Judge stays execution of Fort Worth man convicted of murdering pregnant woman and her son

A judge has stayed the planned execution of a Texas man who has been imprisoned for over a decade for the murders of a pregnant woman and her 7-year-old son in Fort Worth.

Stephen Barbee, 54, was facing lethal injection on Tuesday after being denied an appeal in February that argued his Sixth Amendment rights were violated during his trial and that his lawyers went against his wishes to maintain his innocence.

The stay, ordered Thursday by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, said the state Department of Criminal Justice was violating Barbee’s religious rights by not allowing a religious advocate to be in the room, with physical contact, while he would be executed.

Barbee was charged with capital murder in February 2006 for the 2005 deaths of Lisa Underwood, 34, and her son, Jayden. Investigators said that Barbee killed Underwood while believing the unborn child was his and would ruin his new marriage. DNA evidence later proved the baby wasn’t Barbee’s.

Jayden was killed after hearing and walking in on the attack. Both mother and son were suffocated.

Police said Barbee admitted to being responsible for the double homicide, but later Barbee argued he was coerced into the confession and has since fought to maintain his innocence.

The halt in the proceeding left Underwood’s mother, Sheila, who was planning on attending the execution, questioning when she, and her family, will “finally receive justice.”

“I’ve forgiven Stephen. I really have in my heart, but there’s a difference between forgiveness and justice, and my family deserves justice,” Sheila Underwood said. “My thinking was, he watched my family take their last breath, I will watch him take his last breath.”

Underwood was unsure if witnessing the execution would make her feel better, but said that she “owed it” to her late daughter, grandson and herself “to see that it was done.”

“You have your ups and downs. Some days you’re good, other days it’s hard. It’s a never-ending cycle you can’t get off,” Underwood said, referencing the multiple appeals over the last 15 years, that have reopened the wound of losing her only child and grandchild. “It would be justice, and finally being done.”

Prior to the judge-ordered stay Thursday, Tina Church, founder of The Other Victims Advocacy and who befriended the Barbee family after seeing the case on television over 15 years ago, called the planned execution a “travesty of justice.”

“I feel broken. I just feel so sad. I can’t even put it into words. I’m disgusted with the judicial system,” Church said. “Why are we getting into God’s business? … He’s been tortured for 16 and a half years, and now they’re continuing it in his upcoming days of execution.”

On Tuesday, Church said Barbee had appeals pending to fight the execution, but wasn’t sure when he would hear back.

“I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened, but what I do know is that Stephen has maintained his innocence and his story hasn’t changed,” Church said. “There’s just so much that is unsettling. It’s like reliving Cameron Todd Willingham.”

Barbee’s death would have marked the seventh execution in the United States in 2021, and the fourth this year in Texas. Rick Rhoades, 57, was lethally injected on Sept. 28 after being imprisoned for nearly three decades in connection to a double-homicide that killed two Houston brothers.

“Staying Barbee’s execution will allow time to explore and resolve serious factual issues concerning the balance between his religious rights and the prison’s valid concerns for security,” the judge’s order states. “The state may not carry out Barbee’s execution until the state allows his chosen spiritual advisor in the execution chamber, authorizes contact between Barbee and his spiritual advisor, and allows his spiritual advisor to pray during the execution.”

This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 4:04 PM.