Springfield Township, OH: Husband admits he killed wife

By Kimball Perry
kperry@enquirer.com

A Springfield Township man admitted Monday he drove a vehicle that backed over and killed his wife in the couple’s driveway July 26, 2008.


Michael Barnes, 36, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide in exchange for prosecutors dropping murder and felonious assault charges in the same incident.

“He was drunk,” Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Kevin Hardman said.

Barnes told police he and his wife, Tawnya Barnes, 32, were arguing because he had been drinking and was getting into his 2002 Ford Explorer to drive away. Knowing he had been drinking, his wife tried to stop him.

As Michael Barnes backed out of his driveway in the vehicle, he apparently ran over and killed his wife. He told police he backed out of the driveway as he routinely did and knew nothing was wrong until he returned later and saw a shadow in the driveway. That shadow was his wife’s body.

The couple was married four years and had no children.

The plea agreement, which was approved by the dead woman’s family, will result in Barnes serving a minimum of two years in prison, but Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers can send him for as much as eight years at the May 27 sentencing. The pleas allowed Barnes to avoid a murder charge and the accompanying potential life sentence.

The conviction also carries a lifetime driver’s license suspension.

Tawnya Barnes was a graduate of Lakota High School and was attending Miami University-Middletown and working at a Middletown bank branch.