
Deena and Kelly Barnes are the older half-sisters of the late Phylicia Simone Barnes who many believe failed to adequate protect the child leading up to her disappearance, and body subsequently being discovered floating nude in a Northern Maryland river.
It was supposed to be the sister’s day out. A hair appointment, shopping for beauty products, and just simply hanging out was the scheduled events for that day. At least that’s the story Deena and Kelly Barnes told when their kid sister went missing over the Christmas Holiday of 2010. The only problem is neither of the Barnes older sisters ever went back to the Northwest Baltimore apartment where young Phylicia Barnes was staying with Deena. The studious teen just vanished and no one seems to know what happen, but when state environment workers discovered the pretty little girl’s nude body in the Susquehanna River in Northern Maryland, the mystery ended in tragedy, and her story has bothered us all ever since. We have learned so much about young Phylicia’s killing in the past year. We know hat there was a culture of drugs, nudity, and a constant flow of young men filtering in and out of Deena Barnes’ apartment. The environment Phylicia was exposed to had the makings of trouble from the very start considering a pretty young girl in the midst of such promiscuity, which was a distinct contrast to the supervision the child had been accustomed to. We are all very disturbed by the caliber of people Deena associated herself with and the activities we now know were a routine among the Johnson crew, but what remains as one of the biggest mysteries is what Deena nor Kelly Barnes did on the day their kid sister disappeared. Both of them failed to physically check on young Phylicia and I can’t help but continue to wonder why. Deena has continued to claim she and Michael Johnson were in the midst of a breakup, yet she freely allowed his family and friends to be exposed to her naive baby sister. Phylicia had gone to work with either Deena or Kelly everyday that she was in Baltimore except that fateful day. The only rationalization for why Phylicia didn’t go with them on the 28th was offered by Bryan Barnes when I interviewed him. Bryan said that young Phylicia had been up all night watching movies with Dylane, Michael Johnson’s baby brother that Phylicia was too tired to tag along with her older sisters to work that day, and had requested to stay home. We have to consider that Bryan’s account is simply what his sisters told him, because he wasn’t there. So, even if what Bryan said is correct, Deena’s decision to allow Phylicia to stay at the apartment is troubling. Dylane was and at least one other male was still at the apartment with Phylicia when she left for work that day. Deena’s story regarding the events during the early morning of December 28 is cloudy. She gave conflicting versions during the Peas in Their Pod interview. Deena said she and Phylicia were talking about plans for that day prior to her departure, that Phylicia had asked her to call Kelly to pick her up, and the third account was that Deena said Phylicia was asleep when she left for work. Her account isn’t clear and creates suspicion that she was attempting to conceal something pertaining to Phylicia’s welfare as early as 8:00-8:30 a.m. that day. Not just that though, her decision to allow her pretty baby sister to remain in that apartment alone with males even if she was awake while the young men slept is disturbing. Now that we know the child was allowed to run around streaking nude with grown men makes you wonder what in the hell Deena Barnes was thinking about the day she left young Phylicia alone at home. I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to expect that Deena should have mandated for Phylicia to come to work with her, or taking the child to Kelly’s place where there were not males and at the very least Phylicia should have been supervised by a responsible adult. Deena’s primary responsibility should have been to insure Phylicia’s absolute safety while she wasn’t physically going to be with her. The males at the apartment should have been awakened and asked to leave until such time that she returned to the apartment later on that day. This is basic common sense and Deena Barnes has never publicly justified or even rationalized for that matter, why she chose to leave the child alone with males. Females following this case have been outraged from the very start regarding these disturbing facts. Women say it’s instinctive for a female to go into protective mode regarding the safety of children, especially a female child. Also if the actions of Deena Barnes aren’t startling enough for followers of this case, Phylicia’s other older half sister’s actions on that fateful day are even more confusing. Kelly Barnes along with Deena both have stated for the record that Kelly was supposed to pick young Phylicia up once she got off from work. The two sisters had plans for the hairdresser, and shopping for beauty supplies. They say that during the late morning hours they both lost contact with Phylicia. Kelly says she called several times unsuccessfully reaching her baby sister. A call from Kelly to Deena was made to inquire if the kid was with Deena, but an account by Michael Johnson that placed the child asleep on the sofa was accepted as the gospel without either of these grown women actually verifying what he told them. I mean Michael and Deena were breaking up after all. If the break-up account is true, did Deena believe that MJ would have her pretty kid sister’s beast interest in mind? Kelly Barnes lived blocks away from Deena’s Northwest Baltimore apartment. She said she got off work early that day, but admits she didn’t go over to Deena’s to check on Phylicia. She says she had plans to go over there anyway, but never did. Why didn’t Kelly go over there? The two women say they decided to let her sleep. The fact that Deena admitted Michael Johnson still had keys to the apartment was even more of reason for these women to be proactive about checking on their baby sister. According to the itinerary Deena gave Janice Sallis (Phylicia’s Mother) when she arrived in Baltimore on December 30th, Deena claims the next time they heard anything about Phylicia was around 5:10 p.m. when she received a text from MJ stating that “Phylicia is up and active”, but says he never told her that Phylicia wasn’t at the apartment. This is yet another disturbing fact displaying the willingness of Deena Barnes to simply accept MJ’s account regarding Phylicia’s whereabouts as the gospel. At 5:10 Kelly had still not made her way over to Deena’s to check on her baby sister. Deena never made any further attempts to contact Phylicia either. It was a long time from 11:00-11:30 to 6:00 p.m. before either of these two women even went back to the apartment. Leaving young Phylicia alone with males and knowing others had keys to access that apartment while Phylicia was there is beyond comprehension. Assuming that Deena may have had difficulty getting out of work from her Pharmacy tech job, Kelly on the other hand doesn’t have the convenience of that argument, and the fact that she only lived blocks away while failing to simply go over to Deena’s apartment after previously planning to do so seems as if Kelly deliberately didn’t check on Phylicia for some reason. Deena and Kelly Barnes’ action back on December 28, 2010 are both complex and simply unexplained. Many of us simply want to know why Phylicia wasn’t adequately provided for under their watch. Their actions on that day set the stage for this entire horrific ordeal, and perhaps what they failed to do may even be part of a broader perspective in what happened. More importantly though, nearly everyone around the child in Baltimore appear to attempt to remove themselves from any association with Deena’s apartment on that day. I am convinced that some one knows what happened to young Phylicia Barnes, and the responsibility of determining what happen to this studious child must start with her own sisters. I refuse to stop talking about this little girl’s murder case until justice has been done. Deena and Kelly Barnes owe it to the memory of their kid sisters to come clean and tell the truth even if it kills them. Phylicia’s blood is on their hands and for the most part we all have always felt that way from the very start.
The People’s Champion
I’m David Adams
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