Man convicted again of murdering woman
Mother of 2004 victim applauds life sentence for man who got retrial.
For a second time, a jury has convicted Mark Barrow of killing a 36-year-old woman in 2004.
Barrow was convicted in Rae Meichelle Tener’s death in 2004, but in 2012, the Florida Supreme Court granted Barrow a retrial because the judge in the original trial refused the jury’s request to have parts of the testimony from the trial read back to them before they came to a verdict.
Tener’s body has never been found.
Minutes after the jury issued its verdict, Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath sentenced Barrow to life in prison without a chance of parole.
“Thank God they’re keeping him in,” said Mary McGuire, Tener’s mother.
Asked if her daughter had finally received justice, McGuire said,
“Oh, yes. He will never be able to do this to anyone else.”
Barrow did not testify during the trial and showed no emotion as the verdict was read. His attorney Peter Grable said he would appeal.
It was the alleged drunken confession Barrow made to his then-girlfriend, Peggy LaSalle, that connected him to Tener.
Barrow beat the woman to death, prosecutors said. According to the confession, Barrow put Tener’s body in a black trash bag and tossed it in a canal in western Palm Beach County. Later, LaSalle said she found Tener’s keys in Barrow’s van, and investigators found Tener’s DNA in the van as well.
After his arrest, Barrow told authorities he didn’t like Tener, but didn’t kill her and referred to the victim as a “slut.”
McGuire, who attended the trial, had a letter read following the verdict in which she admonished Barrow and his legal team for casting Tener in a negative light.
“They blackened her name,” McGuire said. “She wasn’t there to defend herself. That’s not right.”