ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — On a summer night four years ago, a 30-year-old financial analyst named Justin Barber stumbled out of a sport utility vehicle on A1A, the beachfront highway that runs along Florida's Atlantic coast, and flagged down a passing motorist.

Barber had been shot four times and was bleeding heavily. He told police and rescue workers that a mugger attacked him and his wife on the beach. He had left her lying injured on the sand to go for help, he said.

April Barber had been married three years when she was fatally shot on a Florida beach.

As a helicopter flew Barber to a hospital, officers from the St. Johns Sheriff's Department rushed to the beach and found April Barber. The 27-year-old was dead from a single gunshot wound to her head. Investigators delivered the grim news to her husband in his hospital bed.

In the following days and months, authorities began to suspect the mugger was an invention, and the grief-stricken man in the hospital gown was not a victim but a calculating killer. There was a $2.3 million insurance policy, a string of lovers and Internet activity that hinted at premeditation. After two years of investigative work, detectives arrested Barber.

On Monday, Justin Barber will go on trial on a first-degree murder charge that could send him to death row. He insists he is innocent and says he fought to save his wife's life.

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"I did not murder April, I did not kill her, and I didn't plan to," he said two years ago when he took the unusual and ultimately unsuccessful step of testifying before a grand jury to try to clear his name.

The trial is expected to focus on evidence of the motive, forensic analysis of the crime scene, and the injuries that both Barbers suffered.

Romantic stroll turns deadly

Guana River State Park, a pristine stretch of beach between St. Augustine and Jacksonville, officially closed to visitors at sunset, but at about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 17, 2002, the Barbers parked their SUV along the highway and used a wooden walkway to cross the dunes onto a secluded beach in one of the most isolated areas of the park.

Barber told police that not long after they began strolling on the beach, a man appeared out of the darkness and demanded cash.

"A struggle ensued and the two victims were shot," according to a sheriff's office press release issued the day after the shooting.

Barber said he lost consciousness after a bullet struck him. When he awoke, he said, he found he had four bullet wounds, one in his left hand, another just below his right nipple, a third in his right shoulder and a fourth in his left shoulder. The gunman was gone and so was his wife. He said he found her several minutes later floating in the surf. She had a bullet hole below her left eye.