A 42-year-old Venice man is behind bars after allegedly ambushing his boss outside their workplace, strangling him with a tank top, and later telling officers, “I killed the motherf***er.” Richard Dustin Barker faces charges of second-degree murder and evidence tampering following the early morning slaying of 56-year-old Jeffrey Hubbard.
The incident unfolded around 6 a.m. Tuesday in the 200 block of Grove Street South. Witnesses first alerted the Venice Police Department to a violent struggle occurring in front of a local building.
By the time officers arrived, they discovered Hubbard’s unresponsive body lying behind a trailer with a bloody white tank top wrapped tightly around his neck.
Barker, who was at the scene, immediately surrendered to the cops. According to a probable cause affidavit, Barker’s admission of the killing was captured on body-worn camera footage, and he was later photographed by authorities sporting a wide grin during his booking.
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Investigators revealed that the two men were coworkers at RPM Mower Repair, where Barker worked for Hubbard. During a post-arrest interview, Barker waived his Miranda rights and detailed a calculated plan to end his employer’s life.
He told detectives he was intimately familiar with Hubbard’s morning routine and waited for him to exit the shop to get coffee. Prepared for a fight, Barker allegedly wore a motorcycle helmet to protect his face and had already tied his tank top around his wrist to use as a ligature.
The struggle was reportedly brutal. Barker told police that when the initial strangulation attempt failed, Hubbard fought back, even lifting Barker’s helmet visor to scratch his face.
However, Barker claimed he eventually pinned Hubbard to the ground and strangled him until he stopped breathing. In a chilling detail provided in the affidavit, Barker admitted to re-wrapping the shirt around Hubbard’s throat after the struggle to ensure that responding paramedics would be unable to revive him.
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Following the death, police say Barker attempted to scrub the crime scene. He allegedly used a garden hose to wash blood off the sidewalk and pocketed Hubbard’s keys and a folding knife.
After realizing he could not lift the body into his red pickup truck alone, Barker drove to a gas station to pick up a trailer. He returned to the scene and began dragging the body toward the vehicle—intending to bury Hubbard in a remote part of Port Charlotte—just as police cruisers pulled up.
Barker is currently being held without bond at the Sarasota County Jail. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance Friday.
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