St. Johns County Grand Jury Indicts Convicted Felon Christian Barrios For Two Execution-Style Murders

A St. Johns County grand jury today indicted Christian Barrios on two counts of first-degree murder in the execution-style shooting death less than three weeks ago of his girlfriend, Melissa Wood, and Jason Chatham in the parking lot of a Walgreens on State Road A1A in Ponte Vedra. 

Barrios, 32, is a convicted felon several times over with two prison sentences behind him, the last one ending in November 2023. He was on drug-offender probation on a 2025 Duval County conviction for meth possession, a term that wasn’t to end until August 2027. 

Late the night of March 13, Barrios had his mother drive him to Walgreens, ostensibly to confront Wood, thinking she was cheating on him. He rode in the backseat as his mother drove. As soon as they arrived at Walgreens and he saw Wood’s car, Barrios bounded out of his mother’s car and walked in the other car’s direction. His mother told authorities she then heard several gunshots from that direction. She called 911. 

St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies found an empty holster in the backseat, and Wood and Chatham severely wounded in Wood’s car, with several .380 caliber shell casings strewn around. Both were pronounced deceased at Baptist Beaches Medical Center. 

Barrios had vanished. Deputies found his phone discarded at TCP Sawgrass, the golf club near the shooting scene, though at 3 a.m. the following morning Barrios called his mother from a different phone number. “During this conversation, [Barrios] asked questions regarding the shooting and appeared to be concerned with Melissa’s wellbeing,” his arrest warrant states, “however, he did not make any admissions. [Barrios] did tell his mother if he agreed to meet with law enforcement they would likely kill him and he did not want to go back to prison.”

He had called from the house of a Jacksonville couple he knew. The couple told authorities he showed up there in wet clothes, looking frantic. He told them not only that he’d shot “someone,” but that he’d emptied a magazine, reloaded, and fired more rounds. 

Later that same morning Barrios burglarized a house at 124 Stadium Court in Ponte Vedra Beach by entering it through a rear sliding glass door while the occupants were sleeping. He left his clothes there and stole the occupants’ black BMW X3 SUV. The car was soon spotted by authorities in Nassau County. Barrios ignored an attempted traffic stop by police, fled, crashed in a ditch, fled on foot, and was eventually caught by deputies. 

Barrios then allegedly confessed. According to his arrest warrant, he said “he was angry at Melissa and Jason over their alleged infidelity.” He recounted the night’s and morning’s incidents, including the burglary and the theft of the car. He claimed to have accidentally dropped the firearm while fleeing the shooting. He was initially jailed at the Nassau County jail before a transfer to St. Johns County on March 18. He’s being held on no bond on the two murder charges. He also faces four second degree felonies. 

Assistant Public Defender Brian Smith has filed a motion to prohibit the release of Barrios’s confession. The motion is to be heard by Circuit Judge Christopher Ferebee the morning of April 10 at the St. Johns County courthouse. Managing Assistant State Attorney Sarah Thomas is prosecuting the case. 

A GoFundMe account set up by a man who identified himself as Wood’s brother describes Wood as the mother of two who had herself recently become a grandmother.