PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 The State Attorney\u2019s Office will seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting two people at a Walgreens in Ponte Vedra Beach.<\/p>\n
Christian Barrios, 32, was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Melissia Wood and Jason Chatham on March 14.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the SAO filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Barrios.<\/p>\n
According to his arrest warrant, Barrios\u2019 mother drove him to the site of the shooting and told deputies that she heard the moment that gunshots rang off.<\/p>\n
Investigators say he called his mother and asked for a ride to the location where he believed his girlfriend, Melissa Wood, and her alleged boyfriend, Jason Chatham, could be found.<\/p>\n
The mother told St. Johns County deputies that Barrios rode in the back of her car and \u201cfrantically jumped out\u201d upon seeing his girlfriend\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n
The arrest warrant states that a few seconds later, the mother told deputies that she heard multiple gunshots coming from the direction of Melissa\u2019s car, which prompted her to call 911 and meet with detectives.<\/p>\n
During their investigation, deputies said they found an empty handgun holster in the back of the mother\u2019s vehicle. The mother told deputies that the holster did not belong to her.<\/p>\n
Previous reports from SJSO, which were redacted, stated that Barrios went to the Walgreens along A1A to confront his girlfriend and a man he believed she was in a relationship with.<\/p>\n
Following the incident, Barrios contacted a witness who was his friend, while that person was speaking with law enforcement, the report said.<\/p>\n
The arrest documents go on to say that Barrios appeared to be concerned with the well-being of the victims; however, he did not make any admissions.<\/p>\n
Barrios also reportedly told the witness that if he met with law enforcement, \u201cthey would likely kill him, and he did not want to go back to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
The warrant further detailed how Barrios allegedly stole a BMW and attempted to evade law enforcement before being caught in Nassau County.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 The State Attorney\u2019s Office will seek the death penalty for a man accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,30067,5902],"class_list":["post-260997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-ponte-vedra-beach","tag-st-johns-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}