Montgomery Co. Father Speaks Out About Son's And Ex-Wife's Murder-Suicide
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- Senseless tragedy, inside a Maryland home. A respected psychiatrist and her teenage son, dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
Kai Jackson has emotional reaction from the boy's father and what may have driven his mother to desperation.
It is a tragedy that authorities and the family of the young boy are still trying to unravel.
"I loved him so much," said Jamie Barnhard.
Barnhard is left with only trinkets and photos to remember his 13-year-old son, Ben.
"It's a piece that he made for his grandmother," he said. "It says, 'I love you.' He was such a special child and I miss him so much."
Police found Ben dead along with his mother, a licensed psychiatrist, in their home in Kensington in Montgomery County in an apparent murder-suicide. His father had planned to pick Ben up Saturday before a work emergency called him away.
"She had shot Ben on Saturday and she had just waited for me to show up or come to the house," Barnhard said. "I think she was going to kill me too."
Ben was one of many children featured on a cable show about teenagers struggling to lose weight at Wellspring Academies of the Carolinas in Brevard, N.C.
Ben's father said he struggled with autism spectrum disorder and obesity. He had a terrible time in Montgomery County schools.
"Bullying and harassment and he gained a tremendous amount of weight," Jamie Barnhard said.
Ben's mother tried to convince Montgomery County to send him back to Wellspring but his father says the school system refused.
"She didn't want him to suffer," he said. "She didn't want him to go through the bullying. She didn't want him to hurt."
The boy's father says killing Ben was his ex-wife's desperate, unexplainable act.
The boy's mother was 54-year-old Margaret Jensvold, a licensed psychiatrist who reportedly graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She worked for Kaiser Permanente in Montgomery County and was a published author.
