On the morning Michelle Lee Newell went missing Aug. 29, a friend and neighbor of the Vadnais Heights woman found something slipped inside her tennis shoes.
“Stocking stuffers,” Carolyn Bain said Thursday, chuckling as she recalled the gifts. Lip gloss, a pair of socks, stickers, other small trinkets. It wasn’t rare for Newell to surprise people with little presents, she added. Sometimes they’d be tucked in someone’s pocket. Other times left on a table.
“She would always do that kind of thing,” Bain said. “Whatever she could do to make you smile, that’s what she would do.”
The two women had plans to spend time together later that night, but that didn’t happen. Newell was last seen that morning by an acquaintance inside her Vadnais Heights apartment, according to the Ramsey County sheriff’s office.
That person was Timothy James Barr, the man now charged in Newell’s death, Bain said. Bain lives in the apartment below Newell’s and said the two women were close friends.
“It just makes me sick to my stomach,” Bain said of the accusations facing the 51-year-old Lakeville man. “I just wish (Michelle) would come home. … You couldn’t ask for a better friend.”
Barr was charged Thursday with two counts of second-degree unintentional murder in Newell’s death, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court. He was also charged with one count of criminal vehicular homicide.
Based on comments he made to police informants, authorities suspect Barr killed Newell by running her over with a car and then got rid of her body, the complaint said. Her body has not been found, and authorities do not know where the crime occurred.
“We are investigating every lead that we have at this point in time … and will until everything is completely answered,” said Sgt. John Eastham, a spokesman for the Ramsey County sheriff’s office.
Even without her body, authorities are “confident” Newell is dead and that Barr is the one who killed her, Eastham said.
Neither Newell’s nor Barr’s relatives could be reached for comment.
DETAILS OF THE CASE
Cellphone records and statements to police informants led authorities to Barr. He was arrested Tuesday and is being held in the Ramsey County Jail.
Family and friends reported Newell missing Sept. 8. The mother of three reportedly had health issues and was unusually trusting of others, leading to extra concern when she failed to contact family for several days.
A search of Newell’s phone records indicated she had called Barr at 11:15 p.m. Aug. 28. Her phone was traced to St. Cloud the following evening and then stopped working, the complaint said.
Two friends of Newell’s described Barr as a friend of hers whom she had been spending time with the past few months.
Barr’s cellphone records indicate he and Newell exchanged a text message Aug. 29 about going somewhere four and a half hours away. Phone records place him in North Dakota the night of Aug. 29. His phone remained in the state until at least Aug. 31, the complaint said.
In the weeks that followed, Barr allegedly gave varying accounts to informants about accidentally running a woman over after a dispute about methamphetamine. The complaint outlines the following accounts:
- On Sept. 17, Barr told an informant a woman had stolen a pound of meth from him and hidden it in the woods. When he dragged her to the area and she refused to disclose the drugs’ location, he said she hid from him under his car. He then said he accidentally drove over her and placed her dead body in his trunk to dispose of it up north. He said he was briefly questioned by police en route. Investigators confirmed Cass County deputies questioned Carr near Interstate 94 in North Dakota on Aug. 31 after someone called to say a man was lying in a ditch next to a broken-down car. Barr allegedly gave deputies varying stories about why he was there.
- On Sept. 16, a different informant said he saw Barr cleaning out the trunk of his 1997 Lincoln Continental with a hose in West St. Paul. He said Barr told him he ran over a girl he’d taken up north to a tree farm where he hid drugs. He said he had been using meth at the time and became angry when he suspected the woman had stolen drugs from him. When he couldn’t find the drugs or the woman, he got in the car to drive away and accidentally drove over her.
- On Sept. 20, he told an informant he had killed a woman after a plan to go to South Dakota with her to sell meth had gone awry. He said the woman had hidden from him under his car after refusing Barr’s sexual advances. Not knowing she was under the vehicle, he said he attempted to drive away and ended up running her over. He said he put her body in his trunk and disposed of it at a farm building in South Dakota.
Police officers spotted Barr cleaning out his car with bleach on Sept. 5, the complaint said. Officers tried to arrest him Monday when they saw him driving in his Lincoln, but he evaded them until his arrest Tuesday, police say.
He declined to speak to investigators at that time, the complaint said.
Barr has a lengthy criminal history, including several convictions for drug possession, as well as criminal damage to property and obstructing the legal process.
He is also awaiting trial in Dakota County for domestic assault by strangulation charges.
FRIEND AND MOTHER
Tara Hughes said she introduced Newell, a close friend, to Tim Barr over the winter. She said she thought the two might be interested in dating. She described Barr as a nice, funny guy, but with a troubled past.
When she heard her friend was missing, she said her mind immediately went to Barr.
“I just had this horrible feeling in my gut and it wouldn’t go away,” she said.
Hughes has known Newell since about 2008, when the two lived in a sober community together in St. Paul that helps mothers struggling with chemical dependency get back on track.
She said two of Newell’s three children are older teens and that only her youngest son lived with her at her apartment in Vadnais Heights. She also said Newell suffered from a brain injury.
“She is funny, bubbly, too friendly,” Hughes said. “I just see her laughing … I can see it; I just can’t hear it anymore.”
Bain said she spoke with Newell almost daily in the lead-up to her disappearance.
She said Newell was a stay-at-home mom who liked to do projects around her place and collect knickknacks. She was also fiercely devoted to her children, Bain said.
“She was always happy to see you, whether you were gone five minutes, five days or five months,” Bain said.
Through their friendship, Bain said she had met Barr a few times. She said the first was when her car broke down with Newell sitting beside her. Barr helped them out.
“He came and rescued us on the side of the road. … He seemed like a nice guy,” Bain said.
“But sometimes you think you know somebody and you don’t,” she added.
RARE CASE
It’s rare to charge someone with murder when the suspected victim’s body has not been found, said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi.
Still, he said other evidence can warrant the decision.
“Obviously, if there isn’t a body you better make sure you have other evidence that you believe can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe we do in this case,” Choi said.
He declined to elaborate on the evidence that he said tipped the scales for his office.
People have misconceptions that all “no-body” cases are dead-ends, he said. He pointed to his office’s successful prosecutions of Norman Bachman and Jeffery Trevino as evidence to the contrary.
In 2015, Norman Bachman was convicted of killing his wife, Tori Bachman, in 1997, though her body was never found. Choi’s office also opted to charge Trevino with murder in the death of his wife, Kira Steger, before her body was discovered. Her body was subsequently found during his trial. Trevino was convicted in 2013.
Barr made his first court appearance in Ramsey County District Court on Thursday. His bail was set at $2 million and he was appointed a public defender. His next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20.
Newell changed her last name to Zion after divorcing her husband, Gregory Newell, in 2013, according to court records.