Inside the home where 5-year-old Malachi Subecz was abused to death

Thursday, 5 May 2022

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

The father of the woman who killed Bay of Plenty five-year-old Malachi Subecz says he is “shocked” and “not doing OK” but says he still loves his daughter.

“Everyone knows I love my girl,” Chris Barriball said.

His daughter, Michaela Barriball, 27, last week pleaded guilty to charges of murdering and abusing 5-year-old Malachi Subecz.

Barriball will be sentenced in the Rotorua High Court in June. The summary of facts in the case revealed details of daily beatings, burnings and other violence the malnourished youngster was subjected to at Michaela Barriball’s hands.

* Children's Minister Kelvin Davis wants answers from Oranga Tamariki over murdered 5-year-old

* Details of horrific abuse inflicted on 5-year-old murder victim revealed

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

Chris Barriball spoke to Stuff at the family home in Te Puna where his daughter lived with Malachi in a sleep-out at the back of the main house.

It is this Te Puna property where Malachi was found with injuries on November 1. He was treated in Tauranga Hospital and later airlifted to Starship Hospital in Auckland, where he died on November 12.

On the day Malachi was fatally injured, Michaela Barriball inflicted multiple blunt force injuries to Malachi’s head before carrying him into the main house, unconscious and suffering seizures, at 8.27am.

She and her father, Chris Barriball, tried to revive him before lying him on the couch and calling an ambulance.

Chris Barriball sits on one of those couches in the house and cries as he tells Stuff he cannot speak about the events.

It’s hard to reconcile the “monster” who killed a child with the Michaela Barriball, pictured, that Tommy Kapai knew as a child, he says.

“I don’t want to say anything that would hurt her…my girl…I want to tell my side of things, what the truth really is, but I can’t. There are things people are saying that are not true.”

He doesn’t say what those things are, and won’t answer detailed questions about the lead-up to Malachi’s death.

Court documents show his daughter sent him text messages about her fear of getting into trouble because of his bruising if she took Malachi to the doctor.

On another visit to the doctors to get a letter stating Malachi did not have autism, neither Michaela nor Chris Barriball mentioned a large and partially healed burn on Malachi’s abdomen.

When ambulance staff noticed this later while attending Malachi during the visit to the home before his death, Chris Barriball repeated Michaela’s contention that the boy was clumsy and had turned the shower mixer to hot, despite the injury not being a liquid burn.

Chris Barriball says that since details of the case released by the court were published “he was not doing OK”.

People had been “looking at me like I am dangerous or something.”

The couches where Chris Barriball and his daughter tried to revive Malachi, and where the ambulance found him lying, flailing, are in a room at the front of the house.

Michaela Barriball with her partner Hunter, also known as Guri Dhillon.

The curtains are drawn.

The walls are decorated with family photos of the Barriball siblings growing up. A cat is asleep on a wooden dining table leading on to a small kitchen stacked with cans of soup. There’s a clouded fish tank with no fish.

At the back of the house there is a garage, as well as another separate building. The backyard is overgrown, and full of old cars that have been parked there. The only sign of a child is a faded coloured plastic cube playhouse.

The front of the house has a small deck outside with a stained brown armchair losing its stuffing. There are more cars parked at the front of the house, and another area of overgrown grass.

The Barriball house is on a rural road dotted with properties ranging from smaller houses to multimillion dollar lifestyle blocks. Along the road there is a scout club, playing fields, a park and an avocado orchard.

Michaela had a company registered to the house address, called Hunter & Kayla, which describes its business as “labour supply - horticulture workers.”

Guri Dhillon, also known as Hunter, was Michaela Barriball’s partner since 2016. The pair were described as “engaged” on their social media pages.

According to the summary of facts of the murder case, on October 12, Michaela Barriball sent her partner a series of messages which included being concerned she was going to kill Malachi.

On October 18, she again messaged her partner after she held Malachi under hot water which left him with burns to his forehead, shoulder and abdomen, saying in the message:

Tommy Kapai runs Tauranga social agency Te Tuinga Whānau and has known Michaela Barriball since she was a child.

“I can’t take him to hospital they gonna think I beat him and I don’t even touch him.”

On November 1, the day she fatally attacked Malachi, she again sent her partner messages saying, “So bub if I go to prison I’m very sorry for that ok. But you move on okay don’t wait for me to come out.”

Tommy Kapai, who runs Tauranga social agency Te Tuinga Whānau, lives with his wife in the same area as the Barriballs in Te Puna. Kapai has known Chris Barriball for more than 20 years, and has known Michaela since she was a child.

Kapai said the “monster” who inflicted such harm on a defenceless child was hard to reconcile with the young girl he remembers growing up and playing with his own children.

“She was a sweet girl. She was in kapa haka, loved sports, and played netball. She went to the local kōhanga and Te Puna School and the marae, but when she grew up, she left the area for about ten years. When she came back, she was different and we didn’t see her at the marae any more.”

Kapai said the community was “shocked and horrified” at the news of the murder.

“It is a tragedy. Nobody knew. Malachi was not a local boy - he did not go to our local kōhanga and no one knew or saw anything of him around. If we had known anything I am 100 percent sure our local community would have intervened straight away. We are a tight-knit community and the kūmara vine is strong but we didn’t know anything about Malachi or his situation.”

Malachi suffered daily assaults by Michaela Barriball, who was receiving a benefit to look after him, the court summary states. The abuse included slapping him in the face, head and body, and pushing him into walls and on to the ground.

Malachi would tell Michaela Barriball he didn’t want to live there, and began soiling himself. He was punished by being stripped to his underwear and locked outside. If others at the property tried to intervene, Michaela Barriball blocked them, saying she was the parent and didn’t care what they thought.

Kapai says he now understands that Michaela Barriball was paid quite “a substantial amount from agencies” to be Malachi’s temporary caregiver.

“It is a sad situation we see all too often. What can we learn from this? That we need to reach out, connect to and awhi (help or care for) people before they become so disconnected they get in a situation where they can harm other people and themselves.”

Kapai said it is “too easy and escapist” just to focus blame on Oranga Tamariki.

“We always tell people, do something, call someone, call us. But here we are, living in the same community, and we knew nothing.”

“People want to pigeonhole these tragedies and blame an institution. That makes it easier than looking inward at ourselves but that is what we need to do within our own families and communities. We need to take care of our own tikanga.”

-This story has been amended to include further detail of Malachi’s injuries and Chris Barriball’s explanations of them from court documents. 10.50am May 6, 2022