Jack Barron's wife Irene, 34, was found dead in bed at their home in Sacramento County, California, on June 8, 1992. He said she had a genetic disorder. Their four-year-old son Jeremy died in bed eight months later with the cause undetermined, and their four-year-old daughter Ashley died afterwards. His mother, Roberta Butler, 52, died in similar circumstances at her own home in February 1995. All four had been suffocated. Neighbours planted a commemorative sapling for each death.
The pattern of a healthy young family dying one by one, and the sympathy he attracted after each death, led a doctor at his trial to testify that he had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which a carer induces illness or death in a dependent to attract attention. Several accounts describe him as the first man recorded with the condition; that claim rests on secondary sources rather than on any clinical register.
He was arrested on July 17, 1995 and charged with four counts of first-degree murder, pleading not guilty. His trial began in February 2000, and on March 18, 2000 the jury convicted him of three murders and acquitted him of his daughter Ashley's. He received three consecutive life terms without parole and continues to maintain his innocence.
Three convictions against four charges is why the recorded toll is given as three of four. The deaths were separate incidents spread over almost three years rather than a single event.