Footage newly obtained by ABC News appears to show the moment that the man suspected of opening fire at Brown University in December fled the Ivy League campus following the tragic incident. (Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office)
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Footage newly obtained by ABC News appears to show the moment that the man suspected of opening fire at Brown University in December fled the Ivy League campus following the tragic incident.
Officials believe Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, is seen on a dash camera video recorded from a Brown University shuttle vehicle on Dec. 13 around dusk, walking through a parking lot adjacent to Barus and Holley, the building that includes the Providence, Rhode Island, school’s physics department.
His right hand appears to be in his pocket as he then jaywalks nonchalantly across Hope Street toward an adjacent residential neighborhood.
The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General confirmed to ABC News that the footage is believed to depict the shooter and that the video was recorded immediately following the shooting.
The video was released in response to a public records request filed by ABC News. Authorities are currently declining to release many additional records associated with the response to the incident.
Neves Valente, a former Brown graduate student suspected to have been motivated by a lengthy grudge, shot and killed students Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook inside a final exam review session, according to authorities.
Nine others were wounded in the shooting, officials said at the time.
At some point after the shooting, police say Neves Valente traveled to the Boston suburbs and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro near his Brookline home.
Neves Valente later crossed the New Hampshire state line by a few yards and took his own life at a self-storage facility as authorities sought to take him into custody, according to police.
The video recorded by the shuttle bus was referenced in a Providence Police criminal affidavit against Neves Valente that noted, “This was observed to be at 16:03, immediately after the shooting.”
The footage appears to indicate that the tragedy that occurred inside Barus and Holley was not evident to people on the street outside, with a handful of pedestrians seen casually walking nearby.
A Brown University police car can be seen parked on the curb. Around 25 seconds after Neves Valente fled the scene, another police car can be seen driving down Hope Street. Its blue emergency lights were flashing.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 06, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — A Robb Elementary School teaching aide testified that she repeatedly urged Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales to intervene in the shooting, but said he did “nothing” in those crucial moments.
Melodye Flores testified on Wednesday that she saw gunman Salvador Ramos before he entered the school and tried to tell Gonzales his location.
“I told him that he needed to get stopped before he went into the fourth-grade building,” she testified.
“And what did he say?” prosecutor Bill Turner asked.
“He, just, nothing,” Flores said.
“Did you say it more than once?” Turner asked.
“I did,” Flores said, telling jurors she urged Gonzales to intervene two or three times.
Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students.
Gonzales, no longer an officer, has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the May 24, 2022, rampage.
Flores testified that she was eating lunch in her classroom when she learned about the shooter over a school radio. She said she ran outside because she knew that some students were on the playground and potentially in danger.
After warning some students, Flores said she spotted the gunman near the south door of the school.
“He was wearing all black and a hoodie … that’s when he started shooting,” she said.
Flores said she started running away and tripped, and incorrectly thought she was shot.
She testified that she saw Gonzales drive up to her right after she tripped, and she tried to inform the officer about the shooter’s location.
“I said that he was heading into the fourth-grade building, and we needed to stop him. We needed to go in and stop him before he went in,” she said.
“I just kept pointing. ‘He’s going in there, he’s going to the fourth-grade building,'” she told jurors.
“Did you hear anything from this gunman while you were talking to the police officer?” Turner asked.
“Just kept hearing shots,” she said.
Flores said that Gonzales did not respond to her warnings.
“I kept telling him that he needed to be stopped,” she said.
“When you told the officer to go in, did he go in?” Turner asked.
“No,” she said.
“What did he do?” Turner asked.
“He just stayed there,” she said.
Flores said she left Gonzales and tried to help a teacher who had sheltered in her classroom.
During cross-examination, the defense tried to cast doubt on the reliability of Flores’ testimony, suggesting that the trauma might have distorted her memories of the shooting.
Defense lawyer Nico LaHood highlighted that Flores testified that Gonzales arrived in an unmarked white car, though photos show he drove a marked school police car. Flores also previously told investigators that Gonzales wore khakis and a white shirt and had a beard; Gonzales was cleanly shaven that day and wore blue.
On Tuesday, during the testimony of Texas Ranger Ricardo Guajardo, prosecutors played a lengthy interview Gonzales gave to state investigators after the shooting.
In the interview, Gonzales recalled arriving at the school as one of the first officers and learning about the shooting from a coach.
“I was going over there towards her,” he said. “I see her fall in the dust cloud. So I get to her, and I realized she’s one of the coaches.”
According to Gonzales, he learned the approximate location and a basic description of the shooter from the coach, though the shooting began before he could act.
Gonzales told investigators that he could not see the shooter, but he tried to notify others over his radio.
“I notify everybody on the radio, the best I could. And then, you know, as soon as I start walking over there, I see the rounds come out of the window,” he said.
Gonzales also described trying to enter the school with four other officers, though they retreated after two were hit by gunfire.
“Everybody flew back, you know, so I think he got hit,” he said. “We kind of moved back.”
Two months before the shooting, Gonzales taught a course about responding to active shooters, according to testimony from Teresa Zamarripa, the officer manager at Southwest Texas College Law Enforcement Agency.
ABC News’ Juan Renteria contributed to this report.
Crew-11 mission astronauts walk out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building before heading to pad 39A for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) at the Kennedy Space Center on August 1, 2025 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The NASA International Space Station (ISS) crew that includes a sick astronaut are on track to return to earth Thursday morning.
On Jan. 8, NASA said it was ending the current the ISS mission out of abundance of caution because of a medical situation involving one of the astronauts on board.
“I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during a press conference on Jan. 8.
Crew-11 is scheduled to undock from the ISS at 5:05 p.m. ET Wednesday before splashing down off the coast of California around 3:41 a.m. Thursday, according to NASA.
On Tuesday, the crew prepared by packing cargo, reviewing return-to-Earth procedures and transferring hardware aboard the ISS, the agency said.
They will return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavor — the same spacecraft that brought them to the station.
An emergency evacuation was not ordered because the astronaut was stable, Dr. James “JD” Polk said during the Jan. 8 conference. The astronaut remains in stable condition, NASA said.
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which partners with private companies to deliver humans to and from the ISS.
Crew-11 includes two American astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut. They traveled to the ISS on Aug. 1 and were scheduled to stay until mid-to-late February.
It is the “11th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 12th flight with astronauts,” according to NASA.
In November, the crew marked a historic milestone for the ISS — the 25th anniversary of the first crew that arrived at the station.
NASA did not say which astronaut was impacted nor did it describe the individual’s condition or symptoms due to privacy concerns.
It was the first time in 25 years that a medical evacuation was necessary, Polk said.
The unprecedented moves comes after NASA announced it had postponed planned spacewalk with the two American astronauts scheduled for the morning of Jan. 8.
Stock image of police lights. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
(INVERNESS, Fla.) — Two teenagers, whose relatives said were best friends, have died after a sand hole they were digging at a Florida park collapsed and buried them for more than an hour, authorities said.
The incident occurred at Sportsman Park in Inverness, Florida, according to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office.
“Our hearts are with both families as they grieve the tremendous loss of their sons. We hope the community will continue to respect their privacy and unite in remembering and celebrating both boys,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The two 14-year-olds were identified on Wednesday as George Watts and Derrick Hubbard, the Florida District 8 and District 5 Medical Examiners’ offices told ABC News.
The boys were playing in the park on Sunday when a five-foot-deep sand hole they were digging collapsed, trapping them, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office said the emergency was reported about 12:44 p.m. local time.
“The caller reported that two 14-year-old children were lost in the park, and there was a large hole; the caller thought the children were trapped inside the hole,” the sheriff’s office said.
Deputies, firefighters and emergency medical services personnel raced to the park and attempted to rescue the boys after one of their parents pinged their child’s cellphone and pinpointed their whereabouts underground, according to the sheriff’s office.
Rescuers pulled both boys from the sand hole around 1:15 p.m. and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They were taken by ambulance to HCA Florida Citrus Hospital in Inverness.
One of the boys, Derrick Hubbard, was pronounced dead on Sunday, authorities said. The sheriff’s office said George Watts was pronounced dead at the hospital on Tuesday afternoon.
“In a tragic accident, we lost our oldest son, George Watts, and his best friend, Derrick Hubbard,” Watts’ mother, Jasmine Watts, wrote on a GoFundMe page set up to raise money to cover the boys’ funeral expenses. “These two boys shared a bond that went beyond friendship — they were inseparable, full of life, curiosity, and dreams for the future.”
The boys were students at Inverness Middle School, the school said in a statement.
“This situation has deeply affected many within our school and district community,” the school said in a statement, adding that counselors, social workers and psychologists were made available to students this week “as we navigate this difficult time together.”
Spencer and Monique Tepe are seen in this undated photo. (Courtesy Rob Misleh)
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The family of slain Ohio couple Monique and Spencer Tepe is speaking out about Monique Tepe’s ex-husband, who is accused of shooting the young parents in their home.
“She just had to get away from him,” the Tepes’ brother-in-law, Rob Misleh, told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” of Michael McKee.
McKee, 39, is charged with premeditated aggravated murder for allegedly gunning down the Tepes at their Columbus home on Dec. 30, according to police.
McKee appeared in court on Monday. He did not enter a plea but assistant public defender Carie Poirier told the judge he intended to plead not guilty.
Misleh said that Monique Tepe told him that McKee was emotionally abusive.
“Myself and many others were well aware of, kind of, the negative impact that he had on her. And the abuse that he put her through, the torment that he put her through,” Misleh said. “She was willing to do anything to get out of there.”
“She was a very strong person,” Misleh added.
McKee and Monique Tepe were married in 2015 and divorced in 2017, according to divorce records obtained by ABC Columbus affiliate WSYX. They did not have any children together, according to the records.
Spencer and Monique Tepe married in December 2020, according to their obituary.
“They were some of the kindest and just most inviting people,” Misleh said. “… I think it speaks really loudly that their funeral had over 1,000 people there.”
The Tepes are survived by their two young children who were found safe inside the house on Dec 30.
“We just want justice,” Misleh said.
“We want this person that took so much from, not just us as a family, but so many more people. And obviously the kids, especially. We want this person to pay for what they did,” he said.
(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — Police in Greensboro, North Carolina, are urging the public to share any tips in connection to the disappearance of Marissa Carmichael, a Black mother of five who was last seen on surveillance footage at a gas station on Jan. 14, 2024, after making a distressed call to 911.
Carmichael was 24-years-old at the time of her disappearance.
A spokesperson for the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) told ABC News on Tuesday that police are “absolutely” still concerned about Carmichael’s welfare two years after her disappearance, and are urging the public to come forward with any information about her case.
“We know that not being home with her children – and not having any contact with her family – is out of character for her,” the spokesperson said.
Asked if foul play is suspected and if any suspects have been identified in connection to the case, the police spokesperson declined to comment. “In surveillance footage obtained by our department, Ms. Carmichael was seen getting into a vehicle and leaving the gas station,” the spokesperson said, adding that the footage has not been released publicly as part of “the active investigation” into Carmichael’s disappearance.
Police said in a Feb. 13, 2024, update in this case that “detectives have identified and interviewed the driver of that vehicle, who is currently considered a witness in this case.” The spokesperson for GPD said that no further updates are available publicly at this time.
According to police, Carmichael was last seen at 3:46 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, at the Exxon gas station on 809 East Market St. in Greensboro and made a distressed call to 911 just before she vanished.
In the 911 call – the audio of which was obtained by ABC News — Carmichael appeared distressed and was asking for help finding a ride home. According to an incident report obtained by ABC News, when police arrived at the gas station, Carmichael wasn’t there.
During the two-minute call, Carmichael, whose name is bleeped out when she identifies herself, tells the 911 dispatcher that a man had asked her to pick up some things at the gas station but drove off while she was inside and that she has no way of getting home. Police have confirmed that the call is from Marissa.
“I don’t know where I am in Greensboro … he took off with my phone. I have no clue where I’m at. I have no numbers,” Carmichael tells the dispatcher.
Carmichael’s mother, Sara Carmichael, previously told ABC News that the family last saw Marissa on Saturday, Jan. 13, but since Jan. 14, her daughter has not been active on her social media accounts and her phone has been turned off.
According to Sara Carmichael, on the night before her disappearance, Marissa told her sister Emma that she was going to the club and asked her not to tell her mother because she didn’t want her to worry.
Sara Carmichael said after talking to her daughter’s friends, she learned that Marissa went to One17 SofaBar & Lounge, and then later went to an Airbnb for an afterparty, then was dropped off at the Exxon station.
Sara Carmichael told ABC News on the one-year anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance that her family, including Marissa’s five children, are distraught as they await updates from detectives working the case.
“Every day I wake up and it’s like, here, you know, it’s just the day where I might find out some news,” her mother said. “Is this the day where, you know, there may be some answers for me, for her kids? It just sometimes – this does not seem real. It still just doesn’t seem real.”
Ahead of the two-year anniversary of Marissa Carmichael’s disappearance, ABC News reached out to Sara Carmichael for further comment.
Greensboro police told ABC News that Marissa Carmichael’s information was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) as a missing person the day she was reported missing.
Police also urged the community to reach out to police or call Greensboro/Guilford Crime Stoppers to share tips anonymously at 336-373-1000.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 06, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below is extremely graphic.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Robb Elementary School teacher Elsa Avila was taking photos of her fourth-graders with their science projects on May 24, 2022, when she said a young girl noticed something was wrong — that other students was running to their classroom and screaming.
Avila testified that her students immediately hid, as they had during lockdown training.
“We heard loud, loud shots in the hallway,” Avila said on Tuesday at the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales. “They knew that it was, you know, a real thing.”
When Avila briefly stood up to instruct her students to make sure everyone was “safe and out of sight,” she said she felt a piercing pain on her left side.
“I felt the burning pain,” she said. “I put my hand on my side and I saw blood. When I took my hand away, I saw blood. So, I knew that I had been shot.”
As she recounted her injury, Avila banged her hands on the witness stand — the wood ringing from her Rosary ring — to describe the sounds she heard.
“I fell to the floor, and we kept hearing the shots,” she said.
Avila said she was lying on the floor in intense pain and “trying so hard to keep it in.”
She said her students tried to comfort her while they sheltered in place.
“They were hugging each other. They were helping each other stay quiet. Some of them were tapping me. They were telling me, ‘Miss, Miss. We love you. We love you. You’re going to be OK, you’re going to be OK,'” she testified.
Avila’s harrowing testimony comes on the second week of Gonzales’ trial. Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the May 2022 rampage.
Avila maintained her composure throughout most of her testimony, though she broke down in tears when she described what she felt in those moments.
“I was in so much pain towards the end there, my body was going into shock, and my legs were already starting to shake. My whole body was starting to shake,” she said. “I kept praying, you know, God, please don’t let me die.”
During a brief cross examination, Avila testified about hearing officers trying to negotiate with the gunman.
“I heard a voice saying, you know, ‘Sir, we need you to stop, we don’t want anyone else to get hurt,'” she said.
Avila testified that, even when officers broke through her classroom windows to begin rescuing students, some students wanted to stay with her due to her injury.
Former fourth-grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes also testified on Monday and Tuesday, recounting in excruciating detail the moments when gunman Salvador Ramos shot and wounded him and shot and killed all 11 children in his classroom.
Reyes said he fell to the ground after he was struck by gunfire. Then, the shooter “came around and he shot the kids,” Reyes testified, maintaining his composure.
After the first series of gunshots, Reyes testified that a student in a nearby classroom mistook Ramos for police.
“A student from that classroom said, ‘Officer, come in here. We’re in here,'” Reyes testified. “And I heard he walked over there, and I heard more shooting.”
As Reyes lay on the ground bleeding from wounds to his arm and back, he said the shooter returned to his classroom and noticed he was still alive.
“He came and he tried to taunt me. He got some of my blood and splashed it on my face,” he said.
During cross-examination, defense lawyer Nico LaHood tried to deflect some blame from Gonzales, suggesting Reyes was at least partially at fault for leaving his classroom door unlocked the morning of the shooting.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a press conference during moving day at Gracie Mansion on January 12, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A New York City Council employee was detained during a “routine” immigration appointment on Long Island on Monday, according to city officials, who called the incident an “egregious government overreach.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he is “outraged” by the worker’s arrest.
“This is an assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values,” he said in a statement on X. “I am calling for his immediate release and will continue to monitor the situation.”
The Department of Homeland Security defended the arrest late Monday, saying the employee is in the U.S. illegally and has an alleged criminal history that includes an arrest for assault. The agency did not provide additional details on the assault arrest.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin identified the employee in a statement Monday night as Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, whom she alleged is a “criminal illegal alien from Venezuela.”
McLaughlin said Rubio Bohorquez entered the U.S. on a B2 tourist visa in 2017 that required him to leave the country by Oct. 22, 2017.
“He had no legal right to be in the United States,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Under Secretary Noem, criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States. If you come to our country illegally and break our law, we will find you and we will arrest you.”
The employee was detained by federal immigration officials during an appointment in Bethpage in Nassau County earlier Monday, according to NYCCouncil Speaker Julie Menin.
The speaker said the employee has legal authorization to remain in the country until this coming October.
Menin said the employee is a “central staff member working as a data analyst for approximately a year.”
The city council learned of his detainment Monday afternoon, when the employee used his one phone call to contact the council’s human resources department for help and said he had been detained, according to Menin.
“DHS confirmed that this employee had gone in for a routine court appointment and was nevertheless detained. They provided no other basis for his detainment,” Menin said during a press briefing on Monday. “On the contrary, he was a city council employee who is doing everything right. He went to the court when he was asked.”
Menin said the city council is demanding the return of the employee, whom she did not identify, citing privacy concerns.
Democratic New York Congressman Dan Goldman said the employee is of Venezuelan descent and is a “law-abiding immigrant with work authorization.”
“I want to be very clear: There is no indication that there’s anything about this individual other than his immigration status that caused him to be arrested,” he said during Monday’s press briefing.
DHS said the staffer was not authorized to work in the U.S.
The employee has been transferred to a detention center in Manhattan, according to Menin. She said the city council has been unable to reach his family members.
Goldman said his office has reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We will continue to fight this,” he said. “We will continue to push for not only this person’s release, which is so obviously necessary, but for this immigration dragnet to stop.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James also called for the staffer’s immediate release, saying in a statement on X, “We will not stand for attacks on our city, its public servants, and its residents.”
In response to the incident, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “This is exactly what happens when immigration enforcement is weaponized.”
“Detaining people during routine court appearances doesn’t make us safer,” she said in a statement on X. “It erodes trust, spreads fear, and violates basic principles of fairness.”
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 06, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below is extremely graphic.
(UVALDE, Texas) — As the sound of gunshots got closer to Room 111 in Robb Elementary School, former fourth-grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes testified that all he could do was tell his students to get under their desks, stay quiet and close their eyes.
“I had told them to close their eyes, because I didn’t want them to see if something bad was going to happen,” Reyes testified Monday at the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.
Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students. Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the May 2022 rampage.
In excruciating detail, Reyes recounted the tragic moments when gunman Salvador Ramos shot and wounded him and shot and killed all 11 children in his classroom.
Reyes said he fell to the ground after he was struck by gunfire. Then, the shooter “came around and he shot the kids,” Reyes testified, maintaining his composure.
After the first series of gunshots, Reyes testified that a student in a nearby classroom mistook Ramos for police.
“A student from that classroom said, ‘Officer, come in here. We’re in here,'” Reyes testified. “And I heard he walked over there, and I heard more shooting.”
As Reyes lay on the ground bleeding from wounds to his arm and back, he said the shooter returned to his classroom and noticed he was still alive.
“He came and he tried to taunt me. He got some of my blood and splashed it on my face,” he said.
Reyes acknowledged that his sense of time from the shooting was unclear.
“I’m not sure how long, I just know it felt like forever,” he said, adding that all he could do in those moments was pray.
“I just closed my eyes real tight and just waited for everything to be over,” he said.
During cross-examination, defense lawyer Nico LaHood tried to deflect some blame from Gonzales, suggesting Reyes was at least partially at fault for leaving his classroom door unlocked the morning of the shooting.
Reyes will be back on the stand on Tuesday.
Though Reyes did not mention Gonzales by name during Monday’s testimony, the former teacher offered the jury one of the most graphic accounts of the shooting.
Former acting Dallas District Attorney Messina Madson told ABC News that prosecutors are likely attempting to use emotional testimony to emphasize the scope of the tragedy and to argue that someone other than the shooter should bear responsibility for the tragedy.
“This is an unusual way to apply this law, and so from an overall point of view of what the district attorney’s office is trying to do is say this is a tragedy,” Madson said. “This is a terrible, horrible thing that happened, and it is so horrible that not only do we have to mourn it, but somebody is criminally responsible, besides the person who pulled the trigger.”
David Barnes appears in court in Russia on Feb. 13, 2024 (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Paul Carter and his friend David Barnes have been speaking with each other since their days in first grade in Huntsville, Alabama, more than 60 years ago.
Yet since Jan. 13, 2022, their conversations over the phone haven’t been the same.
“It’s hard to sit there and hear him just plea, ‘Somebody get me home,'” Carter told ABC News in an interview.
Barnes, a 68-year-old father of two boys, is serving the longest prison sentence of any American who is currently being held in Russia. He was recently relocated to a penal colony hundreds of miles from Moscow.
Tuesday marks four years since Barnes was taken into custody.
His family says Barnes’ arrest came after he traveled from his apartment in The Woodlands, Texas, to Russia at the end of 2021 to try to gain visitation or custody rights to his sons through Moscow’s family court system.
Barnes’ ex-wife, Svetlana Koptyaeva, had taken their children to her native Russia following bitter divorce and child custody proceedings in Montgomery County, Texas. Upon learning of Barnes’ arrival in Russia, his family says she contacted law enforcement in Moscow and accused him of having abused the two boys.
“[She] did not want him to have access to his children, so she made the worst possible accusation that she could come up with,” Margaret Aaron, Barnes’ sister, told ABC News.
Moscow prosecutors’ case against Barnes was unlike any other involving an American jailed in Russia in recent memory, since Barnes was not accused of committing a crime on Russian soil.
Instead, Moscow prosecutors alleged that he abused his sons in suburban Houston, even though Texas law enforcement says they had no involvement in the Russian trial and previously found those allegations to not be credible after conducting their own investigation in response to Koptyaeva’s claims.
“I stand firmly by the allegations against Mr. Barnes,” Koptyaeva wrote to ABC News in an email Monday. “They are supported by my sons’ testimonies and evidence presented in both U.S. and Russian courts.”
Barnes was convicted by a judge in Moscow in 2024 and sentenced to more than 21 years in prison.
“Was it a fair trial? By no means,” Carter said.
After spending years in a detention center in the Russian capital, Barnes was recently transferred to the IK-17 penal colony, according to a spokesperson for his family. The facility previously housed other high-profile detainees like American Paul Whelan, who was freed from Russia in 2024 as part of a prisoner swap.
“We can’t speak for the other people that are in jail in Russia but we absolutely know without a doubt that David is an innocent guy that’s being held on some horrendous charges,” Carter said.
‘Nothing to justify what happened’
While Barnes already stood trial in Moscow, prosecutors more than 6,000 miles away in Texas are hoping that his ex-wife will face a different set of accusations in a courtroom 40 miles north of Houston.
The criminal case against Koptyaeva dates back nearly seven years.
From 2014 to 2019, Texas court records show that Barnes and Koptyaeva were going through an acrimonious divorce and child custody dispute.
“It gradually deteriorated,” Carter said. “He married a woman that he loved and brought two children into the world and, through forces that he didn’t understand or see, it went downhill.”
Koptyaeva raised serious accusations against Barnes during this time, accusing him of abusing their children, which he vehemently denied.
“I can say that the allegations against Mr. Barnes were investigated and evaluated by law enforcement here in Montgomery County and charges were not brought against him,” Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Kelly Blackburn told ABC News on Monday.
The custody battle between Barnes and Koptyaeva ultimately resulted in a family law trial.
“A jury also heard evidence regarding the allegations during his custody dispute in the family law trial and even after hearing about the allegations, still awarded Mr. Barnes custody of his two children,” Blackburn said. “And that is when his ex-wife fled with them to Russia.”
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office alleged that despite a judgment giving Barnes partial custody of their children, Koptyaeva “failed to comply with any condition for travel outside of the United States with the children,” and left the country with the boys on a Turkish Airlines flight from Houston to Istanbul on March 26, 2019.
Interpol published yellow global police notices containing pictures of the children and Koptyaeva was subsequently charged with interference with child custody, a felony crime in Texas.
A warrant for Koptyaeva’s arrest in connection with this charge is still active, according to Blackburn.
“I am not planning to return to the United States,” Koptyaeva told ABC News. “However, if I were to do so, I would plead not guilty, as I did nothing wrong. My actions were solely to protect my children from severe abuse, something any parent would do in my situation.”
A Texas court subsequently designated Barnes as the primary guardian of the children, but since the boys were believed to have ultimately ended up in Russia with Koptyaeva, he was unable to have a relationship with them.
Barnes’ friends and family maintain that Barnes’ desire to legally reunite with his children is what prompted him to travel to Moscow after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Instead, he ended up in a series of Russian detention centers.
“There’s nothing to justify what happened,” Carter said.
New Year, new hope?
As Barnes begins his fifth year of detention in Russia, for the first time he is being held in a penal colony a long distance away from Moscow
“From what we understand, the climate is quite a bit different,” Carter said, explaining that while Barnes was often housed in a cell with 14 to 17 other people in Moscow, he has more room to walk around in his new facility.
Carter said that the penal colony is a labor camp of sorts, but Barnes’ labor has largely been restricted to shoveling show. He is worried about his friend’s medical condition though, noting that Barnes has lost around 10 teeth since he has been in custody.
Koptyaeva has maintained that Barnes was justifiably charged and convicted, while Barnes’ relatives and acquaintances have been advocating for the U.S. government to declare that Russia is wrongfully detaining Barnes.
“We commend all efforts to secure Mr. Barnes’ release,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Rep. Dale Strong and Sen. John Cornyn wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in November. “As the Administration continues negotiations with Russia, we urge you to utilize every tool available to facilitate his return to the United States.”
Blackburn, the Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney, said he is not in a position at this time to say whether Barnes’ detention in Russia is wrongful, noting, “I don’t know what evidence was presented during the trial or anything else about how the proceeding[s] [were] conducted.”
The State Department has not answered ABC News’ questions over whether it considers Barnes’ detention to be wrongful.
“The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and welfare of American citizens,” the agency said in a statement to ABC News. “U.S. Embassy officials continue to provide consular assistance to Mr. Barnes.”
Carter said that there has been increased advocacy against Barnes’ detention recently and that he is hopeful that the Trump administration will be able to bring his friend home — but fears Barnes being devastated if he is left out of another prisoner exchange.
“He’s been in some insufferable conditions and it doesn’t need to continue,” his friend said.
ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
