Cousin of murder witness caught in crossfire

Victim’s name: Andre Price, 21
Where killed: 5500 block of Yuba Way
Investigative agency: Denver Police Department
Date killed: June 27, 1995
Cause of Death: Shot seven times in back
Suspect: None identified

Susanne Price was a single parent raising a boy and a girl in Montbello and working so she was concerned about who her kids hung around with.

“I had my kids in everything I possibly could to keep them off the street,” Price said. “It could keep them out of trouble.”

Her son, Andre Price Jr., played several different sports including bowling, basketball and baseball.

“I’ve got trophies galore,” she said. “He was great.”

In particular, Andre had a passion for playing baseball and dreamed of playing professional.

He attended several baseball camps and lettered on Montbello High School’s baseball team. In high school he was the class clown.

After graduation in 1992 he tried out for several minor league baseball teams but was never signed.

He enrolled at Aurora Community College, studying psychology and real estate.

He was very busy. He worked as an apprentice electrician installing and repairing light fixtures for Denver Public Schools. Andre’s girlfriend became pregnant. She moved in with the Prices. When his daughter Desirea was born, Andre helped baby-sit her.

Andre liked the style of cars built in the 1960s and 70s. He worked at his father Andre Price Sr’s car lot and enjoyed working on cars and fixing them up.

On June 27, 1995, Andre asked his mother if she could watch Desirea while he visited his cousin Jerry, who was 22, a year older than Andre. Susanne had asthma and had to work the next morning so she told Andre to be back home by 10 p.m.

Andre went to the Barker house on the 5500 block of Yuba Way in Montbello.

He was talking to Jerry Barker Jr. at about 9:50 p.m. when between two and four men, depending on conflicting reports, walked up the street. There was a brief conversation before the men pulled guns out and started blasting away.

One bullet pierced Barker in the neck. He was rushed the hospital and survived.

Price was shot seven times in the back. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead upon arrival. He was 21.

Susanne was asleep when her phone rang. Relatives told her that her son and cousin had been shot. She rushed to her car and over to the Barker home. There was crime tape crisscrossing the street. It was a frightening sign.

“They only put up tape when someone is killed,” Susanne Price said.

A woman across the street from where the shooting happened said one of the young men was dead. She was hoping her son had survived, but soon learned otherwise.

She soon learned that Jerry Barker’s brother had been the primary target. He had testified in a murder trial in which a young man was beaten to death. The suspect was convicted.

Several people know who killed Andre and injured Jerry, including Jerry, but no one has given police enough information to lead to charges.

“I can’t understand why this case has gone so long,” Susanne Price said. “They know who did it. They can’t do anything until someone comes forward.”

Susanne became a detective herself. She knocked on doors asking questions. She put up flyers. She held fund raisers and sought contributions for a $20,000 reward for information leading to arrests.

When she did so, someone smashed the windows of her car in front of her house.

“It has never scared me. It only made me stronger,” she said.

One man connected with ties to the case asked her daughter out on a date, apparently in an attempt to learn what the family knew about the killers. The man allegedly drove a getaway car.

In the 16 years that have passed since her son’s murder, no one has come forward.

On every birthday and holiday, Susanne visit’s her son’s grave at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver and leaves flowers.

“We go out there and visit him like he is still alive,” she said.

Last October, Susanne Price happened to meet Frontier Airlines CEO Bryan Bedford when he was disguised with a dark toupee and glass during the taping of an episode for CBS’ Undercover Boss.

Bedford was so impressed by the jovial airline employee and touched by her son’s story that he vowed to name a plane after Andre. Susanne got to help pick the animal on the plane, an antelope.

“It’s an animal with a little color,” she said. “And like Andre, an antelope is very fast.”

On April 1, the plane with Andre Price written underneath the pilot’s window, was dedicated. On Mother’s Day, Susanne Price got to clean the plane.

“It’s the cleanest plane in the fleet,” she said.

Contact information: Denver crime stoppers can be reached at  303-913-7867. Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.