On the evening of May 23, 2011, Ryan Barnaby, a 34-year-old male, drove to Edgewood Park in Waterbury, Connecticut. He parked his car at the southeast corner and walked into the park alone. Not long after, the sound of a single gunshot broke the evening quiet. By the following morning, his body was discovered several hundred feet from his vehicle. He had been shot in the head.
Investigators determined that Barnaby had gone to the park with the intention of buying a firearm.
Instead, he was the victim of a robbery that turned fatal. The case was handled by Waterbury detectives who worked to piece together the events of that night. Their investigation eventually pointed them toward a man who was already in prison for two other murders.
The suspect, Zackery Cody Franklin, was arrested for Barnaby's murder on November 17, 2011. At the time of his arrest for this crime, he was already serving a 140-year sentence for two other homicides. In 2015, Franklin pleaded guilty to the murder of Ryan Barnaby and received an additional 30 years in prison, bringing his total sentence to 195 years.
