PORTSMOUTH Just before Robert Lee Barnes was sentenced for the brutal stabbing death of a former high school classmate, the teenager told the court he wished he could turn back the hands of time. Now, it's time in prison that Barnes is trying to erase.

TODAY, it's a nondescript conference room. Empty table, bare walls. But for months in 2008, this space was plastered with maps and charts. Detectives called it the Meghan Room. And every Tuesday, investigators would gather there to strategize their hunt for a 16-year-old girl's killer.

Return to the first half of the story AS DAYS TURNED into weeks, and weeks into months, some in the community feared the trail of Meghan's murderer was growing cold. Maybe her killer took some comfort in the passage of time, too. Funkhouser didn't share the view.

A case that began with a stepfather's anguished 911 call on April 10, 2008, in Portsmouth ended Feb. 18 when Robert Lee Barnes was sentenced for sexually assaulting and stabbing to death his 16-year-old friend.
Coming Sunday in The Virginian-Pilot and Sunday and Monday on PilotOnline.com, detectives tell the inside story. Watch a preview below:

Download free Flash player to view videos:

PORTSMOUTH Two mothers took the witness stand Thursday to talk about their love for their children. Robert Lee Barnes' mother spoke of the good she still sees in her son and her hope that he will have a future.

PORTSMOUTH A young crape myrtle tree had weathered its first winter, and in the heat of summer bloomed its first pale puffs of pink - Meghan Landowski's favorite color. On Saturday, the last of those blooms held on for the crowd that gathered in her memory. Meghan, 16, was stabbed to death in the family's Simonsdale home on April 10, 2008.

PORTSMOUTH Meghan Landowski's mother knows she can't change what happened to her 16-year-old daughter or lessen the torture of her final moments. Still, Angela Shortt wanted to hear Meghan's killer admit to what he did.

PORTSMOUTH The trial for the Churchland High School student accused of the 2008 slaying of 16-year-old Meghan Landowski has been moved to Tuesday – two weeks earlier than it had previously been scheduled.

PORTSMOUTH Robert Lee Barnes, 17, was indicted Thursday on new charges of capital murder and sex offenses in the 2008 slaying of Woodrow Wilson High School sophomore Meghan Landowski. Landowski's stepfather discovered the 16-year-old girl's body facedown in a pool of blood in the dining room of their Simonsdale home when he came home April 10.

PORTSMOUTH Robert Lee Barnes, 17, was indicted by a grand jury Thursday on charges of first-degree murder and burglary, according to Bill Prince, a spokesman for the commonwealth's attorney's office. Barnes was arrested Oct. 23 after a six-month investigation into the stabbing death of Meghan Landowski, 16, a Woodrow Wilson High School sophomore.