A shooting has occurred at a horse farm in Washington Township, New Jersey, and the CBS News episode “48 Hours: Shooting Lauren Kanarek” looks at the legal actions that followed the incident. A well-known dressage trainer by the name of Michael Barisone was at the center of it all. One of his students, Lauren Kanarek, was shot by him in August 2019, and he was later arrested for attempted murder after the incident. So if you want to know what happened as a result of the incident and where he might be today, we have the answers for you.
Michael Barisson
Who is Michel Barisone?
During the 2008 Olympics, Michael Barisone served as a reserve for the United States dressage team. After competing for his country, he established himself as a respected dressage instructor and began working with a variety of elite athletes. Michael has coached several Olympic athletes including Boyd Martin and Allison Brock. The latter even walked away with a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics. Michael owned two horse farms at the time of the incident, one of which was located in Washington Township, Morris County, New Jersey . This is where things started to go wrong.
Around the same time in March 2018, Michael invited Lauren Kanarek to start training with him and invited her and her fiancé, Robert Goodwin, to live on the property with them. But by the summer of 2019, things had already started to go in the wrong direction. Following Lauren’s perception that she was not receiving adequate instructions from Michael at the time, she took to social media in order to capture what was going on. Michael claimed: “There were things coming out on social media that were awful.” I remember feeling total and complete panic. Everyone says I was unstuck. I was everywhere.
Lauren made allegations of racism and homophobia against Michael, as well as allegations that Michael and his then-girlfriend, Mary Gray, were responsible for his bullying. Michael had claimed that Lauren and her companion had broken their promise to leave the property once the training session was over, but Lauren had denied this. He had dialed the emergency number several times, during which he accused the couple of being squatters and harassing him. Michael also indicated he feared for his life, but believed authorities were simply treating the case as a landlord-tenant dispute. Michael said he feared for his life.
The simmering conflict between Michael and Lauren finally came to a head on August 7, 2019, when Lauren was found with two gunshot wounds to her chest. She was able to positively identify Michael as the shooter, and he was quickly taken to jail. His lawyer later said he was briefly insane at the time of the incident, but he maintained he acted in self-defense when he shot the victim. On Michael’s side, it was observed that in addition to the social media posts, Lauren and her partner beat up Michael and had their dog attacked in the minutes leading up to the shooting.
Additionally, Lauren was rumored to have recorded secret chats between Michael and his crew in the months leading up to filming. Michael’s defense claimed the tapes were illegal. On top of that, he had also contacted SafeSport, which is an organization that works to prevent abuse in Olympic sports, to file a complaint about Lauren. Michael went so far as to hire a private detective to dig into Lauren’s story and investigate her background.
Where is Michael Barisone today?
Michael Barisone’s legal team called an expert witness to testify that their client was “temporarily insane”. The knowledgeable individual attributed it to Lauren’s behavior, which included posting controversial messages on social media. As a result, Michael was diagnosed with a delusional state by the attending physician. Additionally, Michael said he remembered walking into her office, but did not remember taking the gun or shooting Lauren.
In response to the defense claims, the prosecution introduced its own medical expert, who expressed skepticism about Michael’s claim that he only remembered certain events of that day. Despite this, Michael was found not guilty by reason of insanity for one count of attempted first degree murder committed against Lauren in April 2022. Michael was 58 at the time. On top of that, the jury decided that he was not responsible for the attempted murder of Robert and therefore exonerated him of both weapons counts.
In September 2022, a court issued an order requiring Michael to receive treatment at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital located in Morris Plains, New Jersey. A subsequent hearing will be held six months later to assess his progress in the program. After the incident, the New Jersey property was sold and he was left with his second farm in Florida. Once released from prison, he planned to settle there and live on this farm. The dressage community at large as well as Michael’s girlfriend, Lara Osborne, have been very supportive of him. As of May 2022, it was still banned from participating in SafeSport events, although Lara hoped the ban would not be indefinite.
Who is Michel Barisone? Wikipedia Bio of Olympic horse trainer as he gets not guilty verdict in trial
