Missing child choked to death, court documents reveal

Wed, Mar 21, 2007

By JOSH RAYBURN

and EMILY STRANGER

The Brunswick News

Three days before his body was found, Glynn County police were told 6-year-old Christopher Michael Barrios Jr. had been choked to death.

Search warrants obtained Tuesday by The News from Glynn County Magistrate Court also reveal:

* George Edenfield told police March 8 – just hours after Christopher disappeared – that he killed the boy. He later said he choked Christopher.

Christopher Michael Barrios Jr., who disappeared March 8, in an undated family photograph.

* Peggy Edenfield told police March 12 that George Edenfield, her son, confessed to her that he had killed Christopher.

* Peggy Edenfield witnessed her son and David Edenfield, George's father and Peggy Edenfield's husband, choke Christopher until he was dead.

Glynn County police Investigator William Daras asked for four search warrants from Glynn County Magistrate Court on March 16. He stated that the warrants were part of a murder investigation.The applications, which were approved by Judge Tim Barton, apply to the Edenfield home in the Canal Road Mobile Home Park and the clothing they wore when arrested.

In those applications, Daras stated that George Edenfield told police sometime after 9 p.m. March 8 that he killed Christopher.

Family members have said they last saw Christopher at 6:15 p.m. March 8. Glynn County police began their investigation into his disappearance at 8:30 p.m. March 8.

Police found a "Star Wars" extendable lightsaber toy outside the Edenfield trailer at 121 Horseshoe Lane and began interviewing that family at about 9:15 p.m. March 8, the warrant applications stated.

Christopher stayed with his grandmother, Sue Rodriguez, at her trailer at 120 Horseshoe Lane after he returned from school. The boy lived with his father, Mike Barrios, at 150 Horseshoe Lane.

According to Daras, George Edenfield told police he watched Christopher arrive from school at about 2:45 p.m. March 8 and that "the devil told him to kill Christopher."

George Edenfield then "gave investigators of the Glynn County Police Department a confession as to killing Christopher Barrios, but could not tell where he hid the body due to being afraid of going to prison," Daras said.

Despite the confession, George Edenfield was not arrested by the police department that night.

The Glynn County Sheriff's Department arrested George Edenfield at 4:45 p.m. March 9 – some 19 hours after he allegedly made his confession to police.

That arrest was based on George Edenfield violating his probation for a previous child molestation conviction by admitting to being in the presence of a child younger than 18. According to his arrest warrant, that child was Christopher.

As of Tuesday, he had not been charged in the disappearance or death of Christopher and remained in the Glynn County Detention Center on a probation violation.

After Glynn County police were told George Edenfield had killed Christopher, police chief Matt Doering requested that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issue a Levi's Call, a statewide alert similar to the national Amber Alert for a missing child.

In an interview on March 12, Doering told The News that George Edenfield had "made some statements of concern to (the department), but there is no evidence that he had any part in the child's disappearance."

Also on March 12, Daras said Peggy Edenfield allowed police and two Atlanta Natural Gas Co. employees into her trailer to check for methane gas.

Detection devices alerted to the presence of methane gas, which is produced by decomposing bodies.

Daras said that in a follow-up interview that day with Glynn County police Sgt. Keith Stalvey, Peggy Edenfield admitted that George attempted to clean fingerprints off Christopher's neck "using a pot of water and soap and wrapping him in plastic trash bags."

That statement is consistent in three of the four search warrant applications. In the fourth – this one to search the Edenfield home – it is stated that Peggy Edenfield said she washed Christopher's neck.

That same warrant includes Peggy Edenfield telling police "that David Edenfield and George Edenfield used clothing to wipe semen off their bodies." No further information on this detail is included in any of the warrant applications.

Peggy Edenfield was arrested March 12 and David Edenfield was arrested March 13. Both were charged with obstruction of justice, making false statements to police, and concealing a death.

Family friend Donald Dale also was arrested March 13 and received the same three charges in relation to Christopher's disappearance. However, his name is not mentioned in any of Daras' search warrant applications.

All three – Peggy and David Edenfield and Donald Dale – are being held in the Glynn County Detention Center.

Christopher's body was found March 15 about two miles from the mobile home park, in a wooded area behind the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.

His funeral is scheduled for Thursday.

Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Stephen Kelley has said he would seek indictments in the case Wednesday from a Glynn County grand jury.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation's crime laboratory conducted an autopsy on Christopher. Its official report has not been released.

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