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Judge’s wife asks for privacy; neighbor in shock
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Judge Rowland Barnes’ neighbor, Sallie Richey, moved into their Colleg Park neighborhood 47 years ago. Barnes and his family moved into their one-story, red brick house soon after, said Richey, 90, whose daughter was friends with the judge’s daughter.
“He was a good neighbor,” she said. “We’ve been knowing him for more than 40 years, and everybody loved him.
“He was a lawyer in College Park for years,” Richey said. “When any of us had a little problem, we’d always go to Roland.”
She still was absorbing the news of Barnes’ violent death.
“I went to sleep last night with the TV on. I woke up a little after 9, and that’s all that was on,” she said.
The modest section of Lyle Road where Barnes lived is lined by older homes on small, tree-filled lots. About an hour after the shooting, nobody answered the door at the house, fronted by a porch with a swing.
Around noon, police pulled up in what appeared to be Barnes’ Isuzu Rodeo and parked it in the driveway.
At 12:50, College Park Police Deputy Chief Lewis B. Harper told a reporter that Claudia Barnes, the judge’s wife, had requested the media respect her privacy and that she did not want to make a statement at the time.
“She’s still coming to grips with it,” Harper said, then shaking his head added, “A thing like that in a courtroom.”
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