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Heather Barbera, accused of killing her mother and grandmother in their Ventnor Boardwalk condo, offers to plead guilty

Prosecutors agreed to consider Barbera's offer to plead guilty as the judge set an October trial date.

Heather Barbera, the Ventnor woman charged in the robbery and killing of her mother and grandmother at the Mays Landing Courthouse, in Mays Landing, N.J.
Heather Barbera, the Ventnor woman charged in the robbery and killing of her mother and grandmother at the Mays Landing Courthouse, in Mays Landing, N.J.Read moreJESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer

MAYS LANDING, N.J. — Her brow furrowed but her voice clear, Heather Barbera, accused of bludgeoning her mother and grandmother to death with a nightstick one year ago inside their Ventnor Boardwalk condominium, told a judge Thursday she understood that she faced life in prison if convicted of the killings.

“Yes,” she said, looking up from her seat at the defense table next to her attorney, James Leonard Jr., where she had signed a pretrial memorandum outlining the possible consequences of the crimes.

Leonard told the judge he had made prosecutors a formal offer for Barbera, 42, to plead guilty in return for sentencing in the range of one first-degree murder charge, which carries a 30-year minimum sentence. “We are hopeful and optimistic we will be able to resolve this without a trial,” he said.

Nonetheless, Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury set an Oct. 8 date for a trial, which Chief Assistant Prosecutor Anne Crater estimated would last from two to three weeks.

Barbera is charged in a July 2018 attack that left her grandmother, Elaine Rosen, 87, a Philadelphia native who moved to New York in 1950 and married a wedding musician, and her mother, Michelle Gordon, 67, a patient-care technician, dead on the floor of their condominium on the Boardwalk.

Crater, the prosecutor, told the judge the case was “a difficult case for the defense,” and asked him for time to consider Barbera’s offer.

A deadline of Aug. 15 was set for consideration of the plea. After that, DeLury said, the case would proceed to trial.

Barbera’s uncle Richard Rosen discovered the two bloodied bodies after driving to the condo because he had been trying to reach his mother and she had not been answering her phone.

Rosen said he had warned his sister and mother not to let his troubled niece live with them in their eighth-floor apartment in the sunny Vassar Square Condominiums. Barbera’s mother had been trying to steer her daughter onto the right path, urging her to apply for jobs at casinos in Atlantic City, he said.

After the killings, police say, Barbera stole her mother’s credit cards and fled to New York. Authorities captured her three days later at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and she confessed to the crimes, police said.

Barbera was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, robbery, and weapons possession in the deaths of her mother and grandmother. Autopsies revealed that both women died of multiple blunt force trauma.

Leonard said he believed the plea offer was “fair and consistent” with similar cases, “mindful that there are two victims.”

“It’s obviously a very emotional and difficult case, and complex, with a lot of moving pieces,” Leonard said after the brief hearing. “I think she understands the severity of the situation, and she’s doing the best she can. I think by any measure it’s a tragedy on both sides.”