A 17-year-old boy was burglarizing a house in Prairie Township when the homeowner shot and killed him early on Saturday, Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott said this afternoon. Reb Barbee was armed with a knife and wearing an Insane Clown Posse mask when he was shot in the living room of 8798 Hubard Dr. S, investigators said. Barbee turned out to be a former friend of the son of the homeowner who shot him.

Heather Tackett says she didn�t know who the person was behind the Insane Clown Posse mask, standing with a knife over her 17-year-old son in her Prairie Township living room just after 4 a.m. on Sunday.

She screamed at the intruder, clutching her boyfriend�s .38 revolver.

Tackett fired one shot, she recalled yesterday, before the intruder fled through her backyard.

It wasn�t until hours later � on Sunday afternoon � that Franklin County deputies came to her house and she discovered the person she�d shot was a teenage boy who�d been friends with her son. She had fed him dinner; he�d stayed overnight in her home.

�I am devastated,� Tackett said. �I really liked that kid and I was really good to him, and it breaks my heart he�d enter my home like that.�

Investigators say that Reb Barbee, 17, was behind the mask and had three friends help him sneak through a second-floor window of 8798 Hubbard Dr. S.

Despite a gunshot wound in his upper back, Barbee ran with his friends about a half-mile back to Barbee�s house at 635 Dovalon Place.

Nobody called 911. Not until an hour later, at 5:14 a.m. when Adam Pickens picked up the phone.

�Uh, I have a shot friend,� the 18-year-old told the dispatcher. �I really don�t know what to say.�

Pickens claimed he didn�t know what happened.

�I didn�t want to get him in trouble,� Pickens said.

Medics took Barbee to OhioHealth Doctors Hospital. He was pronounced dead there just after 6 a.m.

Nobody answered the door at Barbee�s house yesterday afternoon. He was a student in Tolles Career and Technical Center�s welding program.

Their friend dead, Pickens and two other youths, Brandon J. Hamilton and Tyler R. Blazer, both 17, were arrested. Hamilton and Blazer are facing delinquency counts of murder and complicity to aggravated burglary. Pickens is facing those same charges in adult court and is being held on $250,000 bond.

�If they would have got him help, we wouldn�t be talking about murder charges,� Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott said. �It was a bad decision on top of a bad decision.�

Scott said the prosecutor�s office will determine whether Tackett should face charges in Barbee�s death.

Tackett, 37, didn�t call 911. She didn�t think she�d shot anyone, she said. And if she did call, what evidence would deputies find? Barbee was wearing gloves and a mask, she said.

�I would have called had I thought I hit him,� she said.

Tackett thinks Barbee was trying to hurt her 17-year-old son. It had been about a year since Jacob had stopped hanging around with Barbee, Tackett said, because he didn�t like what his friend was getting involved in.

She wishes Barbee had said something when he saw her.

�Had he said, 'Heather, don�t,' or, 'It�s me,' or 'Jake,' or something to one of us,� she said, � the situation would be very different.�

amanning@dispatch.com

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