Nearly six months ago, an Erie biologist accepted a job about 850 miles away from his aspiring actress wife and his energetic 4-year-old son.
John “JP” Farrar on Jan. 9 started a temporary year-long job as a biological science technician coordinating exotic plant management at Chiricahua National Monument, Fort Bowie National Historic Site and Coronado National Monument in southeast Arizona.
But missing each other tremendously, Elizabeth “Stacy” Farrar had interviewed for a job in the state May 16 in an effort to reunite their small family, a source close to them said.
The following Saturday — two days before the couple’s 18th wedding anniversary — the three were found dead at their home at 1973 Gordon Court, where Erie investigators said JP Farrar had stabbed his wife and his son, Ian, before fatally shooting himself.
Now, family and friends as well as the film community are left mourning Stacy Farrar and Ian, and people who knew JP Farrar are bewildered, wondering how a man they thought didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body could do something so unthinkable.
Police had never visited their home in the past for domestic violence calls, so what transpired?
“Most of the domestic violence that occurs in a place like Boulder County occurs in secret,” District Attorney Stan Garnett said.
The couple married on May 22, 1999, in Boulder County, according to marriage records.
JP Farrar was 30 and Stacy Farrar was 22 back then, and according to her LinkedIn, she was earning her master’s degree in geological science from the University of Colorado at the time.
A few years later, she was hired at Ball Aerospace as an engineer where she worked for more than a decade while her husband bounced around, spending less than a year at any one job as an ecologist, researcher or biologist.
In July 2012, 13 years into their marriage, the couple welcomed their first and only son, Ian.
His grandfather, Robert Varnes, called him a “firecracker of a child” and a woman saying she has been his teacher since infancy, Gina Vaughn, said his bright, affectionate personality would light up her days at a Louisville daycare center.
“The Farrar family were the sweetest around,” she said. “Stacy was more reserved, but always smiling. JP would come in with his corny jokes that us teachers had no clue what he was talking about. We laughed because JP was so great.”
She said they were well-mannered and down-to-earth, and Ian mimicked the silliness and joking nature of his father. She said Ian would ask for a hug before nap time every day.
‘The action was horrible’
After being a stay-at-home dad, then researching rabies for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Fort Collins, JP Farrar was hired in October 2016 at Lowes in Louisville as a lumber and building materials sales associate, according to what appears to be his LinkedIn profile.
There, he met coworker Colleen Callin, who said her impression of him in the three months they worked together was that he was funny, friendly, gentle, easy going and a “nerdy biologist.”
Callin said he often stopped in tools and hardware to chat and she learned he was struggling to find a job in his field — similar to her and many other professionals working at Lowes.
When he found the job in Arizona, he confided in her about his concerns working apart from his son and wife in Erie.
“As soon as I shared with him I had a kid in high school and a kid in middle school and a husband working out of state, he talked to me because he was concerned about that,” she said.
She said she told him that she and her husband found romance in the long distance, so it would work out. And she remembers him mentioning that his wife could end up moving for a job in New Mexico.
Once he did quit, she said, employees were sad to see him leave because he was an enjoyable person. So learning that JP Farrar was implicated in the tragedy has been shocking for Callin.
“I don’t know what happened, but the action was horrible. But he wasn’t horrible,” she said.
She said she now wonders if she gave him bad advice or if there was something going on deeper than the sociability he conveyed at the surface.
“I just know from having a degree in counseling, that’s not how people respond unless they’re dealing with a mental health issue,” Callin said.
Michael Holt was JP Farrar’s supervisor at Chiricahua. Holt described him as doctorly in giving presentations, an advocate for wildlife and punctual — why it was uncharacteristic of him to miss a scheduled meeting Monday, sending his supervisors searching for explanations.
“We have a small family and he was definitely a part,” Holt said.
Holt said JP Farrar was hired to work with exotic plants, but he refocused his attention to rabies education and elimination when there was an outbreak among small mammals in the park.
He was rabies-vaccinated and was equipped with face masks, gloves and other precautionary attire to protect from the saliva or fluids from a dead animal, Holt said, and he doesn’t believe the work would’ve contributed to JP Farrar’s behavior.
Holt called him an integral part of an ongoing experiment testing the resiliency of invasive plants.
“I could always get him to work on something,” Holt said. “He appeared to relish the challenges.”
‘Going to miss her smile’
Not only had JP Farrar mentioned his wife moving closer, but she also had brought it up with others.
“Stacy and Ian missed him tremendously,” said Vaughn, Ian’s teacher. “Stacy just had an interview on Tuesday down there so they could be together.”
She said she thought the interview was in Arizona. She said it seemed like JP Farrar would often come home on weekends, though not every weekend.
As her talent agent, Christine Grant also said she thought Stacy Farrar was planning on moving to Albuquerque, N.M. — about 400 miles from Chiricahua, where her husband was based — to pursue more film opportunities. She said she did not mention family as a reason for the move.
Grant said Stacy Farrar eagerly signed on with Eden Talent Agency in January 2016, soon after starting acting classes and connecting with various film groups in Denver. She said it seemed she was doing what she loved.
“I couldn’t believe when I saw the post from one of her film counterparts, on how he was going to miss her smile,” Grant said. “My first thought was she was moving, until I read further down and realized what had happened.”
Stacy Farrar, according to her webite, was born in Southern California, but raised in Colorado; a third-degree brown belt in Shotokan Karate; trained in Judo, Aikido and Kung Fu; an alto singer; hip hop, waltz and swing dancer; and a fitness enthusiast.
She was in the process of shooting a short film that she wrote, co-produced and was acting in, and had already appeared in a number of films, theater productions and commercials, according to her website.
Denver-based writer, producer and director Dennis Vincent said Stacy Farrar was memorable in her minor role in his feature film “Rage of the Mummy,” about a group of cultists who hire thieves to rob a mummy’s tomb. He said he is finalizing the film to release later this year.
“She won’t be able to see it and it’s heartbreaking,” Vincent said.
He said during the five days of filming with Stacy Farrar this past summer, he garnered that she was intelligent, friendly and talented. He said he first discovered her talents while watching her act in a student film in Boulder.
“I went ‘Oh my gosh, I would love to have her in this movie,” he said, adding that she graciously accepted when he tracked her down. He said the cast and greater film community is mourning her loss.
Maya Claridge, who said she attended acting workshops at the Bug Theatre in Denver and other classes with Stacy Farrar, said she was bright, warm, had a joyful air about her and was the kind of person to make others smile.
She recalled Stacy Farrar’s memorable performance of a detective during one workshop, when she was on stage engaging with another actor.
“It was very straight material, just the two of them, tossing around a plethora of crime vocabulary,” she said.
“But she made the scene different. She took advantage of every moment of silence and moved the scene in a different direction with every pause. She listened. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that performance, I learned something from it.”
Amelia Arvesen: 303-684-5212, arvesena@times-call.com or twitter.com/ameliaarvesen
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