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Seven years after Kevin Barker was fatally shot outside a night club in Edwardsville in June 1972, Kingston and Luzerne County detectives traveled to Asheville, N.C., to interview a woman who had information.
The trip did not result in anyone being charged in Barker’s killing.
Barker, 18, of Rutter Avenue, Kingston, was inside Club Lee in Edwardsville where investigators suspected he got into an argument with another man about the length of his hair on June 17, 1972.
Barker was shot at about 12:50 a.m. in a Kingston alley known as Rosenheim Court between Payne Street and the Erie Lackawanna Railroad right-of-way shortly after leaving the club. He died two hours later at Nesbitt Memorial Hospital, the Times Leader reported June 19, 1972.
Slugs from a .25-caliber handgun were recovered from Barker’s body and a building near the shooting.
“Witnesses have told police that Barker was in several bar fights that night and authorities said they believe the fights provided the motive to the killing,” the Times Leader reported Nov. 22, 1979, when Kingston Det. Frank Ratchford and county Det. James Zardecki traveled to North Carolina.
Kingston police Chief John Reese said in 1979 that there was a suspect, described as a white male, 30 to 35 years old, six feet to six feet, two inches tall, with dark brown hair.
Michael Sloan, a friend who was with Barker at the club, told police a man began arguing with Barker over the respective hair lengths of the two men.
”Investigators said they have been able to place Barker’s assailant in the club and near the front door prior to the shooting,” the Times Leader reported June 19, 1972.
The Evening News newspaper reported June 20, 1972, that more than 100 people had been interviewed and investigators were still trying to locate another 200 patrons in the club.
Police sought a suspect for several days following the fatal shooting but had to abandon the manhunt when severe flooding caused by Tropical Storm Agnes hit the Wyoming Valley five days later, destroying evidence including the list witnesses and the names of several hundred bar patrons.
Barker was interred in Oaklawn Cemetery in Hanover Township on June 19, 1972.
