MORGAN -- To those who knew him best and loved him most, Jonathan Philip Barrett was a gentle and free-spirited young man with a rare zest for life and a predictably unpredictable wardrobe.
They never knew what the clothing style or hair color of the day would be until Jonathan walked into the room, sometimes showing off a new "perm" or one of his retina-boggling shirts -- and usually sporting a smile.As the starting center for Morgan High's basketball team, he had a nice inside shot with plenty of touch and a sturdy 6-foot, 5-inch frame to throw into the fray.
But what people really remember most about the 19-year-old LDS Church missionary from Morgan was his friendly demeanor and extraordinary kindness.
So it struck Barrett's family and friends as a cruel and almost incomprehensible irony Saturday morning when they learned the young man's life had been taken in a senseless act of random violence in West Africa.
"He was really a good kid," said a tearful neighbor, Sherrie Clemens, who watched Jon Barrett grow from a playful preschooler into a playful teen who eventually decided he wanted to serve a mission. "I don't think he had a mean bone in him.
"He liked to do fun things with his clothing and dying his hair," she recalled. "But he never got into trouble and he went to church all the time.
"This whole community is going to be very upset" over the news of Barrett's murder, Clemens added in an interview at her home in Morgan on Saturday. "He was just a kind kid who was nice to everybody."
Barrett, who was serving in the Ivory Coast Abidjan Mission of West Africa, was stabbed in the chest by a lone man apparently acting without provocation.
Barrett's missionary companion and others later apprehended the man and turned him over to the police. Whether there was a motive such as robbery was unclear, church officials said.
The Morgan missionary died soon after arriving at a hospital. His companion's identity was not released Saturday, though he was confirmed to be a native African.
The First Presidency contacted Barrett's family about the tragedy, said Elder John B. Dickson, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and assistant executive of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Missionary Department.
Barrett's mother and stepfather, Shelley and John Paige of Morgan, spent most of Saturday with family and friends.
"We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family. We're sorry this has happened," Elder Dickson said. "It's regrettable that we have lost him."
Funeral arrangements are pending until the body can be returned to Utah.
David Bott, president of the Morgan Utah LDS Stake, said Saturday was "a tragic day for a community, a family and a church.
"These are shocks . . . not things you plan for," said the church leader, "Jon was a great young man, very humble . . . and he was well-loved" by those he was serving in West Africa.
Jim Wiscombe, who coached Barrett on the high school basketball team, recalls the young man as "a great kid . . . with a zest for life and a loving personality.
"He could have been a bully, he was big enough," Wiscombe said. "But in practice, you'd see him reach down and pick up someone who had tripped."
Elder Dickson said this was the first-ever tragedy or act of violence involving missionaries in the Ivory Coast Abidjan Mission. It was created in 1993, contains 100 full-time missionaries and 3,800 members of the church.
Many details of the attack were not available Saturday, but it took place in broad daylight that morning, West Africa time, as Barrett and his companion were walking along a street in the mission's capital, in between appointments.
"It's an isolated situation," Elder Dickson said. "There was no provocation on the part of the missionary."
The man apparently attacked the missionary swiftly before anything could have been done.
Abidjan is the administrative center of the Ivory Coast, a country with Liberia and Guinea on the west, Ghana on the east, Mali and Burkina Faso on the north and the Gulf of Guinea on the south. Abidjan has more than two million residents.
Nicole Hadley, Barrett's 16-year-old next-door neighbor, doesn't know much about that distant place called Abidjan where Jonathan died. But she knows she will miss the young man who grew up one door to the east.
"When my brother and I were little, he taught us how to ride bicycles," she said. "I was always like a big brother to us."
Morgan High Principal Hugh Davis, who lives up the street from Barrett's family, said the fun-loving youngster could usually be counted on to make a statement whether it was with fashion, a new hair color or a new dance.
"When he went to the dances, he loved to get where the music was the loudest," Davis said. "One time I went out there because I had to break up slam dancing.
"We can't have slam dancing in schools because we don't want anyone to get hurt but he was out there in the middle of it," he said. "He was just that kind of kid."
Davis said Barrett, who graduated in 1998 in a class of about 170 students, led Morgan High to a playoff berth the first year the high school was changed to a higher athletic classification.
"I'm just broken-hearted. We have a son on a mission as well. I told my wife today, 'What would have happened if that was our son?' As a principal, you get so close to kids. It's like one of your own. I tell you, I feel horrible."
Assistant principal Paul Mecham said the sad news rocked the small rural community, southeast of Ogden.
"You don't expect that when you send your young men out there," Mecham said. "I've had two of them (missionaries) out there and that's the last thing you think about."
Barrett had only been in the Ivory Coast for seven weeks, though he started his mission in December at Provo's Missionary Training Center, where he studied French.
With some 60,000 full-time missionaries serving worldwide, Elder Dickson stressed that 2,500 return home safely each month.
"It's several times safer to be on a mission than at home," he said, referring to some studies done by the church.
Staff writer Marjorie Cortez contributed to this report.