Barisone Trial Starting Monday, 3/28

[EADoug]

@Virginia_Horse_Mom

Well… if “someone” had complained to SS that MHG and MB were allowing children on the farm to be around their clients firearms… and specifically mentioned RC - and then SS immediately reported this to local CPS to investigate…

CPS would have come right out to the farm to investigate. And talked to the minor’s custodial parent MHG. But second on their list to interview was… RC.

So yeah… I think CPS knew exactly which handgun was the concern. It was RCs handgun.

Perhaps part of her SafeSport complaint was the sleeping outside the stall with the gun?

[Dragonfly90]

Knights Mom;Then we are taking about two different things.
How is her best friend going to testify about her state of mind? State of mind about what? She doesn’t have to prove she is a good person that didn’t deserve to be shot. She admitted already her state of mind was to go after him as felt he was going after her. She didn’t deny most of the things the defense accused her of doing including drug issues.
I can see how her actions(which reflect her character?) could be relevant to what his state of mind might have been. So maybe on some level we agree. But having a friend get on the stand to say “to me she has been a good friend for many years” is irrelevant.

[MHM]

@EADoug

My guess is the child welfare call didn’t have much to do with the gun.

Maybe not.

But a CPS worker who sees a gun safe might reasonably think it would be a good idea to check it, just in case. I’m sure that looks bad on your record if you don’t check the gun safe and something bad happens the next week.

[Angela_Freda]

@Virginia_Horse_Mom

But… what about the GSR on MBs hands? Did he somehow get that gun away from LK and RG at the house… and then shoot LK with it?

Watch the gun expert. GSR doesn’t just go on the shooters hand. It goes forward and backwards, and could have gotten on other hands or clothing, if only the PD had tested those…

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@EADoug

Well, she may have done that… but the CPS representative said they were there because of SafeSport, no? She may have ALSO wanted a different complaint, but if I remember correctly they were likely not there because of the gun.

Admitting that it’s a clusterf*(&$ and pretty much anything could go.

I recollect hearing testimony that they were there because SafeSport referred an urgent issue to local authorities… because SafeSport are mandatory reporters.

But… I also recollect hearing that the complaint had to do with “neglect.” Not necessarily sexual abuse.

Neglect is a very broad term. Soooo… what could have been an urgent issue related to neglect?

Answer… allowing minors to be around poorly secured, illegal firearms.

[MHM]

@ScaredOfHorses

OK, Lauren

Wow. Really??

[Sdel]

I think you are all over thinking the “lying on SM” comment. I don’t think LK directly lies on SM, she just leaves out the context so it looks like something different than reality. How many witnesses testified to their verbatim conversations that found their way into her SM?

[Angela_Freda]

@MHM

Maybe not.

But a CPS worker who sees a gun safe might reasonably think it would be a good idea to check it, just in case. I’m sure that looks bad on your record if you don’t check the gun safe and something bad happens the next week.

Check the safe for what?
Guns. Kept in a safe.
That’s where they want guns in homes with kids kept.

A CPS person isn’t going to look at each gun or be able to know by looking at them who each gun is registered to, or which of the guns are/not owned il/legally.

That there was a gun, in that safe illegally in NJ would not be discernable to her by simply seeing a gun or THE gun.

@MHM

[Knights_Mom]

@Dragonfly90

Knights Mom;Then we are taking about two different things.
How is her best friend going to testify about her state of mind? State of mind about what? She doesn’t have to prove she is a good person that didn’t deserve to be shot. She admitted already her state of mind was to go after him as felt he was going after her. She didn’t deny most of the things the defense accused her of doing including drug issues.
I can see how her actions(which reflect her character?) could be relevant to what his state of mind might have been. So maybe on some level we agree. But having a friend get on the stand to say “to me she has been a good friend for many years” is irrelevant.

Conveniently you have forgotten that the relevant part of that testimony was the visible difference in MBs personality, demeanor, appearance and bearing. All of which speak as to state of mind BEFORE THE SHOOTING and therefore BEFORE needing to demonstrate such for a criminal trial.

[eggbutt]

@ScaredOfHorses

Right, no idea if she uses it and no, I didn’t find the hashtag anywhere. I just made it up on the fly as is done with hashtags.

I am so sorry some members of this forum are being so rude to you being argumentative about a hashtag of all things!! A hashtag that is all over the internet!!

Anyway, this is a common tactic on these threads, to start arguing and hammering a user incessantly about ridiculous things.

The moderator has already asked all of us to stick to discussion of the trial and I don’t think hashtags are relevant. So, ignore these posters trying to start something with you. Don’t take their bait!

[ohnoO]

Soooo, what about the recordings? Why didn’t the “de-bugger” guy find any? I don’t remember if he did or didn’t, but it seems to not be an issue, so I’m assuming he didn’t.

Did they get removed before this guy showed up? Because LK/RG heard, through the recordings, that the guy was hired to do a sweep?

I wonder what the range was of the device that RG had in his pocket/truck as he roamed around the place.

[ekat]

Hi. I’m new here too. I guess you’re seeing a lot of that lately.

A little bit about me. I’m not a lawyer, but am a paralegal and have worked almost every side of the legal field over the years. As such, I’ve become a bit of a true crime junkie and I love watching trials. I also grew up with horses and many other animals. My personal experience is limited to the Western world, but I’ve always loved watching other events, including dressage. Lastly, my family has owned rental properties for decades. So, when I stumbled across this trial, my interest was definitely piqued. It was advertised as a landlord-tenant dispute that went wrong.

My personal knowledge of the people in this trial was limited to having seen Michael Barisone try to teach dressage to Stephen Colbert. Watching the opening statements, I was shocked to see MB’s present state.

So, after watching the first few witnesses and LK’s testimony, all I could think was, didn’t the prosecutor and his team prep her? Because, well, there was a deep fountain of reasonable doubt in my mind that the shooting happened the way it did. And I had a deep feeling that I could relate to the desire to rid myself of her as a tenant.

At that point, I was still struck by how MB was reduced from my memory of that tv show to the defendant in this case. How did it all go so wrong? I did a dive on the internet for more information than what was presented in court and after much reading, I ended up here. I’ve read a lot of the old threads and all I’m going to say about them is, wow.

What’s striking to me, at this point in the trial, is I still don’t understand how they ended up here, but I’d bet large sums of money that it’s not as simple as MB a jumped out of his truck, stuck two bullets in LK and tried to shoot her boyfriend because he wanted them out of the house (or his ggirlfriend at the time wanted them gone). I’ve had bad tenants. Some realllllllly bad tenants. Landlord/tenant law makes it hard to make people homeless on purpose and I live in a much friendlier landlord state than NJ. Yet none of my tenants (or my families’ tenants) have broken none of us the way MB appears.

Watching the defense witnesses was also striking. His friends are still clearly upset, but the testimony that really got me was the Health Dept Lady (apologies, I don’t remember her name). This lady has no dog in this fight. She’s seen MB multiple times over the years, but he wasn’t her mentor, they weren’t friends, she’d go inspect the property, they’d chat, and I think she saw him once at a horse show. She was out there the day before the shooting to do her job, which she did, and walked away seeing this (her words) “elegant” man “undone”.

So, I still don’t understand how we got here, but now after watching all the testimony so far, I think that’s the point. From my eyes, there’s a Grand Canyon sized hole of reasonable doubt that the shooting happened the way LK testified OR the way her boyfriend testified OR at he way the lawyer on the phone testified. MB’s mental state is almost irrelevant to me in a trial sense because I don’t think the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt anything except Ruth Cox brought a gun to NJ against NJ’s gun laws.

That’s my considerably more than two cents. Sorry it’s so long.

[MHM]

@EADoug

Admitting that it’s a clusterf*(&$ and pretty much anything could go.

I wonder if there is any way on the BB to change the settings so that line could be added automatically to the bottom of every post in this thread.

[ScaredOfHorses]

This is great thinking. Do you remember if the defense brought up that particular post on cross? If not, it might be worth emailing that info to the defense attorney’s office. I’m following a case right now about a doctor accused of killing 14 patients. One of the chatters on Law & Crime caught a witness slyly tampering with evidence on the witness stand during the trial. The defense attorneys didn’t see it when it happened. The chatter emailed it to the defense attorney and they brought it up with the judge.

[clipper]

@SlamDunk

If MB could testify to how things went down maybe the trial would be going very differently

Although MB cannot testify the psychiatrist(s) /psychologist(s) the defense is putting on tomorrow may be able to say what MB told them. I cannot be online tomorrow to watch or check COTH to see what they have to say. By Thursday I will be so far behind!!!

[Libby2563]

@RegentLion

I REALLY Want to know what she meant by “missing gun.”

Did she maybe assume RC gun was free floating around the property and not in the safe?

I am (thankfully!) not an LK-whisperer, but what I always understood that to mean was that RC let the gun go “missing” from her possession, which allowed MB to use it in the shooting. If LK didn’t yet know or chose not to acknowledge that RC handed the gun over voluntarily, she could have assumed RC left it unsecured somewhere anyone could find it. No idea if that’s what she actually meant…and given her incoherence and lack of recall maybe she’s not sure either.

[Dragonfly90]

Maybe to shoot someone? Allegedly.
Good night.

[ScaredOfHorses]

Well he/she is accusing me of being some unpleasant woman so I thought I’d return the favor.

[Sdel]

@ScaredOfHorses

This is great thinking. Do you remember if the defense brought up that particular post on cross?

No. It was made after LK came out of the hospital directly onto RC’s FB page. Judge blocked all of that information.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@ekat

Hi. I’m new here too. I guess you’re seeing a lot of that lately.

A little bit about me. I’m not a lawyer, but am a paralegal and have worked almost every side of the legal field over the years. As such, I’ve become a bit of a true crime junkie and I love watching trials. I also grew up with horses and many other animals. My personal experience is limited to the Western world, but I’ve always loved watching other events, including dressage. Lastly, my family has owned rental properties for decades. So, when I stumbled across this trial, my interest was definitely piqued. It was advertised as a landlord-tenant dispute that went wrong.

My personal knowledge of the people in this trial was limited to having seen Michael Barisone try to teach dressage to Stephen Colbert. Watching the opening statements, I was shocked to see MB’s present state.

So, after watching the first few witnesses and LK’s testimony, all I could think was, didn’t the prosecutor and his team prep her? Because, well, there was a deep fountain of reasonable doubt in my mind that the shooting happened the way it did. And I had a deep feeling that I could relate to the desire to rid myself of her as a tenant.

At that point, I was still struck by how MB was reduced from my memory of that tv show to the defendant in this case. How did it all go so wrong? I did a dive on the internet for more information than what was presented in court and after much reading, I ended up here. I’ve read a lot of the old threads and all I’m going to say about them is, wow.

What’s striking to me, at this point in the trial, is I still don’t understand how they ended up here, but I’d bet large sums of money that it’s not as simple as MB a jumped out of his truck, stuck two bullets in LK and tried to shoot her boyfriend because he wanted them out of the house (or his ggirlfriend at the time wanted them gone). I’ve had bad tenants. Some realllllllly bad tenants. Landlord/tenant law makes it hard to make people homeless on purpose and I live in a much friendlier landlord state than NJ. Yet none of my tenants (or my families’ tenants) have broken none of us the way MB appears.

Watching the defense witnesses was also striking. His friends are still clearly upset, but the testimony that really got me was the Health Dept Lady (apologies, I don’t remember her name). This lady has no dog in this fight. She’s seen MB multiple times over the years, but he wasn’t her mentor, they weren’t friends, she’d go inspect the property, they’d chat, and I think she saw him once at a horse show. She was out there the day before the shooting to do her job, which she did, and walked away seeing this (her words) “elegant” man “undone”.

So, I still don’t understand how we got here, but now after watching all the testimony so far, I think that’s the point. From my eyes, there’s a Grand Canyon sized hole of reasonable doubt that the shooting happened the way LK testified OR the way her boyfriend testified OR at he way the lawyer on the phone testified. MB’s mental state is almost irrelevant to me in a trial sense because I don’t think the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt anything except Ruth Cox brought a gun to NJ against NJ’s gun laws.

That’s my considerably more than two cents. Sorry it’s so long.

Awesome post and perspective!

Really interesting to look at it from the landlord tenant angle, and how it clearly is a gazillion times worse than most ugly landlord tenant situations.

Did you have any impressions about the boyfriends testimony?