LaFerrara's widow: ‘I hope they rot in hell’ By Francis Scarcella The Daily Item PORT TREVORTON — C

LaFerrara's widow: ‘I hope they rot in hell’
By Francis Scarcella
The Daily Item

PORT TREVORTON — Colleen LaFerrara will probably come face-to-face with Miranda and Elytte Barbour, the newlyweds who allegedly stabbed and strangled her husband, at their preliminary hearings on Friday, and the 32-year old widow has a message for the Selinsgrove couple.

“I hope they rot in hell,” LaFerrara said Monday from her Port Trevorton home. “God forgives, and I don’t know if I’m that good of a Christian.”

LaFerrara wants the public to know what kind of man Troy, her 42-year-old husband, was. The slaying became a national news story after the Barbours told police they were just “looking to kill someone, anyone.”

“Troy was a great man,” she said. “He wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

On the night of Nov. 11, Miranda and Elytte Barbour met Troy LaFerrra at the Susquehanna Valley Mall in Hummels Wharf and lured him into Miranda Barbour’s red Honda CRV before making the trip to Sunbury, police allege.

Once in the city, Elytte Barbour, 22, waited for a signal from his wife and popped out from under a blanket in the backseat and wrapped a cord around LaFerrara’s neck, and Miranda Barbour, 19, began to stab the civil engineer, police said.

With Troy LaFerrara clinging to life, the Barbours drove around Sunbury before dumping his body in an alley behind Catawsissa Avenue, police said.

The Barbours then went to a department store on Routes 11-15 to purchase supplies to clean the Honda before celebrating Elytte Barbour’s birthday at a strip club in Harrisburg, according to police.

“The thing that bothers me the most about this girl is she got to mother a child,” Colleen LaFerrara said. “I read in the paper that she will be allowed to have visits. I don’t know if I will ever be a mother now, and Troy would have been a great dad, and now we won’t ever get that chance.”

Colleen LaFerrara spoke about the night her husband didn’t come home.

“It was after 1 a.m. and I didn’t think anything of it because he would go with his friend and they would hang out and talk,” she said. “By 3 a.m. I knew something was wrong, and I went to go look for him. I couldn’t find him and the next three hours were the longest three hours of my life waiting to call someone that may have known where he was.”

When morning came, Colleen LaFerrara called police and reported her husband missing.

Once Colleen LaFerrara received the news about her husband’s death, she worked to help police find the killers.

“I am glad they caught these individuals,” she said. “But it still doesn’t bring Troy back.”

Colleen LaFerrara said her husband would tell her he loved her every time he left the house, and on the day of his murder, he sat Colleen down and explained why.

“He told me that it was because if anything ever happened to him when he went to work he wanted me to always know that he loved me,” she said. “So the last words I ever spoke to him was him saying he loved me.”

Colleen LaFerrara reminisced about how her husband loved to hunt and couldn’t cook.

“I asked him one time to boil water while I was on the way home,” she said. “I got home and the water was ice cold.”

Hunting was Troy LaFerrara’s passion, Colleen LaFerrara said.

“He would only hunt for buck,” she said. “He was brought up that does shouldn’t be touched and he also wouldn’t shoot anything he wasn’t going to use. He would never shoot anything he wouldn’t eat. He was just, honestly, a good guy all around.”

Colleen LaFerrara explained how her husband was protective.

“There was a time when police were searching for a criminal who was out assaulting people in our area,” she said. “Troy found out about this and came to my work and bought everyone Mace so we would be protected.”

Even people Troy LaFerrara didn’t know felt his kindness, his wife said.

“A friend of mine was over the house one day and she was explaining to me how she couldn’t find a Tickle Me Elmo doll she was looking for, for her child,” Colleen LaFerrara said. “So Troy heard us talking, and he went online and began to search. He found one and called my friend up and told her he had the doll. She was so excited, and she started crying and telling me that he didn’t even know her and he was so kind to go out of his way to help her.”

The LaFerraras met online, Colleen LaFerrara said. They were 10 years apart in age but Colleen LaFerarra said she knew he was the right man for her.

“We clicked,” she said. “I was looking for someone who was older and more mature, and I couldn’t have gotten luckier than to meet Troy.”

For Colleen LaFerrara the road ahead will be a long one, she said.

“There will be no justification here,” she said. “I don’t want to sit and listen to what kind of childhood these people have had. I am upset and I am mad. I have no sympathy at all for them.”

Troy LaFerrara answered a Craigslist ad, police said, but Colleen LaFerrara wants the public to know it doesn’t mean her husband was looking for a discreet meeting with a woman.

“No one knows,” she said.

Miranda Barbour told police she placed a Craigslist ad and waited for men to respond so she could meet individuals for conversation, police said.

Elytte Barbour told The Daily Item his wife never posted any ads for sex, and she would be paid between $50 and $850 for “delightful conversation.”

Colleen LaFerrara understands that people have questioned why her husband visited Craigslist in the first place and she has a message for anyone who is curious.

“No matter what anyone says or no matter what bad decisions Troy may have made, he loved me,” she said. “He loved me and no one can take that away. And no one will.”

Miranda Barbour is due in court at 9:30 a.m. Friday, while Elytte Barbour will appear in court at 1:30 p.m. Both preliminary hearings will be held in the Northumberland County Courthouse in Courtroom No. 1.

=================================

This is local to me. This woman is dreaming if she thought her husband did not want sex. This spooks me. At one time I did ads on CL.

had a sawyer at the sawmill, HUGE guy, answered one of those "meet hot girl in your neighborhood" ads on a porn site. He had just gotten separated from his wife and two daughters, and she warned him not to do it. The girl cleaned him out for everything he had. I felt kinda sorry for him, it was so obvious...he came over to our house, and he had literally lost everything he had. It was very awkward...

someone posted he wasnt nice to walmart employees- and did not get along with men.

I cant believe the woman boo hooing him. No he did not deserve to die- but he was not a role model.

Charges against Elyett Barbour bound for court, too
BY NEWS-ITEM STAFFPublished: December 20, 2013
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Photo: Mike Staugaitis/Staff Photo, License: N/A, Created: 2013:12:20 17:00:53
Miranda Barbour is led from the Northumberland County Courthouse by Sheriff Chad Reiner following her preliminary hearing Friday.

SUNBURY – It took just 30 minutes for homicide and other charges against Elyett Barbour to be bound for court at his preliminary hearing this afternoon before Magisterial District Judge Benjamin Apfelbaum. The hearing this morning for his wife, Miranda, took more than three hours, but with the same result.

The Barbours, who had moved to Selinsgrove from North Carolina a few weeks before they allegedly stabbed and strangled Troy LaFerrara, 42, of Port Trevorton, in what police said was a planned killing, are both likely headed for trial next year.

At her hearing, Miranda K. Barbour told police she didn’t want to leave the state police barracks after her interview about her role in LaFerrara’s death because she knew they would eventually come for her and she just wanted to get it over with.

That’s what state police Trooper Brent Bobb testified to at her preliminary hearing.

All charges against Miranda Barbour, 19, of Selinsgrove, were bound to court following the proceeding, which wrapped up about 1 p.m. It’s expected she’ll seek a trial on homicide, assault, robbery, conspiracy and other charges.

The same charges were bound for court against her husband during his hearing, which started about 2 p.m.

The couple allegedly planned to kill LaFerrara after he arranged through Craigslist to pay Miranda Barbour for companionship, according to a confession Elyett Barbour gave to police. He hid in the back seat and, at a signal from his wife, wrapped a cable around the defendant’s neck while she began to stab him, 20 times, according to the autopsy.

LaFerrara, who was married, was an engineer who served on the Union-Chapman Township Regional Sewer Authority in Snyder County and was previously a Chapman Township supervisor.

Public Defender Edward Greco specifically tried to have charges of criminal conspiracy to commit homicide and criminal conspiracy to commit robbery dismissed against Miranda Barbour, arguing the evidence was hearsay. But District Attorney Tony Rosini said the prosecution wasn’t obligated to provide all of its evidence at the preliminary hearing, and Magisterial District Judge Benjamin Apfelbaum agreed in moving all of the charges forward.

About 45 minutes of the three-plus-hour hearing involved watching surveillance video from the Selinsgrove Walmart, where, authorities say, the Barbours went to purchase supplies to clean LaFerrara’s blood from Miranda Barbour’s car after the killing. The footage wasn’t clear, but police said it showed both of the defendants get out of the car, but only Elyett Barbou enter the store while Miranda Barbour got back in the car. It showed who police said was Elyett Barbour walking up and down aisles.

Daniel Marks, a loss prevention employee at the store, briefly testified to say he provided police with the tapes.

Also testifying were Northumberland County Coroner James Kelley and Sunbury police officers Jamie Quinn and Travis Bremigen.

Greco said afterward he couldn’t comment on the general condition of his client or whether or not she has expressed remorse.

Jim Best, an independent conflicts counselor and Elyett’s Barbour’s lawyer, said he was hopeful the defendants’ cases could have been merged to save time and resources. He expects considerable repetition in this afternoon’s hearing.

He said he’ll move to consolidate the trials should Elyett Barbour take the same course as his wife.

There was no discussion of the potential for the death penalty for the Barbours, although the alleged premeditation and the commission of a felony while carrying out the alleged killing would be two key determining factors in pursuing that sentence. Greco and Best are both certified as death penalty attorneys.

While cold blooded murder can never be excused for any reason, what the fuck was this knucklehead thinking when he arranged for random sex with a stranger over Craigs list? What the hell is wrong with people? Whatever happened to simply waiting until closing time at some bar or another and picking up some horny broad for a little bit of anonymous sex? Craigs list? Seriously?!?!?!?

I don't know man, but I wouldn't ever even post anything on that site. Why in God's name would anyone want to give out their address or phone number to a random son of a bitch on a totally anonymous website? That shit is virtually untraceable.

Locally I got alot of flack for saying this same thing. His friends lament on what a good man he was. In effect- the way they excuse his whoring around- they give their husbands the ok- to ram around for sex.

Penn,
That's the "He was a good boy..." syndrome. Relation bias wants to have us believe in the person about whom something terrible has happened, or who did something terrible, was really just a victim and not stupid, incompetent or even evil on some level. We do not want to believe that someone who may have been a close relation, or even a relative you lived in close proximity with, was capable of doing something we all know was stupid, evil or a combination of both. "That's my boy, so he couldn't have done that. He was a goooooood boy!

"He's just a child..." is another excuse people [mostly parents] make for little Johnny. People do this because they don't want to believe their children are capable of evil or hatred so they make excuses for them, even to the point of becoming violently angry and accusatory of others. I have seen mothers of boys accused of terrible violence berating an interviewer because they asked them "How could he have done something so evil?"