Murderer Of 13-Year-Old Toms River Girl Will Soon Walk The Streets

by Patricia A. Miller

Back in the fall of 1985, Barbara Renee Harrison and her 9-year-old brother Frank went everywhere together. She was his unofficial babysitter. The two siblings were very close.

But Frank, now 40, wasn’t with her on the afternoon of Nov. 12,1985. Thirteen-year-old Barbara had gone to a nearby candy store on Fischer Boulevard in the East Dover section of Toms River to buy some candy and nuts.

Frank wasn’t with her that day because he was home sick with a fever.

Barbara never came home.

“I would have gone to the store with her,” he recalled. ”Normally I was with her. It’s the ’what ifs.’ If I was there, he might not have done anything.”

Panic mounted in the Harrison household. Barbara was late. No one knew where she was. About 11 p.m. that evening, law enforcement authorities knocked at the door of the family’s East Dover home with the horrific news that would change their lives forever

Barbara was dead. Her body was found in the nearby Goose Creek off Matso Drive. She had been struck in the head with a board studded with nails. She was naked from the waist down. She had been brutally raped. Police at the time said she was still alive when her murderer threw Barbara in the creek. She drowned.

The autopsy found that Barbara suffered a vaginal hemorrhage due to laceration of her hymen and anal injuries that indicted penetration in a violent manner. She also suffered kidney damage from a severe blow and excessive swelling of the head, more than would be expected from someone who threw a board in self-defense. The official cause of death was asphyxia due to drowning, according to court documents.

You can’t hide

And Frank Harrison has made it his mission to let people know wherever Shawn Milne will be living when he is released from state prison next week. Apparently he is headed to Garfield to stay with relatives.

“I just want him to know his life is not going to be easy,” Harrison said. ”I’m telling everyone where he goes that he’s coming to town.”

Milne was 15 when he killed Barbara. The two lived only doors from each other and both went to Toms River Intermediate School East. He is 45 now and slated to be released later next week. He is now a squat, overweight man who bears no resemblance to the youth who sat in the Ocean County courtroom so many years ago.

Milne told police that Barbara came after him with knife, so he picked up a board and threw it at her head in self-defense. He told a defense psychiatrist that ”voices” had told him to kill her and hide her body. He claimed he had inadequate legal representation. Later he even suggested that his brother - now deceased - had killed Barbara, her brother said.

He filed numerous appeals of his sentence in various courts. All were denied.

And not once, down through the all years, has Shawn Milne admitted his guilt and apologized, Harrison said.

“You’re talking about someone who has never accepted his guilt,” he said.

The day after Barbara was murdered, police spotted drag marks and other items near the crime scene and tracked the marks to the Milne family’s backyard. There they found a pair of girls panties and a blanket. They also found a tool box with Milne‘s name on it with Barbara’s pants, shoes and socks, according to state appellate court records.

Frank Harrison was only 11 when Milne went on trial before Ocean County Superior Court Judge William H. Huber in 1987. He had to go to school. But as soon as school was out, the boy rode his bike to the courthouse so he could hear some of the trial.

The jury found Milne guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault. They found him not guilty of felony murder, which his public defender Bonnie Richman said sent a confusing message.

In her closing arguments, Richman called Milne ”a timid boy attacked by a worldly young girl armed with a deadly weapon,” according to an Associated Press account at the time.

It was a statement that still infuriates Frank Harrison, who said his sister may have kissed a boy or two during her brief life, but nothing more.

“They tried to portray my 13-year-old sister as a whore,” he said.

No closure, ever

Barbara Renee Harrison - forever 13 - would be 44 years old today if she had lived. She loved children and probably would have had a few of her own.

Harrison’s mother still lives in Toms River. She is too upset to stay home while Milne is being released and has gone to visit with relatives in Virginia, Harrison said.

“She needed a breather,” he said.

What would Frank Harrison say to Shawn Milne if the two ever found themselves in the same room with each other?

“It’s not really about what I would say, it’s about what I would do,” he said.

Photo credits: Courtesy of the Harrison family, the state Department of Corrections and findagrave.com