By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

The man who took Amber Barr to a Joplin hospital suffering from severe dehydration says he did not have anything to do with her death.

Authorities say Barr, 29, told a nurse before she died Sunday at St. John’s Regional Medical Center that she had been held hostage without food or water.

“That story is not true,” Bobby Stogsdill said Tuesday during a telephone interview.

Stogsdill, 67, acknowledged that Barr moved into his home in Fairland, Okla., about three weeks ago. It was voluntary, and he did not prevent her from leaving, he said.

“I didn’t hold her against her will,” he said. “She had food to eat. She had water. I cooked for her three times a day.”

Stogsdill said Barr could not have been talking about him when she made that claim to the nurse.

Fairland police and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation are looking into the woman’s death as a possible case of abuse. The case was referred to them by Joplin police.

An autopsy on Barr was performed Tuesday morning in Springfield. Jasper County Coroner Rob Chappel said Tuesday night that he was still waiting to speak with the pathologist about any preliminary findings.

The coroner has said that members of the St. John’s medical staff believe Barr died of severe dehydration, and that she showed signs of malnutrition.

Stogsdill said he moved to Fairland from Miami, Okla., earlier this year. He said he first met Barr about four years ago. He described their relationship as “on-again, off-again” over the four-year period. He said she had other boyfriends, including one with whom she lived just before moving in with him.

Barr had been in declining health in recent weeks, Stogsdill said. She was at Integris Baptist Regional Health Center in Miami about a month ago, he said. He was uncertain what was ailing her at that time, but she had told him it was a problem with a kidney, he said. She also had been to St. John’s previously, he said.

“She had something wrong with her,” Stogsdill said. “I don’t know what was wrong with her. But she had something wrong with her.”

He believes she may have died of pneumonia. He said she had lost a lot of weight by the time she moved in with him three weeks ago. She was down to about 100 pounds, he said. When he first met her, she weighed about 160, he said.