Attempted murder at the stables: The shooting at Hawthorne Hill
Horse farms often ooze grace, glamour and money. Hawthorne Hill, a well-known New Jersey dressage farm run by former Olympian Michael Barisone, seemed to tick all these boxes.
Barisone was both a respected trainer and a reserve for the 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team. His training facility seemed to be thriving. That is until August 2019, when things took an ugly turn. Think paranoia, social-media feuding, 911 calls and finally a shooting that saw Barisone charged with attempted murder.
It all unfolded years ago but the case is back in the spotlight through a new Netflix Untold documentary. At Crime+Investigation we love to do our own sleuthing before watching a highly-anticipated true crime documentary, so let’s get stuck in.
Gunshots ring across Hawthorne Hill Farm
On 7th August, 2019, Lauren Kanarek (one of Michael Barisone’s students) was shot twice in the chest at Hawthorne Hill Farm. The person holding the gun? Michael Barisone. He also attempted to shoot Lauren’s boyfriend, Robert Goodwin.
Barisone was charged the next day with two counts of attempted murder and weapons offences. That part was never really in dispute. Where it gets murkier is everything leading up to it.
A deal turned sour
Lauren had come into Barisone’s orbit as a serious dressage student. According to reports, she paid him $5,000 a month to train and board her horses at Hawthorne Hill, with housing thrown in for her and her boyfriend. At first, it looked like an ambitious rider landing exactly the opportunity she wanted. Then the relationship curdled.
What Barisone said
In court, Barisone spoke of Lauren's abusive behaviour and accused her of being addicted to heroin and prescription meds. He said he wanted to evict Lauren and Robert from his property but the pair threatened to physically harm him, his fiancée, his farm and the horses.
What Lauren said
Lauren Kanarek wasn’t silent. She started posting about her frustrations on Facebook and making serious allegations about Barisone.
She called him a drug addict, adulterer, pervert, cheat, horse abuser and thief. Cases like this are a reminder that modern feuds rarely stay offline.
Barisone reaches breaking point
Things escalated quickly after Lauren and Barisone’s relationship soured. The prosecution argued that Barisone reached a breaking point, got hold of a handgun and went looking for Lauren and Robert.
The defence took a very different line. They argued that months of conflict had pushed Barisone into a severe mental collapse. At trial, he said he didn’t recall shooting Lauren and only remembered waking up in a hospital bed, handcuffed. His team pursued an insanity defence and claimed the long-running feud had driven him past the point where he could appreciate what he was doing.
Insanity plea pays off
The insanity plea is ultimately why Barisone was charged with attempted murder, but not handed a sentence to match. In April 2022, after about 18 hours of deliberation following a two-week trial, a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.
He was also found not guilty of the attempted murder of Robert and acquitted on the remaining weapons counts. Basically, the jury accepted that he committed the act, but also accepted that his mental state meant changed the level of criminal responsibility.
Therefore, the punishment didn’t come as a prison sentence. Instead, Barisone was held in custody for mental health treatment and later transferred to a psychiatric hospital. He was discharged in late 2023.
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