Couples shot dead at home

By Carrie Sidener

Neighbors and friends gathered around the convenience store cordoned off with crime tape. They were sad, angry and fearful.

Barker's Grocery, a popular gathering place on U.S. Highway 21, never opened Friday morning because owner Don Barker and his wife, Sue, had been killed in their home.

"The impact is so far-reaching," said the Rev. H.L. Talbert, pastor of Rose Chapel United Methodist Church, which the Barkers attended.

"This morning, it was like ripples in a pond spreading outward. ... Don and Sue didn't just touch lives; they shaped them."

On Friday, Sonny and Sue Davis hovered around the store, where they had often spent time.

"That man would give you the shirt off his back," Sonny Davis said. "He would do anything in the world for you. ... Sue tried to tell him to close the store and sell it, but he said he can't."

Davis said Don Barker was robbed twice before and was shot during one of the robberies.

He said when the authorities caught one of hte perpetrators, Don Barker told him, "I hope that boys gets his life straightened out."

"Something needs to be done," Sonny Davis said, citing two other unsolved multiple homicides in the community. "Someone needs to get of their ... and do something."

Sue Davis owned the store when Don Barker started working there when he was about 13. She later sold the store to him.

"He was just like my son," she said.

"Don was the greatest man around," said Michael Carson, who worked at the store. "He was too good a guy. That might have been his downfall."

Sue Barker was a retired teacher at North Iredell Middle School. Principal Kelly Cooper said the staff was deeply saddened by the news of her death.

"She will be deeply missed by our entire faculty," Cooper said.

Teacher Barbara Hill described Sue Barker as a loving woman who cared about her students.

"She would always go the extra mile to help a student, whether it be personal or school related," Hill said.

Bill Hayes, who also helped out at the store, said Don would help anyone in need and often cashed checks for people, although sometimes those checks bounced.

"I have seen poeple pull up in here with no gas and no money, and he'd give them $5 of gas and send them on their way," he said.

Hayes said Don often wanted his friends to work with him in the store after he was shot in a robbery. Maybe that's what led to his death at home, Hayes speculated.

"I suspect that is why they went to his house, because there were always people around him here," he said.

County Commissioner Godfrey Williams, who frequented the store, said the couple will be greatly missed.

"Everyone knew Don and depended on him to be there," he said. "So many people depended on him for groceries and gas ... everyone in the neighborhood."

This is the second double homicide in Iredell County this year.

Talbert said Sue Barker had been organizing a church yard sale for Saturday. It will still be held - now in the couple's honor.

"Their ministry and their love lives on," Talbert said. "An assault can take their lives, but it can't take their love from the community."