PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The daughter of Melissa Wood, one of two people killed in a double shooting last Friday night in a Walgreens parking lot, described her mother as loving, supportive and the center of the family.
Sienna Valdez said she still struggles to accept what happened to her mother.
“It’s unfair,” she said. “He had no right to take her away from us.”
Valdez called her mother “the best,” and said Wood always knew what to say and do and loved Valdez and her brother unconditionally. She shared a close memory of hunting for shark teeth on the beach at night with her mother, a small tradition she now treasures.
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Valdez said she spoke by phone with the man accused in the killings, identified by investigators as Christian Barrios, the night of the shooting.
She described him as distraught and said she tried to calm him.
“He was just talking and saying that he was like heartbroken over my mom, and she was with someone else,” she recounted. “I talked him out of, you know, off the ledge.”
Valdez said she received a call the next morning she did not expect — her grandmother telling her Barrios had killed her mother.
“I thought maybe something had happened to him. Which wouldn’t have been great either, but did not expect her to say that he killed my mom,” she said.
Asked what she would say to the accused, Valdez expressed disappointment and uncertainty about his state of mind, and referenced reports she has heard about possible mental health issues.
“I’m disappointed...I can’t say right now that I would forgive him, but I know at the end of the day, my mom would want me to.”
At other moments, Valdez said her anger wants the harshest punishment.
“The angry side of me once death row. Just because if you take a life, I think you should just go. I do want it to be kind of even with my mom’s life, even though nothing could ever bring her back. I want him to rot in prison for the rest of his life.”
Valdez said she is holding to the memories of her mother’s warmth and generosity.
“She’d want everyone to go shark tooth hunting, get your headlamps on, and get out there.”
Investigators arrested Christian Barrios in Nassau County. He faces multiple charges in both Nassau and St. Johns counties, including six charges in St. Johns County that prosecutors say include two counts of first-degree murder.
Nassau County charges listed by officials include grand theft of a motor vehicle, aggravated fleeing causing injury or damage, and reckless driving, among others.
Barrios will remain in the Nassau County jail to face the Nassau charges until he is transferred back to St. Johns County to face the murder charges.
Wood’s family has launched a GoFundMe to help cover funeral arrangements.
Our full interview with Valdez can be seen below.