Austin Fisher was sentenced to four life terms after pleading guilty in the Jacksonville killings.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A neighbor’s 911 call about a man knocking on his door led police to three stabbing victims on Jacksonville’s Westside, where investigators later said Austin Fisher killed Savannah Barber, Edwin Barber and Shad Cole.

The case moved from a predawn emergency call to a life sentence in less than a month. Fisher, 30, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and one count of armed robbery in the May 28 attack. He was sentenced to four life terms in Florida State Prison, ending the main criminal case while the victims’ families gathered for funerals and continued to ask why the violence happened.

The first call came around 3 a.m. from the Normandy Estates area, near Exodus Way. A resident told the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Communications Center that a man was knocking on his front door. District 5 patrol officers went to the home and found Edwin Barber, 49, on the porch with a stab wound to his chest. The sheriff’s office later said officers learned Barber had been stabbed at his own home down the street and had run to the neighbor’s house for help. The call sent officers back through the block and toward the home where the attack began.

At Barber’s house, officers found Savannah Barber, 27, inside a bedroom with multiple stab wounds. As they searched the neighborhood, officers found Shad Cole, 37, on the porch of another house, also with multiple stab wounds. Savannah Barber and Cole died before they could receive medical attention, authorities said. Edwin Barber was taken to a hospital and later died. Family members said Edwin Barber was Savannah Barber’s stepfather and Cole was her fiancé. The three deaths left one family mourning a daughter, a husband and a future son-in-law after one night of violence across several nearby homes.

Police first described the killings as a deadly stabbing attack and identified Fisher as the suspect after getting help from residents in the area. Investigators said he was found hiding at a motel in the Normandy Village area. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said members of its Community Problem Response Unit and SWAT Team went to the motel, where Fisher refused to come out. After several hours in a standoff, officers took him into custody. Jail and court records listed the murder counts and an armed robbery charge, and a judge ordered Fisher held without bond after his first appearance.

Amy Barber, Savannah Barber’s mother and Edwin Barber’s wife, said she was told the violence may have followed an argument over $600 that was supposedly missing. “She did not deserve this, or my husband, or even Shad, any of them,” Barber told a local television station after the deaths. She said Fisher had been living in a shed behind her husband’s property. Barber also said she was told Fisher waited until people were asleep before stabbing them. Authorities did not publicly confirm a motive in their initial updates, and they did not release a full account of what happened inside the home before Edwin Barber reached the neighbor’s porch.

The case also included accounts from people outside the home who said they crossed paths with Fisher after the killings. A Jacksonville family said they bought an Uber ride for a stranger before learning he was wanted in the triple stabbing. One family member said he thought the man had cut someone and did not know the scale of the violence police were investigating. Amy Barber said Fisher allegedly told someone what he had done after the attack. The sheriff’s office has not released every detail about those encounters, but police said community help was part of how they identified Fisher and located him.

The criminal case ended quickly by homicide-case standards. Fisher pleaded guilty less than a month after the killings. He received three life sentences for the murders of Edwin Barber, Savannah Barber and Shad Cole, plus a fourth life sentence for armed robbery. Local reports said he will not be eligible for parole. The plea removed the need for a trial that could have forced relatives to sit through testimony, photographs and detailed evidence from the stabbing scenes. It also fixed the legal outcome before the family finished public funeral services for the victims.

On Saturday, relatives and friends gathered at Franklin Street Baptist Church for a funeral service for Savannah Barber and Edwin Barber. Loved ones wore shirts with photos of Savannah Barber, Edwin Barber and Cole and the words “Forever in our hearts. Three lives taken too soon.” Amy Barber said the service reopened the pain of the past month. “It’s been hard,” she said. “It feels like it’s been going in circles.” She said she was ready for the process to be over, even as the family continued to grieve the three people killed on Exodus Way.

The neighborhood where the case began was quiet by the time the court case ended, but the details remained sharp for the people connected to the victims. Edwin Barber’s run for help became the first visible sign of a crime scene that stretched beyond one house. Officers found one victim inside a bedroom, another on a porch and a third at the neighbor’s front door. The scattered locations showed how the attack spilled into the block before police arrived. For the family, those locations became part of a timeline that began in darkness and ended in a courtroom sentence.

Fisher is serving life terms in state custody after his guilty plea. The next public milestones rest with the victims’ families, who are moving through memorials and the aftermath of a case that left three people dead on May 28.

Author note: Last updated June 29, 2026.