Murder of an Honors Student
The unsolved murder of Phylicia Barnes.
Getting to know a long-lost sibling should be a special time. Two people who share a parent and genetics, but never had the opportunity to be raised together can lead to sadness, but it shouldn’t lead to murder.
Phylicia Barnes
Phylicia Barnes was a 16-year-old honors student at Union Academy in Monroe, North Carolina. She was a straight-A student and was on track to graduate from high school early. She had dreams of becoming a teacher. She was a young woman with a bright future ahead of her. However, one thing was missing from her life.
Phylicia was raised without her older sister, Deena Barnes. The two girls shared the same father, but had different mothers and were raised separately. The sisters connected on the social media platform Facebook and started to get to know one another. Phylicia also became friendly with Deena’s boyfriend of almost ten years, Michael Johnson.
Phylicia and Michael frequently sent each other text messages. Approximately 1200 text messages were sent between the two in a six-month period. While the texts themselves did not appear to be inappropriate the relationship was unusual given the circumstances.
