A truck driver hired by Michael Barisone to keep watch over the dressage trainer’s stable amid discord at the property said his friend was “so messed up he could hardly even talk.”
An ongoing dispute between Barisone and two tenants he was trying to evict from his Hawthorne Hill farm created a toxic atmosphere that culminated in the Aug. 7, 2019 shooting of his dressage student, Lauren Kanarek, who lived in the house at the facility with her boyfriend, Rob Goodwin.
Barisone, who is being tried in Morristown, N.J., for attempted murder and weapon possession in the case, would walk his property in the Long Valley section of Washington Township, N.J., three or four times a night as he sought to insure the horses and people were safe.
“He was beside himself,” according to the driver, Lawrence Davidson, who started his nightly vigil at 8 p.m. during the week before the shooting.
Davidson was among the witnesses today as the prosecution rested and attorney Ed Bilinkas began his defense of the 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team alternate. He is pursuing a combination insanity and self-defense strategy, showing how Barisone became desperate as tension with his tenants increased.
The last prosecution witness was Essex County attorney Edward David, who had met with Kanarek, Goodwin and Kanarek’s father, Jonathan Goodwin, also an attorney, about the eviction situation.
Attorney Edward David on the witness stand.
To put this in context, in his opening statement, Bilinkas had stated, “What this case is really about is about Lauren Kanarek, her father and her boyfriend devising a plan to destroy this man (Barisone) and drive him crazy.”
David said he was on the phone with Kanarek when she was shot. He was calling to give her good news about progress in reaching a resolution on the eviction issue with Barisone’s lawyer.
He described his conversation as, “one of the wildest phone calls” he ever had in his career. As he spoke to Kanarek, she told him, “Oh my God, I’ve been shot in the chest.” He said he heard what he thought were gunshots “but you don’t want to believe it.” However, he believed it enough to dial 911.
David had some trouble remembering things, excusing that by saying the shooting was four years ago. Actually, it was less than three years ago.
Goodwin and Kanarek had submitted a 1 and 1/2-page letter to Washington Township municipal officials detailing what they saw as a series of code violations, which sent the officials out in force the day before the shooting.
Christianna Cooke-Gibbs, the health officer who was involved with permitting at the farm since the late 1990s, recalled Barisone as a “competent, dignified, elegant man.” But when she came to the property on Aug 6, 2019, she saw someone “very different,” from the person she had known for so long, calling him a “very distraught, very disheveled man.”
She noted work that required permits was unauthorized, and the septic situation at the barn was not designed to handle people living on the site, rather than just working there.
When other officials talked with Goodwin, she stayed away.
“I just got a bad feeling; I don’t know why,” she said.
Fire official Matthew Lopez considered the situation in the house and barn from his perspective as “an imminent” hazard and ordered everyone evicted, with a $5,000/day fine for the property owner if anyone stayed in the buildings. However, he allowed Kanarek and Goodwin to stay after they sent him videos showing the smoke alarms were in working order, even though he did not go out and reinspect the building.
Edward Bilinkas goes over material with fire inspector Matthew Lopez. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
There was testimony from people in the paramedic, EMT and medical fields about Barisone’s injuries, which included hematomas on both sides of his head, a “deformed” left elbow, bites near his groin area from Kanarek’s dog, a Rottweiler mix, and lacerations, among other things.
In an online posting, Kanarek said she had beaten Barisone on the head with a phone as he struggled with Goodwin in the chaos after the shooting.
Firefighter/paramedic Daniel Vitale called Barisone “confused,” and cited “altered mental status” when he was treating him.
When asked about what had happened, Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn quoted Vitale reporting that Barisone replied, “Someone drove down my driveway and said she was going to take my kids. That’s all I remember,” adding he said his “heart was hurting, but not physically.”
Barisone does not have children, but his girlfriend at the time, Mary Haskins Gray, had two children.
Although the shooting happened on the day a caseworker from the state Division of Child Protection and Permancy came to the farm to talk with Gray, it has not been determined in the trial who called DCPP. It did come out in testimony last week, however, that Kanarek had searched for the agency’s hotline number on her phone. Barisone drove to the farmhouse where Kanarek and Goodwin lived after the caseworker had made her appearance.
Michael Barisone getting ready to leave court for the day and go back to the Morris County Correctional Facility. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
Bilinkas seems to be trying to make a case that Barisone was beaten before the shooting took place, but some of his questions were viewed by Judge Stephen Taylor as an effort to “impeach” witnesses; that is, point out discrepancies in their testimony to hurt their credibility. The judge said after the jury had left the courtroom that, “when you impeach a witness, that attacks their credibility, it’s not substantive evidence. It doesn’t mean the shooting happened after Mr. Barisone was beaten and attacked.”
He added, “If you want to argue to this jury that someone beaten with a phone and having a dog bite on his groin is worse than being shot in the chest, have at it. You can make that argument. We’re not here to compare injuries.”