Who is Barry Holden from Spoon River Anthology and what is their importance?

Barry Holden tells the reader he had eight children and another on the way one fall when he was sitting on a jury at the trial of a man who had murdered a pregnant woman. When Barry arrived home, he tells the reader, the first thing he saw lying in the ditch in their house was a hatchet. He walked in to the house and his pregnant wife immediately started talking about how they had mortgaged their house to Thomas Rhodes. Barry Holden killed her and their unborn child with the hatchet.