Cop killer mum and son turned home into fortress as they descended into paranoia
THE story of the delusional world of Fiona and Mitchell Barbieri can now be told after the close of the inquest into the murder of Detective Inspector Bryson Anderson — knifed when he walked into their bizarre suburban stronghold.
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INSIDE a squalid brick veneer cottage on Sydney’s western fringe, a paranoid mother and son created Fortress Barbieri.
In the middle of the house where they could retreat and still see all the doors, Fiona and Mitchell Barbieri had collected an arsenal of barbaric weapons so — as police later said — they could make “their last stand”.
Outside strewn across the five overgrown acres which formed the boundary of the couple’s world, they had placed man traps: hidden among the leaf litter were a number of wooden boards with four inch nails sticking out of them designed to maim anyone who stepped on them.
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Molotov cocktails primed with petrol and wicks were hidden in the freezer in the property’s granny flat close to other homemade incendiary devices.
There were swords, a barbed wire garrotte, a homemade spear with four barbs, gaff, a metal hook with a wooden handle, a rope flail, an electronic cattle prod, hunting knives and two baseball bats. In a kitchen cupboard was one of a number of slingshots and a 4.5kg sledgehammer leaned against the wall just inside the front door. A wooden handled replica firearm and a gas bottle attached to a flame thrower were also found at what police described as “strategic” points inside the house.
So insular had the mother and son become that their relationship was described as “unhealthy” and had “intimate undertones”, a court has been told.
The Barbieris turned one of their three bedrooms at 33 Scheyville Road, Oakville, into a kennel for their two dogs, Neapolitan Mastiffs of the Cane Corso breed, traditionally fighting dogs which police said were originally bred to kill people. The stinking bedroom was soaked with urine and faeces.
The whole story of the Barbieri’s weird world can now be told following the close of the inquest into the murder of Detective Inspector Bryson Anderson, 45, who was knifed when he walked into their mad universe to try and sort out a volatile neighbourhood dispute in December 2012.
Mitchell Barbieri, then 19, escaped what would have been a mandatory life sentence for killing a police officer after the prosecution conceded he was affected by his mother’s paranoid delusions. He is behind bars serving a sentence of at least 15 years with a maximum term of 21 years three months after pleading guilty to murder. His original sentence of 35 years with a non-parole period of 26 years was controversially slashed on appeal.
Fiona Barbieri, then 45, is in jail for at least seven years six months with a maximum sentence of 10 years after the prosecution accepted her plea of guilty to manslaughter. She had been originally charged with murder.
Inspector Bryson was a decorated and much loved police officer whose wife Donna has been left to bring up their three children, Olivia, Darcy and Cain who were 15, 12 and 10 when they said their final goodbyes to their dad that last day he went to work as a duty officer with the Hawkesbury Local Area Command. His death devastated his colleagues and the Hawkesbury community where he lived, worked and volunteered as a firefighter and soccer coach and his funeral was attended by thousands of people.
The inquest into his death heard that the only people to blame for his death were the Barbieris. Now an investigation by The Daily Telegraph can reveal what led to the events of December 6, 2012.
Mother and son were widely described colloquially by police as “nutters” — but they weren’t always locked into their own shrunken lives.
Fiona Barbieri had a successful career working for American Express who valued her so much that in 1998 they promoted her to program manager and moved her, her husband Angelo Barbieri and their only child Mitchell, then five, to an AMEX headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
Born in February 1967, the then Fiona Champley lived with her parents and two older sisters in the northern Sydney suburb of Dundas. She left school after year 10, took a secretarial course and left home. When her parents divorced, she moved to live with her father at Rosehill, joined American Express in 1989 and married Angelo Barbieri in 1990.
The family only stayed in the US for a matter of months, returning because one of her sisters was diagnosed with leukaemia. In late 2000, the Barbieris bought the five-acres at Oakville where Fiona worked through the night from home so she could stay on American time. So far so good.
It was 2008 that became the turning point in their lives as they began to build the fortress, first in their minds and then physically around their property.
Fiona and Angelo had divorced in 2003 and she kept the house, taking over the mortgage. Her boyfriend — who she called her “honey” — moved in and the couple got engaged. Mitch was at Bede Polding College at Bligh Park and his mother’s fiancee bought him a compound bow with which the boy practised until he became proficient.
In 2008, the romance was over and the fiancee moved out as mother and son started hosting wild parties where literally hundreds of teenagers aged 15 and 16 joined them, drinking alcohol and smoking dope. Fiona Barbieri regaled her young guests with her rants about government conspiracies. Then Mitch was expelled from school after posting slanderous videos on You Tube vilifying the school principle. He moved to Hawkesbury High.
At their parties, Fiona also complained to guests about her the family’s neighbours.
Tow truck king Kevin Walters enjoys a formidable reputation running one of Sydney’s largest towing companies and in 1999 had been an adviser to then-transport minister Carl Scully. His family had moved next door two years after the Barbieris bought their property and the two neighbours had got along just fine for years. Waters, now had enough room for his aviaries which housed toucans, macaws and around 2000 pigeons.
But as mother and son became more paranoid, they saw the Waters as the enemy. Ironically in 2009 when Fiona took an overdose of prescription pills in a suicide attempt, it was Mr Waters who saved her life, entering the house and calling paramedics.
Fiona’s mental health was quickly deteriorating. Friends noticed her hygiene and appearance were going downhill and she went on permanent sick leave from American Express. In late 2009 she was made redundant with a payment of $312.050.
By 2010 she was in dispute with both Amex and WorkCover and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She told her doctor that Mr Waters was watching and stalking them because he wanted to intimidate them and buy their property at a rock bottom price. She emailed MPs about her perceived problems with Amex, about her neighbours and about conspiracies involving government and non-government agencies.
More menacingly, she confided in a friend that she had a “killers plan” against Mr Waters. In case of attack, Fiona would distract “the killers” while Mitch would sneak up on them with a knife and “get them”. She said she couldn’t go to the police because “they were in on it”.
As mother and son spent whole days smoking cannabis, they became more reclusive and started to turn against friends and family. The redundancy payment was spent, they were ineligible for Centrelink and debts started to mount up. In 2011, the electricity was cut off and never reconnected. The house was lit at night with candles and the couple had the occasional hot shower elsewhere. The house and grounds became neglected as they lived in what Mitch later described as squalor. The Barbieris wrapped the water meter in barbed wire to prevent a meter reading or the closing valve being turned off. Debt collectors were chasing them on behalf of numerous companies.
Mother and son rarely left the house or went anywhere without each other as they withdrew from the outside world they saw as the enemy.
At Windsor Police Station, Fiona Barbieri became increasingly well known to police. There were 38 events listed on the COPS data base relating to the family including 27 between 2010 and 2012. Many came from Fiona Barbieri as she complained about the Waters and other matters — and then complained when she believed her complaints were not acted on. She believed “the police were aligned with the devil, were corrupt and not the be trusted”, according to the report of the office in charge of the critical incident investigation into the murder, Detective Inspector Grant Taylor, which was tendered at the inquest.
In April 2011, police asked her to attend the police station ostensibly to discuss the Waters but when she got there, she was handcuffed and scheduled for a mental health assessment. It all fuelled the Barbieris’ paranoia.
Feeling totally abandoned and persecuted, they sought asylum through the Italian embassy. When there was no response, they sent bizarre emails to Vladimir Putin because Fiona Barbieri, who had stopped taking her antidepressant medication, wanted to “go to a country where American Express would not have any influence”. Again, there was no response.
Then the Commonwealth Bank began steps to foreclose on their mortgage.
“As a result of their beliefs and paranoia they started barricading themselves in their home and placing weapons around the house with man traps outside the house,” Insp Taylor reported to the inquest.
“They continued to smoke cannabis … Their relationship with Kevin Walters becomes intolerable and they now completely believe he is the cause of all their problems. They fixate on him possibly because he is the closest person in proximity to them and the outside world.”
Mother and son put up signs around their property warning: “We will rebuke you”. Next to the closed and locked gate a sign said; “Autarchy in place on these premises, strictly by appointment only”.
It means that they had declared absolute sovereignty or self-government.
Fortress Barbieri was complete.
This was the scene police were confronted when they were called to 33 Scheyville Road around midday on December 6, 2012, after reports that Mitch Barbieri was firing arrows at an electrician installing floodlights on the Waters’ property. His mother was swinging a baseball bat in his direction.
As officers including Insp Anderson tried to calm the escalating situation, inside their barricaded home, the Barbieris sent emails to numerous federal and state ministers titled “BARBIERI versus WATERS”. One said: “Let me remind you, we have every right to defend ourselves, our family and our property”.
Another said: “Corrupt police attempting to break in to our property whilst WATERS front yard is full of his drivers and associates”.
At 3.11pm a third email to the same politicians was sent as three more police cars arrived: “What reinforcements arriving??? What sending reinforcements to target/ambush the innocent mother and son that our Government offered up to be murdered? Do you know you don’t sacrifice the innocent?”
A minute later, Mitch Barbieri texted his dad: “The Police are at the front gate. For standing up to our rights.” Angelo Barbieri replied: “Don’t do anything silly, see what they want”. His text message never got through to his son.
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At around 4.14pm four police officers and Insp Anderson were at the back of the house when the decision was made to go in. As the door was flung open, the two aggressive dogs weighing up to 70kgs each rushed out — followed by Mitch Barbieri with a 27cm hunting knife in his hand. He stabbed Insp Bryson fatally in the top of his right chest and then in his face. Immediately behind him was his mother armed with a 1,8kg sledgehammer hammer which she swung violently towards officers on the veranda.
At 4.16pm the call went out from Hawkesbury 14 (one of the police cars) calling for urgent assistance and saying there was an officer down. Three minutes later another call said; “Are you listening, one of ours is injured.”
At 5.03pm Inspector Anderson was pronounced dead.
In mid-2013, ads appeared on real estate websites for a “three bedroom brick veneer home. Kitchen with adjoining meals, lounge/dining, verandas front and rear. 5 acres is level and fenced. Dam, ideal for stock, irrigation etc. Horse stables.
“Perfect to occupy or many building envelopes, should you wish to build. Everything points to this being a hotly-contested auction.”
On June 8, 2013, when the property went up for auction by the Commonwealth Bank, Kevin Walters, 64, bought it for $830,000. He won’t have to worry about the neighbours again