Well, here's the deal...in the original poem, NO, she did not kill herself, he died and she lived. He told his servants to go into the town and fetch Barbara Allen, and they did. When she came to the house and he professed his love to her, she reminded him that the previous time he saw her he was drunk and "slighted" her (undefined, but she was insulted in some way). He said that he was dying and that his friends should be kind to her. That was the original poem. However, Art Garfunkle (of Simon and Garfunkle) and Joan Baez have different versions, both of which continue the story (as in Paul Harvey's "the rest of the story") by having Barbara so filled with grief at the way she treated a man that loved her before he died that she too wants to die and either dies of grief or kills herself. They are buried either side by side (one song) or one in the old church yard, one in the new (the other song), where from his grave grows a rose (symbolic of his love for her) and from hers grows a green briar (thorny to match her attitude towards him), but in both songs the rose and the briar intertwine in a "true love's knot". If you ever see a painting, tattoo, watercolor, or picture of a rose intertwined with a briar, this is to what it refers.