JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Less than a month after a violent attack that left a woman and two men dead on Jacksonville’s Westside, the man accused in the triple stabbing has pleaded guilty to murder and armed robbery charges.
Austin Fisher, 30, was sentenced to three life terms in Florida State Prison for the murders of 49-year-old Edwin Barber, 27-year-old Savannah Barber and 37-year-old Shad Cole.
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Fisher also received a life sentence on the armed robbery charge. He will not be eligible for parole.
Family members told News4JAX that Edwin was Savannah’s stepfather and Cole was her fiancé.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, around 3 a.m. on May 28, dispatchers received a call that a man was knocking on the front door of a home on Exodus Way in the Normandy Estates neighborhood of Jacksonville’s Westside.
When the District 5 Patrol officers arrived, they found Edwin Barber on the front porch with a stab wound to his chest.
Investigators quickly learned Barber had been stabbed at his home down the street and had run to his neighbor’s house for help.
When officers went to Barber’s house, they found Cole with multiple stab wounds on the porch, and when they checked in the home, they found Savannah Barber inside a bedroom with multiple stab wounds.
Savannah Barber and Cole died before they could receive medical attention. Edwin Barber died at the hospital, police said.
According to the family, Fisher was a friend of the victims and lived with them on Exodus Way. A man who met Fisher shortly after the stabbing said Fisher told him that he’d snapped and killed his roommate and his roommate’s father.
In a release announcing Fisher’s guilty plea and life sentences, the State Attorney’s Office said that JSO received phone calls from several people who said Fisher admitted that he stabbed the three victims shortly after the attack.
One of the callers was a rideshare driver who said Fisher described the argument and stabbing.
News4JAX spoke with a family who said they called that rideshare for Fisher before realizing he was a murder suspect. Fisher, who had knocked on their door around 6:45 a.m., said he wanted a ride to go see his mother.
The State Attorney’s Office said another witness, who spoke to Fisher on the phone, also mentioned Fisher was trying to get to his mother’s house to turn himself in and that he had admitted to the stabbings.
A third witness told investigators that when Fisher showed up at her hotel room, he admitted that he’d stolen money and drugs from the victims after he stabbed them.
Fisher was taken into custody at that hotel after a standoff with SWAT.
A GoFundMe was created by the Barber family to help pay for the funerals.
Savannah Barber’s mother, Amy Barber, was distraught after the murders.
“That’s my baby girl,” she said.