Miranda Barbour

“I feel it is time to get all of this out… 

it is time for me to be honest and I feel the need to be honest.”

Emerging from Pennsylvania, soft-spoken and short, Miranda Barbour lurked the streets of Alaska, Texas, California and North Carolina, hunting those “who deserved it”, burying them under soil, claiming to pinpoint exactly where each body is on a map.

Miranda considers herself the real life Dexter Morgan, offering a response to the disbelief of her actions due to her small nature “looks can be deceiving”, and that her victims “did bad things and didn’t deserve to be here anymore”. Her first victim was chosen by the Satanic Cult in Alaska that she joined when she was just thirteen years old, whose leader prompted her to kill the man who owed them money – she “hate[s] guns”, yet she still shot him after the leader “took his hands and put them on top of [hers] and [they] pulled the trigger”, and she just “continued to kill”, and apparently when she “hit 22 [victims, she] stopped counting”. She would “lure these people in” and “stud[y] them.” She “learned them and even became their friend”.

Miranda and her husband, Elytte Barbour, had found their recent victim on Craigslist, Troy LaFerrara, lured in by a promise to rid him of the loneliness he felt. No longer was he empty on the inside, because soon after Elytte had popped up in the backseat of the car Miranda and Troy were in, strangling Troy, Miranda had decided to fill Troy’s emptiness with a knife, twenty times. Had it not been for the success of Craigslist sexual encounters, the world would not have known about the murderous capabilities of this nineteen year old mother, who just wants to “start over and forget what [she] did”.

The interesting thing about this murder is that Miranda did not intend on killing Troy. She had placed him in a test, unbeknownst to him. She lied to him when they were in her car, her husband hiding under the blanket in the backseat, ready for her cue, telling Troy that she “just turned 16”. He replied “that it was OK”. She told the interviewers that “if he had said no, that he wasn’t going to go through with the arrangement, I would have let him go”.  Her reasoning for his murder is that “he said the wrong things”.  

When she was just four years old, Miranda was sexually molested by an uncle at her sister’s house. He was sentenced to fourteen years of jail time, charged with the sexual abuse of a minor, who would later grow to be a major figure in the news. She had joined the Satanic Cult nine years later, possibly due to the fragility of her soul during childhood. She claims that she “wasn’t always there [mentally”, and that she “knew there was something bad inside [her] and the satanic beliefs [had] brought it out”. By becoming a member of the cult, she “embraced it”.

Miranda now claims that she has killed over twenty-two people. Infamous serial killer Jeffry Dahmer had killed seventeen, Richard Ramirez killed fourteen, and now Miranda has claimed to kill over twenty-two, probably a umber under Andrei Chikatilo’s fifty-three – perhaps Miranda’s amount of killings might surpass Andrei’s. An honest soul, she claims that “if [she] were to be released, [she] would do this again”.

Things brings to the foreground the question: who really is the criminal? The people subject to wanting to perform sexual acts with minors or the people who, using violent ways, are trying to put an end to it? Perhaps Miranda and Elytte’s approach to killing Troy was wrong, however their reasoning is indeed quite reasonable. Troy could have gone off to have sexual relations with other minors, and what is to say that he had not had sex with a minor before his murder?

Perhaps Miranda and Elytte are the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde with a Dexter Morgan twist – modern-day superheroes, who, at the verge of performing more atrocities for a supposed good cause, were caught. Or perhaps Miranda has had feelings of vengeance lurking within her ever since her sexual molestation, and has had her vengefulness grow along with her over the course of nine years, leading her to hate and want to kill those who have had sex with minors. Only time will tell, and only truth will tell, depending on how much of it will come from Miranda during her trial. She claims that she does not want to “glorify [the killings] or get attention”, rather she feels that she should be honest.

Either way, I certainly am anticipating to hear the rest of this story, as it unfolds.

                                                                                                                                                                                         

References:

The Daily Item's interview and report:
http://www.dailyitem.com/x1708329322/BODY-COUNT-AT-22

CNHI's News Service article:
http://www.cnhinews.com/cnhins_news/x1783673805/Teen-mom-says-shes-a-mass-murderer

Hollywood Life's article:
http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/02/16/miranda-barbour-craigslist-killer-who-is-she/