The Vic boy’s tragic act after his mother’s murder

The young son of a woman stabbed to death by her boyfriend begged for her body to be dug up because he “missed her so much”.

The boy was just four years old when his mother Ellie Price’s body was discovered in the bedroom of their South Melbourne home on May 4, 2020.

Police conducted a welfare check on the 26-year-old and discovered that Price had deep stab wounds and a cut on her neck after she failed to respond to family calls on the highway.

Her boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro fled to NSW and was arrested 10 days later. He was found guilty of murder in September 2023.

Price’s sister Danielle told the Supreme Court of Victoria today that she was now raising her nephew, who remains traumatized years after his mother’s death.

“It’s so hard to explain to him, so I tell him the truth. He wants to know why he killed her? “How did he kill her?” Price said in a victim impact statement.

“(He) asked us if we could dig them up and bring them back because he missed his mother so much.

“His only wish in the world is to have his mother back.

“When we go to Ellie’s grave, he lies down to be near her. He always says how much he needs his mother.”

Price also said her nephew, now eight years old and living in Tasmania, had been the victim of schoolyard bullying in connection with his mother’s death.

“He was tormented at school by other kids who said nasty things like, ‘You don’t have a mother, your mother is dead. That touches (him) and upsets him so much,” she said.

“How do you answer a child’s question about why their mother is no longer here?”

Price’s mother, Tracey Gangell, told the court that her own life had been irrevocably damaged since her daughter’s murder.

“This is a pain that cannot be described, an emptiness that cannot be fulfilled,” she told the court.

“My life has fallen apart since you left. Which parent has to write this? Nobody in the world.”

“I don’t even go out and see my friends anymore…they don’t ask anymore because they know I would say no.”

Price and her killer were together from October 2019 until her death.

After her death, Barbaro left the scene in Price’s Mercedes Benz before parking the vehicle at a property in Diggers Rest, northwest of Melbourne.

He fled to NSW after media reports traced his whereabouts.