Father of Craigslist killing suspect calls her a liar, manipulative

The father of Miranda Barbour, the young woman suspected of killing a man she met on Craigslist in Pennsylvania and who has claimed responsibility for more than 20 other murders, including one in Los Angeles, has called his daughter a liar and a heroin addict.

Sonny Dean, Barbour’s father, said that if she is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, he will watch her get executed while holding the hand of the widow she made after allegedly killing Troy LaFerrara, 42, according to an interview with The Daily Item of Sunbury, Pa.

In one of his first public interviews since the furor over his daughter began, Dean said she was a drug addict and is “the most manipulative person I have ever known.” She is not, however, a mass murderer, he said.

Dean, who lives in Texas, said “I don’t believe her” claims of committing a string of murders.

“There is no way,” he said.

Dean does believe, however, that she could be responsible for the murder of perhaps one other person.

After she became hooked on heroin, Barbour spent much of her life in and out of treatment, he said.

So far, authorities say they have yet to substantiate Barbour’s claim of mass murder, though they are investigating.

“There has been no verification of any of the information that has been the subject of media coverage,” Timberland County (Pa.) Dist. Atty. Toni Rosini said in a prepared statement carried earlier this week by the Associated Press.

Barbour, 19, reportedly told a Pennsylvania paper that someone in Los Angeles was among the nearly two dozen people she had killed as part of a satanic cult.

Police officials in L.A. said they were looking into any possible connection but that she was not specific about her alleged crime.

Barbour, along with her husband, has been charged with stabbing and strangling LaFerrara after meeting with him Nov. 11, 2013, through a Craigslist ad in which she reportedly offered him companionship in exchange for money.

The Barbours married just three weeks before LaFerrara’s death, officials said. They were arrested in December.

“Believe very little of what Miranda says,” her father told the Daily Item. “She has a long history of extreme manipulation and dishonesty. I would be very surprised if any evidence was found concerning other victims in the states of Alaska, Texas, California and North Carolina.”

“Miranda lives in a fantasy world made up in her own mind,” he added. “She craves attention.”

Meanwhile, Dean also this week issued a statement with “a final request that goes out to all of the media. Please, I beg you, leave us alone.”

“Please stop calling. We don’t want to do an interview. We don’t want the spotlight. I have other children in the home who do not deserve to be burdened with this.”

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ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com