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Death of James Larry Ford

Barbara Terry was 20 years old when she married James Larry Ford in 1968. The couple had two kids and, to outsiders, seemed like the perfect couple.

Their relationship ended in tragedy on March 22nd, 1978, when James was cleaning a .25 caliber pistol and shot himself in the chest. Barbara had just bought the gun for him that day.

After his death, Ford’s family urged detectives to take a closer look. They were ignored, and his death was ruled accidental.

Barbara cashed in on more than $26,000 in life insurance, which is the equivalent of about $228,000 in 2025.

Murder of Allison Russell Stager III

Barbara moved on with Allison Russell Stager III in the fall of 1978, and they married on March 17th, 1979, less than a year after James died.

At some point in the relationship, Russell adopted her children, and by 1988, they were living in Durham, North Carolina.

Just after 6 am on February 1st, 1988, Barbara Stager, then 39, called authorities and told them she accidentally shot her husband.

When officers responded to the scene, she claimed her husband was paranoid about crime and was a gun fanatic.

She claimed she heard her son, Jason, get up. At the same time, she said she stretched and realized Russell had a gun under his pillow.

Fearing that Russell would think Jason was an intruder and shoot him, she tried removing the gun from under his pillow and shot him in the back of the head.

As officers and medical personnel worked the scene, she repeatedly stated, “I kept telling him about those damn guns.” Russell was taken to the hospital and died later that day.

Within eight days, Barbara had donated all of his closthes, and she started making phone calls to see if he had insurance from his time in the Army Reserves and National Guard.

But the investigation wasn’t over, and soon detectives asked Barbara to lie in bed with a detective and recreate what happened the night of the shooting.

The reenactment was recorded, and her story didn’t match the physical evidence, which indicated she had knelt on the bed and shot him at a downward angle.

The nail in the coffin was the $164,000 life insurance policy she had on Russell and the fact that her first husband was killed hours after she purchased a gun back in 1978.

On April 15th, 1988, Barbara was arrested and charged with murder.

Legal Proceedings

Before she went to trial, one of Russell’s students found a cassette in which Russell expressed concerns about his safety. On the tape, which he recorded in January 1988, he said that Barbara was waking him up and trying to force him to take some strange pills.

Her trial started in May 1989. The evidence was overwhelming, and she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death

That sentence was later overturned, and she was re-sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

She has had several parole hearings since 2009, but she remains behind bars.