years at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Established in 1978, SCAD, as it is commonly known, is a relatively new college, but the site harks back to the nineteenth century. The private college purchased and renovated many of the dilapidated red-brick edifices of another era that were located on the famous “twenty-four squares” of the old town section. Where there was once an armory for volunteers, cotton warehouses, and even coffin factories, classrooms blossomed.
    Jenn Barber had wonderful years in Savannah. She wasn’t sure what she wanted as a career because she enjoyed and was interested in so many things. She liked photography, but she also was happy with interior design. One day she hoped to have her own house, and she knew it would be a masterpiece of balance and good taste. She loved anything that called for her creative side, and she was skilled in many areas. It was difficult for her to choose one.
    When she returned to Gwinnett County, Jenn was still waffling a little about what she wanted to do. She stayed in touch with many friends she had met in Savannah, but in the end she signed up to take classes in pre-nursing at Gordon College. The one thing Jenn did not want to be was a housewife without a career. She was too confident and independent to walk a few paces behind a man. She did hope for love—romantic love.
    But then, most women do.
    Jenn thought she had finally found that when she was in her mid-twenties. She shared a small bungalow in the Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta with a man she had dated for months. It was the perfect house for romance, situated next to a charming little park. But their relationship didn’t last, and they both moved on without hard feelings.
    After the breakup, Jenn moved home to Lawrenceville for a while. She didn’t intend to have her parents support her while she figured out her life. She took a job at Barnacle’s Oyster Bar in Duluth, Georgia, where she made good tips as a waitress and more as a bartender. She was known for her White Russians. The management noted her unfailingly gracious connection to patrons and her concern for their comfort. Jenn’s smile and her height made her a standout. More than that, her bosses saw how efficient she was and how quickly she learned the way the restaurant worked. She was soon promoted to shift manager.
    Jenn wasn’t really looking for a permanent relationship. She dated casually, and she had many friends. She liked her job at Barnacle’s, content that whatever was meant to happen in her future would happen. Rajel was married, and Heather was off at college. The Barber family was in a good place.
     
    B ART C ORBIN HAD FINISHED dental school. He filled in for Dr. Richard Huey in Huey’s dental practice in Lithonia in 1991 when the older dentist recovered from a hand injury. He was looking forward to having his own practice as soon as possible, but he had to work for several other established dentists until he saved enough money to open a dental clinic. For a few years, he volunteered his services one Friday a month at a free clinic for the indigent: the Ben Massell Dental Clinic, where Barbara Jones, the clinic supervisor, recalled, “We only saw his giving side here.”
    One day far in the future, Jenn would ask her sister Heather, “Do you ever wonder about what your husband did or who he knew before you met him?” And Heather would answer, “No, I know what Doug’s life was like.”
    “I don’t,” was Jenn’s