The boy who could name every dinosaur: ‘We tried to save him,’ family says

Wednesday, 4 May 2022

The family of murdered child Malachi Subecz have shared video of his funeral.

WARNING: This story contains details of child abuse which readers may find distressing.

The boy who could name every dinosaur took his last breath in his uncle’s arms.

During the last week of Malachi Subecz’s life in Auckland’s Starship Hospital, his family, including his mother who was brought to hospital by prison guards, took turns embracing him. They stroked Malachi’s skin, spoke to him in soothing voices, and told him everything was okay, he could go now.

Watching the light in Malachi go out in front of their eyes torments the Wellington-based extended family, who say they tried to save him.

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Malachi Subecz loved dinosaurs, and could name every one. If his family got their names wrong, he would let them know. They had to be real, not made up.

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Malachi was murdered by his caregiver, Michaela Barriball, and died in hospital on November 12, 2021. He had been living in a cabin at the back of a Te Puna property, hundreds of kilometres north of the capital.

According to the summary of facts in the case, released this week, Barriball was temporarily appointed as an additional guardian to Malachi on September 13 last year. A full Family Court hearing was to be held on November 1.

The summary states that Barriball was “resisting applications being made by the deceased’s biological family for them to obtain custody of him”.

The summary also illustrates how the last months of his short life were characterised by horrific daily physical and psychological torture.

Malachi Subecz, 5, died in Starship Hospital on November 12, 2021.

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Last week, one of Malachi's 6-year-old cousins told his mum he wishes he were a superhero, so he could go back in time and save his best friend. “But then he said ‘There’s no such thing as superheroes, eh mummy’,” says Malachi's Aunty, Helen Menzies.

The 5-year-old child, who once loved colouring in, building forts and playing chase with his cousins, had his life stolen before he could get to primary school.

He had been in the care of Barriball since his mother was sent to prison, on June 22, 2021. This was both the mother and Barriball’s request. On that day, then 4-year-old Malachi arrived at Tauranga District Court with his mother, and left with his killer. The family had thought she was pleading not guilty, and did not expect her to be jailed that day.

Helen Menzies, who is Malachi’s mother’s oldest sister (and family spokesperson), says the family raised the alarm twice with Oranga Tamariki within a week of his mother being jailed, across two separate offices. They say this included providing Oranga Tamariki with photographs of Malachi’s bruises.

Malachi Subecz was killed by his caregiver Michaela Barriball while his mother was in prison. His uncle and aunty Peter and Helen Menzies have spoken out.

“We told OT (Oranga Tamariki) he had bruises on his face. We made it so easy for them, we collected the photos. They didn’t have to go searching for it, it was right there, there were bruises, a black eye and a fat lip,” she says.

A shrine to Malachi Subecz in his Aunty and Pop’s Porirua home, containing his ashes.

Stuff put this and several other questions to Oranga Tamariki, asking whether they took any action in the case.

In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, Oranga Tamariki chief executive Chappie Te Kani said: “We are in touch with the whānau and have assured them we will do everything possible to understand how the system failed Malachi.

Cousins Tyler Kinnaird, 6, and Codie Stammers, 6, place a chair for their Malachi teddy in the fort they used to play in with him.

“The whanau deserve that much, and we will be meeting with them to hear about the concerns they have in relation to our involvement with Malachi. Addressing their concerns is the immediate focus for me and Oranga Tamariki. We need to get to the bottom of why this happened whether there was more we could have done, and what we can do to ensure such an awful tragedy never happens again.

Malachi Subecz’s young cousins acted as his pallbearers

“This is an absolute priority for me and I will have more to say in the coming days.”

On Tuesday, Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis, who is the minister responsible for Oranga Tamariki, said he wanted to know what involvement his ministry had in the boy’s life.

Menzies says the family fought to get Oranga Tamariki and the Family Court to take their concerns for Malachi’s safety seriously, and now want an investigation into the case.

“We’re not going to forget him, he’s not going to be pushed under the carpet,” says Helen’s husband Peter Menzies, known to Malachi as Pop.

Helen Menzies says the family did not trust Barriball, felt Malachi was unsafe in her care and that he should never have been allowed to go home with her.

But they say there was no police or Oranga Tamariki involvement with Malachi at the time of his mother’s arrest or the conviction; Barriball was able to lead him out of the courtroom. In a statement, police said they were unable to comment as the matter was before the courts.

Menzies says they had been speaking to Malachi’s mother in the lead up to her court date, and believed the child would be coming into their care.

But on the day of her hearing, they found out Malachi’s mother had elected Barriball as his carer, Helen Menzies says.

Menzies says they begged the mother to let him come to them, but she said it was her decision. Menzies say the family called the court, and alerted Oranga Tamariki to their concerns on June 23.

On Saturday, June 26, they say they asked Barriball to send them photographs of Malachi, Menzies says. She says those photographs revealed bruises on his face.

Helen and Peter Menzies with two of their nephews, Tyler Kinnaird, 6, and Codie Stammers, 6.

She says the family reported the suspected abuse and their ongoing concerns to Oranga Tamariki in Paraparaumu on Monday June 28, and were told it was transferred to Tauranga.

Menzies also noticed there were no toys visible in the photograph, and the curtains were closed. “There were meant to be other kids in that house, why were there no toys? Why were the curtains closed in the middle of the day?”

Barriball’s family home was near the cabin where Malachi ultimately ended up.

Menzies says they were told Oranga Tamariki rang Malachi’s mother in prison and asked if she was concerned for his safety. When she said no, the child protection agency didn’t go around to check on Malachi, she says.

The family have laid a complaint with Oranga Tamariki and the Ombudsman into these alleged failings. The Ombudsman has confirmed it has received a complaint but would not comment further.

The family stayed in contact with Barriball, for Malachi, they say. But Menzies says they saw Malachi only once after his mother went to jail. This was in mid-July, when they convinced Barriball to bring him down to Wellington to keep an eye appointment.

Menzies says they checked his body for bruises and did not find any.

Malachi’s family tried to make his funeral as bright as they could.

It is the family’s enduring regret that they let Malachi go home with Barriball.

They were concurrently applying to the Family Court for care of Malachi, they say, and wrote affidavits in July expressing their grave concerns for his safety in Barriball’s care.

A full hearing was scheduled for Monday, November 1 last year and the family were confident they would win, with a niece enrolling Malachi in school in Wellington and preparing his bedroom.

But on Friday October 29, Menzies says they were told Barriball had Covid and could not attend. The family say they tried to have the hearing go ahead remotely but were declined.

“I did feel that he was in harm’s way, I did strongly feel like he was going to be hurt, and something bad would happen to him if he stays in the care of Michaela,” Helen Menzies says.

Two days later, on the day of the cancelled hearing, Barriball inflicted multiple blunt force trauma injuries on Malachi, and he was airlifted to Starship Hospital.

Helen says she received a call from her niece to say Malachi was in hospital. “I said ‘What happened? What’s up?’ She said ‘He’s got burns, he’s got…his skull, he’s only got a third of his brain working,’ I said ‘What the f… did they do?’”

Helen and Peter flew to Malachi’s bedside to be with him and his mother. His tiny body was intubated, weighed just 16 kgs through malnutrition, had visible bruises and burn injuries, and he was breathing through a life support machine.

“We were really angry because we’d spent months trying to get him back, and we were stopped at different turns,” Peter said. “Now we were being told he was 90 per cent braindead, and there was nothing of the original Malachi left.”

He died in Peter Menzies’ arms at 5am on November 12.

Malachi the youngest in a little gang of five boy cousins, all aged five and six. When his body was brought back to Porirua, dinosaurs were placed around the foot of his coffin and the boys played quietly, making their way up his head to say goodbye to their best friend. The family struggled to answer their questions.

“They said ‘Why is he like that?’…”

The family had 30 memorial teddies made with Malachi’s name in embroidery, and his aunties, uncles and cousins sleep with theirs every night.

“He used to always chase us, and we used to like chasing him,” says Codie Stammers, 6, Malachi’s cousin, clutching his teddy. “He was quiet, and he always had a big smile on his face.”

When Malachi died, the family bought helium balloons, wrote messages on them and let them go.

“We flyed them up to the sky that way,” said Tyler Kinnaird, 6, another cousin, pointing out the window.

“For Malachi to play with.”

The family have since formed a Justice4Malachi hashtag on social media and plan to attend the sentencing of sisters Michaela and Sharron Barriball for murder and attempting to pervert the course of justice, in Tauranga on June 30.

The family still have questions they may never have answered. “I’m grateful that they [the defendants] pleaded guilty, but I’m also pissed off…we would like to know why it happened, and why did you do this to a 5-year-old child?,” Peter Menzies says.

“They were friends with the mother and should have been looking after him, so what changed to make them beat his skull in? You have to be reasonably animalistic to do that.”