A Santa Rosa judge ordered the Gulf Breeze mother charged with murdering her own daughter to be held without bond throughout the duration of her case.
Wendi Barber, the 46-year-old mother of Reagan Barber, was booked into Santa Rosa County Jail Feb. 13 on a charge of second-degree murder for allegedly firing a single, fatal shot into the back of her daughter’s head in their Gulf Breeze home in November 2025.
The Office of the State Attorney motioned to have Barber held without bond and proceeded to a pretrial detention hearing Feb. 23, where prosecutor Mark Alderman presented some text messages that show how “strained” the mother-daughter relationship had been since they moved from Louisiana to Florida three months prior to Reagan’s death.
“What I have before me is a very troubling homicide,” said Judge Matt Gordon during the hearing. “I do find that there is a substantial probability that the defendant committed this crime.”
One of the texts presented by Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office detective Joshua Schultz during the hearing showed Barber texting a friend after an apparent argument over moving out of Reagan’s home and potentially not being able to see her 5-year-old granddaughter. In the text, Barber says her daughter is “a f*****g c**t.”
“You have the text messages showing, I would say, an insight into their relationship that it was not good,” Alderman told Gordon during the detention hearing. “I would say that anytime a mother is telling other people that her daughter is a f*****g c**t, a f*****g b***h, I would say the relationship is more than strained.”
Much of the argumentation between Barber and her daughter, according to attorneys and police reports, was about how the 5-year-old child was being raised, leading to Barber being told to move out. Prior to her deadline to move out, Barber allegedly unplugged the Wi-Fi router, which caused Reagan to leave her bath and check on it.
That’s when Barber allegedly fired the 9 millimeter round into the back of Reagan’s head. When Reagan’s cousin and father discovered her body, she was lying nude in front of the router.
Although law enforcement never found the firearm used, they did find 9 millimeter ammunition inside of an SCCY pistol case, which did not contain a pistol. Investigators noted that during a prior incident with Escambia County law enforcement roughly three weeks before the shooting, Barber had a pink SCCY pistol in her purse.
Barber will continue to be held without bond throughout the trial process by order of Gordon, and is next scheduled to appear in court May 26.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Gulf Breeze mom charged with daughter’s murder denied pretrial release
Reporting by Benjamin Johnson, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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