PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Inside a Norfolk barber shop, people come in to get haircuts and talk about their everyday lives. The owner is on a mission to talk about a specific topic; he wants to educate families on postpartum depression.
Randell Barkley says he had something horrific happen to his family 16 years ago — and he believes post partum depression was to blame.
“I was married to Sonita Barkley we had three beautiful children, and at the time she was four months pregnant with our fourth child,” said Barkley.
All over his shop are flyers and banners with pictures of them. It’s a topic that’s painful for Barkley to talk about, but one he says is important to share.
“I cut the news on and they tell me that my wife drowned our kids and killed herself. I lost it.”
Barkley says he remembers the Sunday before his family died vividly. He had been living elsewhere for about a week because he and Sonita had gotten into an argument. That Sunday, he came to visit his kids at their home.
“They went to go grab their bikes and in the process of doing that she said, ‘no you get out,'” said Barkley.
Barkley says as he walked away from his home, he looked up at the windows and saw his children’s faces for the last time. He says Monday he didn’t hear from her or the boys. Tuesday he drove to their home to find out what was going on.
“The other detective said your whole family’s dead,” he said.
He looked up into the windows of his home where he last saw his children’s faces. “I see someone taking pictures, flashing lights and I’m sick,” he said.
Barkley says it was only later on that he learned that his pregnant wife Sonita drowned their three young children and then jumped off a bridge to her own death.
“I was in denial. I was upset. I wasn’t accepting it at all,” said Barkley.
It’s that painful day back in 2002 that Randell Barkley says will haunt him forever. And it’s the years leading up to that day that he also thinks about all the time too. Barkley says he loved Sonita, but they did have their issues. Barkley says there had been charges of domestic violence against him in the past. He says they still tried to work on their relationship to make it better.
Looking back, he also tried to think of how he could miss the signs she would do something like this.
“I felt like I let my kids down and I let her down. I couldn’t sleep and I tried to take my own life three months later,” said Barkley.
Years later Barkley began writing about their relationship, which he found to be therapeutic. He says as he recapped their relationship he remembered a time they went to the doctor talking about how Sonita was feeling.
“I remember the doctor and she was saying ‘I’m crying all the time my back is hurting,'” he said.
He recalls the doctor talked briefly about postpartum depression and also gave them a pamphlet on baby blues. He says after reading about it, he believes she may have had postpartum depression. Barkley says he wished they would have taken the talk with the doctor more seriously that day.
“I found her diary and it blew me away the stuff that was on her mind,” he said.
Barkley has since written a book about postpartum, and has made it his mission to spread awareness and education. He says he wants to reach as many people as possible.
“People suffer in silence and a lot of fathers, they’re not educated,” he said.
He says hanging the banners of his book in his barbershop also opens the door to talk to men about it, so they know the signs as well.
