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Barbara Larkin Missing Person Case is Reopened as a Homicide
By Denise Grollmus in cold cases, homicide, missing persons, unsolved
Friday, Nov. 13 2009 @ 9:00AM
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Police say they know who killed Barbara Larkin. The problem is that they can't prove it.
​Barbara Larkin was ecstatic about becoming a mother. The 40-year-old was five months pregnant with a little girl, for whom she'd filled an entire closet in her San Bernardino condo with pink clothes. Her coworkers at Riverside Community Hospital claim that her dedication to her unborn child wasn't unusual. She was the same way about her three cats as well as her job as the emergency room's supervisor. 

So in 2001, when Larkin didn't show up for work, fellow employees became concerned. She was always punctual and responsible. Then, when she missed another day and yet another day, they knew something terrible must have happened...

San Bernardino authorities agreed. As soon as they got news of Larkin's disappearance, they contacted her boyfriend, Derrick Latimer. The 30-year-old was also the father of Larkin's child and lived in the same condo complex.

He didn't seem the least bit phased by the fact that he hadn't heard from the mother of his child in over three days. Latimer told police they had dinner plans the night before she disappeared, but that he'd fallen asleep at 4:30 p.m. and didn't wake up until the next morning, when he went to the beach. 

But the authorities didn't buy Latimer's story. They scoured the park behind the couple's condo complex and interviewed Latimer a handful of times. However, without a body or other physical evidence, police were unable to prove their theory that Latimer was Larkin's killer. The case was closed and Larkin was listed simply as a missing person. 

Nine years later, police have now decided to reopen Larkin's case as a homicide investigation. Authorities claim that lazy policing was the reason Latimer was able to evade murder charges the first time around.

At the time, police weren't even aware that Latimer had been convicted of rape in 1993 and had been a registered sex offender in North Carolina, where he now lives. "There were a lot of people who weren't contacted who should have been," detective Bill Flesher told The Press-Enterprise. "The way it was done, we'd almost have to start over."

This time, Flesher hopes to find Larkin, her unborn child -- and some justice. He's asking anyone with information about Larkin or Latimer to call him at 909-384-5655.