FORT LAUDERDALE, FL -- Beside beloved family photos rests a final love note from a daughter to her daddy.
"I love you soooooo much," reads the letter from 10-year-old Chloe to her father, Bruce Barber.
Inches away, there's a picture of Bruce holding a much younger Chloe in the cockpit of his plane.
It was that same plane that made that same little girl an orphan Sunday evening.
Chloe was at home in Fort Lauderdale when her father's plane crashed, presumably killing everyone on board.
Friends confirm that her parents, Bruce and Karen; her 14-year-old brother, Payton; as well as their family friend Phillip Marsh, all lost their lives while on their way back from watching the Florida Gators football game in Gainesville.
It's a team the Barbers both support financially and fanatically.
They are members of an elite fundraising group called the Bull Gators.
Friends say Bruce never missed a UF football game.
"It ran deep; I mean he bled orange and blue," Eric Elliott, Bruce's best friend and business partner at his money management company, explains.
Those colors ran so deep that they were even painted on Bruce's plane.
Now, they are the most identifying marker in the murky water wreckage near the Broward/Palm Beach County line.
He says, "There's only one Bull Gator Air and airplane and I said, 'Oh no, it can't be!' It was just horrible my heart sank and the reality started to set in because Bruce wasn't home."
Elliott says Bruce was an expert pilot with a well-tuned aircraft.
He says it had three GPS devices and other extra safety features.
Bruce reportedly radioed that he was having engine problems before the crash.
The official cause is still undetermined, but Elliott believes the problem was clearly mechanical.
"He was the best pilot. I always felt safe with Bruce at the helm," he says.
One day they will know how this happened.
Realizing they'll never know why is enough to make Elliott cry.
He tears up saying, "I'm waiting for this nightmare to end and he'll walk in here tomorrow, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen."
The Barbers met with Governor Charlie Crist at a fundraiser in Gainesville Friday.
Crist's office released this statement Monday:
"The Governor and First Lady are tremendously saddened by this tragic news and terrible loss. They extend their thoughts and prayers to the family."
Payton Barber was in 8th grade at the Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale.
His school released a statement that reads in part, "Our entire School community is saddened by this news, and our heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to Chloe and her entire family," said Head of School Dale Smith. "The Barbers embodied the true essence of a Pine Crest family. Words cannot express how much they will be missed."
