Ellie Price murder: Jury finds boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro guilty of South Melbourne slaying
A man has been found guilty of murdering his stripper girlfriend in a early-morning “frenzy”, despite his defence labelling her brothel-owning best friend the true killer.
A Melbourne man has been found guilty of murdering his dancer girlfriend after he was captured on CCTV speeding away from her home at 4.30am, never to return.
Tasmanian mum Ellie Price, 26, was found in the blood-soaked bedroom of her South Melbourne apartment after her worried family hadn’t heard from her in days.
“I just said to mum ‘I haven’t heard from Ellie it’s not like her to not call us back’,” her sister, Danielle Price, said.
“If we can’t get a hold of her we need to ring the police to go check on her.”
She had been stabbed multiple times and had her throat cut, and under her fingernails investigators found the DNA of her boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro, now 36.
Following a four week trial, a Victorian Supreme Court jury returned to the courtroom on Friday after just one day of deliberations, announcing they had found Barbaro unanimously guilty of Ms Price’s murder.
A group of women, including Ms Price’s mother and sister, sat in the front row of the public gallery - mere metres from Barbaro - and began to cry and grip one another after he learned his fate.
When Justice Lex Lasry adjourned the court, they stood and hugged one another, bursting into tears.
“Rot in hell, you scum,” screamed one of the women as she walked passed Barbaro out of the court.
This is the third trial Barbaro has faced over Ms Price’s murder.
The first trial was aborted after a juror did their own research, while the second was thrown out so Barbaro’s defence could review fresh material seized from brothel owner Mark Gray’s mobile phone.
Much of the trial was centred on Mr Gray – who Barbaro’s barrister Rishi Nathwani had framed as an alternative suspect that police had failed to “really” investigate.
The court was told Mr Gray and Ms Price had met in 2017 at a Melbourne strip club, the Men’s Gallery, where she worked as an exotic dancer.
He soon began to financially support her, paying her rent and buying expensive products – like her $100,000 Mercedes Benz.
Prosecutors, led by Damien Hannan, had painted Mr Gray as a hapless romantic whose generosity was taken advantage of by Ms Price.
“Mark Gray was in denial about being a sugar daddy,” Mr Hannan said.
“He was being exploited. He was terribly generous – too generous really.”
Mr Nathwani, on the other hand, had argued Mr Gray was “obsessed” with Ms Price and became frustrated at their one-sided relationship.
The “final straw” came on April 21, 2020 – just days before she was murdered – when Ms Price threatened to make a false police report claiming he raped her unless he forked over $100,000, Mr Nathwani suggested.
He had argued the jury could not exclude the possibility Mr Gray had used “underworld connections” to have Ms Price murdered.
“The extortion, this was his motive for her to be gone,” he submitted.
Mr Gray, who gave evidence over four days of examination and cross-examination, repeatedly denied the suggestion. Mr Gray was never charged in relation to Ms Price’s death.
Mr Hannan labelled the alternative hypothesis “ridiculous”, saying the jury should not get swept away by the distraction and focus on the “damning” evidence.
In returning their finding, the jury rejected Barbaro’s lawyers’ claim that it was really Ms Price’s friend Mark Gray who was behind her death.
The court was told CCTV footage and cell phone records captured Barbaro leaving Ms Price’s South Melbourne apartment about 4.30am on April 29.
The evening before, the pair had visited a doctor who told the court she did not notice any injuries on Barbaro.
But the following day, on April 30, CCTV played to the jury showed Barbaro in an elevator inspecting a large graze on his right tricep.
Mr Hannan had urged the jury to combine this with evidence of Barbaro’s DNA under her fingernails to find this was inflicted by Ms Price as she fought for her life.
“They’re scratches from Ellie Price trying to defend herself … trying to get away, trying to save herself,” he said.
“Apparently, according to my learned friend, this case is a ‘whodunit’.
“Well the answer is clear and simple and beyond reasonable doubt. The accused man there ‘dunit’.”
The jury heard Barbaro left Victoria in a rented van on May 5, swapping out the plates with stolen ones, after detectives visited his father looking for him.
He was arrested in New South Wales on May 14.
Barbaro sipped a cup of water after the verdict was read out on Friday, as loved ones of the woman he murdered exclaimed sighs of relief in the public gallery.
The killer could be seen shaking his lawyer’s hands before he was led away into custody.
Justice Lex Lasry thanked the jury of 12 for their contribution and Barbaro will return to court on October 26 for a pre-sentencing hearing.
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