'I loved him but I didn't like him': Slain Sydney gangster's mother says
Even Pasquale Barbaro’s mother did not like him.
The woman who brought the slain Sydney gangster into the world has broken her silence, telling News Corp she loved her criminal son deeply, but could not bring herself to like him.
“He was a lost soul and probably did most of the things reported, but I will always love him,” the mother, identified only as Cheryl, told the Daily Telegraph.
“I didn’t like him or what he did, but I loved him a lot. He’s still my son.”
The heavily tattooed drug dealer became the third member of his Calabrian Mafia-linked family with the same name to die at the end of a gun barrel when he was killed in an Earlwood street on November 14.
He was outside the home of underworld figure George Alex when bullets shot out from a passing car.
There is no suggestion Mr Alex was involved in the death.
His mother said she had been expecting news of his death for years.
“I left no stone unturned and did everything possible within my human control to try to turn him into a better man, but I failed,” she said.
“For 10 years I have been crippled with fear waiting for that phone call, and it came last week.”
Cheryl fled her marriage to Barbaro’s Mafioso father Joe Barbaro in 1991. She won custody but the young Pasquale still had regular contact with his imprisoned father.
Barbaro’s death came during a series of bloody months in Sydney’s underworld.
He was the fourth crime figure to die violently in just eight months, and had been expected to face court in December on numerous drugs charges.
Author Keith Moor said Barbaro had been “literally born into the Calabrian Mafia”, however, he is reported to have moved away from the infamous crime family as he worked to set up his own independent criminal network in Sydney’s west.
There has been speculation he was killed in revenge for breaking the rules of the secretive criminal network.
It has been reported that Barbaro was a senior informant to the Australian Crime Commission.
His death was reminiscent of the 1990 execution of his grandfather Peter Pasquale Barbaro, who was gunned down in Brisbane as he prepared to give evidence against 30 alleged mafiosi.
Barbaro’s cousin Pasquale "Pat" Barbaro was killed in a Melbourne car park in 2003 in a crime that helped ignite that city’s famed gangland war.
Pat Barbaro was sitting next to Carlton Crew gangster Jason Moran when a gunman struck in front of Moran’s children.
Another infamous gangster, Carl Williams, was convicted of ordering the hit.
His uncle, also called Pasquale Barbaro, from Griffith, NSW, was the kingpin of the world’s largest ecstasy bust in 2007.
The family has also been linked to one of Australia’s most enduring criminal mysteries – the disappearance and suspected murder of Donald MacKay in Griffith in 1977.
Mr MacKay had been an outspoken critic of drug dealers in Griffith and was running for parliament when he vanished.
The most recently slain Barbaro was no stranger to underworld violence either. He had his own convictions for drug dealing and had spent time in prison.
Barbaro survived an execution attempt at Leichhardt on November 9, 2015 but was not so lucky on Monday, November 14, 2016.
News break – November 24
