An Iowa nurse had one final act of desperation to keep her husband from divorcing her and to cash in on life and home insurance payouts: set her house on fire — killing her husband inside.
Barbara Pasa denied murdering her husband, Timothy, but was found guilty by a jury after only three hours of deliberation.
“I think Barb was in a bad place financially,” said police chief Tom Demry on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “She wanted to appear to be the perfect family. Have the perfect home. The perfect cars. And I think it got to the point where she was not going to be able to uphold that appearance and that’s why she did what she did.”
Tim and Barb met at one of Tim’s country band concerts in 1999. The two were born and raised in the small town of Centerville, Iowa. They eventually had two children together.
“Barb and Tim seemed to have a great life, and she was so proud of her home,” said Sonja Carson, a former friend of Barb, on Snapped. “She always had pictures on Facebook. It seemed to be a well-rounded family.”
But appearances were deceiving. Two weeks before her husband’s death, Barb made an eerie threat while out with friends.
“She talked about a pending divorce,” Carson said. “She said that she hated him. She said it with a lot of emotion. And that if she wanted to get rid of someone, she knew she could.”
What happened to Tim Pasa?
Around 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 5, 2018, a neighbor spotted a fire at a home in Centerville, Iowa and called for help. When firefighters got the flames under control, they found the body of 50-year-old Tim Pasa on the bed in the master bedroom.
Firefighters noticed a few disturbing details in the home, including two smoke detectors that were disabled, and a candle on the floor of the bedroom.
“These were some things that stuck out to me as red flags because this is not normal stuff that you usually see,” Vern Milburn, Centerville fire rescue assistant chief, said on Snapped.
Neighbors had been unable to contact Tim’s wife, Barb. When they finally reached her, she said she’d been at her children’s soccer tournament. Police said she showed little emotion when she was told her husband was dead but asked to see his body in the ambulance outside their home.
“When she came out, we were waiting for her, and she was very stoic,” Carson said. “I just thought she was in shock. She didn’t show a lot of emotion and I was concerned that when she broke, it was going to be bad.”
Barb Pasa had an explanation for the disabled fire alarms.
“She said something had burned while she was in the process of baking and set off the smoke alarms,” Demry said. “And so, she asked Tim to take the batteries out of the smoke alarms until they could get the smoke cleared out of the room.”
She also explained that she’d lit a candle in the master bedroom area to cover up the smell of dog pee on the carpet.
When Barb was told there would be an autopsy on her husband’s body, police said she grew angry.
“I thought Barb’s reaction to that was not typical,” Michael Moore, Centerville police officer, said on Snapped. “I just felt that maybe she was being overwhelmed with everything that had gone on that morning.”
Barb Pasa explained that she and her children left the house just before 7 a.m. to head to a soccer tournament and had left Tim sleeping in bed. But police and firefighters found other red flags in Tim’s death, including that he had made no attempt to get off the bed or move during the fire.
“Even if a smoke alarm didn’t go off, the smoke, the heat, and the flames would have woken somebody up,” Demry said. “And there was no indication that that happened … why wouldn’t somebody wake up when there was a roaring fire right next to them?”
But the smoking gun that turned it from an accident investigation into a murder investigation: The medical examiner found no smoke inhalation in Tim’s lungs, meaning he was dead before the fire started.
How did Barb Pasa try to deal with her money troubles and impending divorce?
Friends agreed Barb Pasa was upset at the prospect of divorce.
“I think they stayed together for the kids … and Barb, I think she did not want to have a marriage that ended in divorce,” Carson said. “In her eyes, she would have felt like she wouldn’t be accepted or that she wouldn’t be able to do things with us as couples.”
Finances were other source of tension in the family.
“Barb always wanted the kids to have the best of everything,” Carson said. “They drove nice cars, had the newest shoes — whatever they wanted. She also spent a lot of time shopping for herself … Spending money was one of her favorite things to do.”
But police learned the Pasa home was about to go into foreclosure when Tim died, and the couple was swimming in overdue credit card bills. Barb had also taken suspicious steps before Tim’s death.
“Barb had maxed out Tim’s life insurance from $50,000 to $200,000,” Moore said. “That had happened approximately five months prior to this incident. We were also able to determine she had increased the amount on the homeowner’s insurance for the residence.”
Although an initial toxicology report on Tim’s body didn’t show anything suspicious, when police considered Barb Pasa’s profession as a surgical nurse, that led toxicologists to test for an anesthetic called propofol, that’s commonly used to sedate patients before surgery. The drug was found in Tim’s blood.
“The injection of propofol is going to cause a person to sleep, and it can also affect the heart and lower blood pressure,” said Dr. Laura Labay, forensic toxicologist, on Snapped. “It can cause an individual to stop breathing, and a sufficient concentration can lead to death.”
Although Barb told police she had left the house by 7 a.m., an eyewitness proved that wasn’t true.
“As I was driving to work, I happened to notice that Barb’s vehicle was at home,” said Meghan Decena, a former co-worker of Barb, on Snapped. “I knew it was her vehicle based on the personalized plates that she had that spelled out ‘Pasa.’”
Decena used an app for work that tracked her whereabouts, and it put her by the Pasa house at 7:22 a.m.— well after Barb claimed to have left.
“Barb snapped because she didn’t want people to know the truth,” Moore said. “She didn’t want them to know that her life was not as it was portrayed.”
Barb Pasa testified in her own defense at her trial for murdering her husband.
“The tears that she was giving — all phony. The entire thing was phony,” said Rich Parker, a friend of Tim Pasa, on Snapped. “In my opinion, this woman is a psychopath. Lucky for us, she’s not a very smart psychopath. If she was as smart as she thought she was, Tim would have had smoke in his lungs. She didn’t think that part out.”
Barb was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. Her children now live with family and have no contact with their mother.
“These children lost a father and a mother both, and the kids will remember this forever and it’s just a very, very sad ordeal,” Milburn said.
Watch all-new episodes of Snapped on Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and the next day on Peacock.
