State Attorney William Scheiner will seek the death penalty for DAVID A. BARBER, charged with kidnapping and murdering Jessie Kirk, 72, of Titusville in March.

The state’s Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty cites the following aggravating factors to the capital-felony charge of first-degree premeditated murder:

• The capital felony was committed for pecuniary (financial) gain.
• The crime was “especialy heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”
• The homicide was committed in a “cold, calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification.”

BARBER, 35, was arrested on suspicion of murder in March after Kirk’s body was found burned near the Haulover Canal in north Brevard and her Lincoln Navigator SUV was found burned near State Road 50 and State Road 520 in Orange County. 

The Brevard County Grand Jury indicted Barber in April on nine charges that also include burglary, arson, grand theft of a motor vehicle, and abuse of a dead human body.