Twenty-two years to the day since Terrell Barkley was found dead in his car on the side of Adelle Avenue in DeLand, his mother and family members and friends gathered with investigators from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office to plead for information about his unsolved murder. He was only 22 when he was killed.
Barkley’s mother Louease May, a local community member and active volunteer, told the gathered media outlets that a day doesn’t go by when she doesn’t think about her son, or his death.
“I know there is information out there, and I am begging you,” May said. “Put yourself in my shoes. If it had been your family, and you walked up out there…”.
“It seems like yesterday,” she added. “I never thought it would go on this long.”
JUSTICE NEVER DIES, WITH THE HELP OF A MOTHER — On the anniversary of Terrell Barkley’s death, his friends, family members, and supporters gather to bring attention to his case. In front left, in black pants and glasses, is Louease May. An active volunteer, May pulled Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood aside at a recent event and asked him to highlight her son’s case.
May found out her son was killed around noon that day, Nov. 8, 2002. According to news reports at the time, she sat outside of the police investigation line all day, as family and community members came by to pay their respects and look for answers.
According to Sheriff Chitwood, the investigators now believe Barkley was gambling that night and was later robbed and killed.
Barkley was a funny and generous man, according to family members. He was killed before he could raise his own son, May said.
“Someone knows, I know,” May said.
“One day justice will be, if not in this world maybe, you have the fact that the day of reckoning will come,” former State Rep. and County Council Member Joyce Cusack said. “If it be His will, it will be revealed as to who did this.”
“When you know something, you ought to say something,” Cusack added. “God will deliver you, and justice will be served.”
— Terrell Barkley, pictured here, was only 22-years-old when he was killed.
At the scene where her son’s body was found, Pastor Kevin Caine led the group in prayer.
“We ask you, Lord for divine justice,” Caine preached. “Things got to shift, things got to turn around, things got to move… We ask you for peace for this mother right now, we claim it and we name it right now: It is so.”
“Justice will take place,” Pastor Caine said.
A $50,000 cash reward is available for any information on this case, or any of 40+ unsolved cases in Volusia County.
Several old cases have been closed by the Sheriff’s Office in the past year by DNA evidence. The body of Pamela Kay Wittman, discovered in 1980, was finally identified this month. Detectives used the identification to tie her murder to the Daytona-Beach area serial killer Gerald Stano. Stano was sentenced to death in 1983 and executed in 1998.
