By Ely Portillo and David Perlmutt
dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com

A woman who was shot to death in an apparent murder-suicide early Sunday was arguing with her boyfriend and had just told him that she was leaving him, her mother said.

Just before the shooting started, Rebecca Robertson, 31, told her boyfriend, Barry Leake, 39, that she was leaving, said Robertson's mother, Clarina Williams of Greensboro.

Police found Leake and Robertson dead of gunshot wounds when they were called to the couple's northeast Charlotte home shortly after 1 a.m.

Investigators believe Leake shot and killed Robertson, then took his own life.

The shooting took place in front of Robertson's sister and six children, three of them Robertson's and three of them her sister's, who were watching a movie, neighbors and relatives said.

The couple had been planning to marry next year, relatives said.

Although police said they had been to the house once for a previous domestic violence complaint, neighbors and relatives said they were unaware the couple was having trouble.

Robertson and Leake, a truck driver, had known each other for 12 years, and had a daughter together, 11-year-old Alexis, Williams said. They apparently met in Greenwood, S.C., where the two grew up, Williams said.

The couple broke up years ago, shortly after Alexis was born. The two lived apart, though Leake "always cared for his daughter - even when he wasn't with her - and the other children, too, when my daughter needed help," said Williams, who called her daughter "Punkin."

But they rekindled their relationship about a year ago, when Robertson and her three children moved to Charlotte from Greensboro, Williams said. They were living in Leake's house at 2429 Anna Garrison Road, near West Sugar Creek Road.

The couple was set to marry next June, but the relationship fell apart again, Williams said.

Early Sunday, the two drank beer in Leake's garage and apparently began to argue over the relationship, said Williams, who said she learned the details from some of the people in the house. "Punkin was going to leave him," Williams said.

Inside, Robertson's three children dozed on a sofa with their three young cousins. Robertson went into the house for a cigarette, and Leake followed her arguing, Williams said.

"My other daughter (Robertson's sister) was there, and she said Punkin told him, 'What you going to do? You going to kill me in front of my kids?' Barry turned around and shot her. The children were right there in the room," Williams said.

Alexis told her grandmother she heard one shot and she and the other children ran outside screaming.

Lethia Thomas, who lives two doors down from the house, said she was getting ready for bed when she heard two shots and children screaming. She ran outside and saw the children.

"They were crying, screaming," she said. "They kept screaming 'My mom is dead!'"

Thomas took the kids inside her house. She tried to calm them, telling them that their mom might be OK, that they had to wait for the ambulance to come and take her to the hospital.

But moments later, Thomas watched as an official came in and told the children their mother was dead.

Court records show Leake had been awaiting trial for carrying a concealed gun, and marijuana and cocaine possession.

Previously, he had been convicted of traffic offenses in North Carolina.

Williams said she knew Leake well and didn't think he was capable of killing anyone.

"Barry was a good man," she said. "I don't know what happened last night. I can't understand what happened."

Williams first got the call about the shooting at 1:30 a.m. and immediately drove to Charlotte.

She took Alexis and 16-month-old Terrance to Greensboro with her. Robertson's other son, 8-year-old Quintrell, went home with his father, she said.

"When I started out, I thought she was just shot and that she'd be OK," Williams said.

"After I got on the road, they called and told me she was dead. She was a good girl. She was fun to be with. She was a good mother to her children."

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