Molester, parents charged with child’s murder

updated 8:38 a.m. ET March 22, 2007

SAVANNAH, Ga. - A convicted child molester and his parents were indicted Wednesday on charges they molested and then murdered a 6-year-old neighbor boy, whose body was found last week in a trash bag dumped by a roadside.

Glynn County District Attorney Stephen D. Kelley said he will seek the death penalty against George David Edenfield, 32, who has a prior child molestation conviction from 1997, and his parents, David and Peggy Edenfield.

A friend of the Edenfield family, Donald Dale, was indicted on charges of concealing a body and tampering with evidence.

The boy, Christopher Michael Barrios, was missing for a week before police found his body last Thursday. The body was in a black trash bag dumped near a roadside about three miles from his home on the outskirts of Brunswick, a port city in southeastern Georgia.

“They deserve the worst, for them to torture my son like that, every last one of them,” said Mike Barrios, Christopher’s father.

Variety of charges
Authorities have not released many details about the case, including how the child was killed or how long his abductors might have kept him alive. Other charges against the Edenfields include false imprisonment, cruelty to children and enticing a child for indecent purposes.

Police have described George David Edenfield as mentally slow, but not retarded and capable of understanding right from wrong.

Family photo Christopher Michael Barrios, Jr., in an undated family photograph

Edenfield had to register as a sex offender in Georgia. He and his parents lived across the street from Christopher’s grandmother and less than 600 feet from where the kindergartner met his school bus.

A Georgia law passed last year prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. That would have barred the younger Edenfield from living so close, but a pending lawsuit prompted a federal judge last year to block that provision from taking effect.

George David Edenfield pleaded guilty in 1997 to molesting two boys, ages 7 and 9. Prosecutors said he rubbed his clothed body “in a sexual manner” against the boys, who also were fully dressed. He was sentenced then to 10 years on probation.

His father pleaded guilty to incest in 1994. He was accused of having sex with an adult relative; the relatives was not his son.

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