Judge: Ventnor woman charged with killing mother, grandmother ‘manifested extreme violence’

A Ventnor woman charged with beating her mother and grandmother to death with a nightstick has agreed to remain in jail while her case moves forward.

Addressing the courtroom Thursday during a pretrial detention hearing, Judge Bernard DeLury said Heather Barbera, 42, "manifested extreme violence" and would pose a flight risk if she was released from the Atlantic County Jail. Last month, the woman fled to New York City on a bus after killing her grandmother Elaine Rosen, 87, and mother, Michelle Gordon, 67, and stealing her mother's credit cards, authorities said.

"[Barbera] has manifested extreme violence in this case and is a present danger to the community," DeLury said as a visibly distraught Barbera, dressed in orange prison jumpsuit and nearing tears, sat beside her attorney.

Police arrested Barbera in New York City at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan three days after the bloodied bodies were found July 8 in their eighth-floor boardwalk apartment.

Public defender Holly Bitters said after the hearing that Barbera agreed to be held in jail because she "was anxious and did not want to prolong" the legal process, especially because she has two children.

Barbera's ex-husband currently has custody of their young daughter and son.

"That is her primary concern kind of in trying to move everything forward … her kids," Bitters said. "It's very sad."

Barbera's brother died from a heroin overdose a few months before the July slayings, Bitters said. After his death, she said, Barbera spiraled further into addiction and was unemployed.

"She really went downhill. … [His death] was pretty recent," Bitters said outside the Mays Landing courtroom.

Bitters said Barbera faced two charges before the July slayings: a simple-assault charge from 2016 and a disorderly-theft charge from June of last year. Bitters said she did not know details of Barbera's previous encounters with law enforcement.

Barbera's struggles with addiction were clear to her uncle Richard Rosen, who discovered the two bodies in the Vassar Square Condominiums. In a 911 call, Rosen told the dispatcher that he had warned his mother and sister not to allow Barbera to live with them.

"I knew this would be no good," Rosen said in a recording of the call.

Barbera is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, third-degree possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose, and robbery. Surveillance video captured Barbera leaving the apartment, and she later confessed to the killings, authorities said.