Mysterious brothel owner knew ‘meanest people’ in Melbourne, Ellie Price jury hears
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Brothel tycoon Mark Gray painted himself as dancer Ellie Price’s closest friend in Melbourne.
He bought her a $100,000 Mercedes-Benz, paid her rent and talked of gifting her management of a brothel, and when the 26-year-old was killed he offered to pay for her headstone.
A photograph of Ellie Price shown to the jury and (inset) Ricardo Barbaro.
But Gray didn’t attend Price’s funeral, and then cut her family off.
“He told us not to [contact him again],” mother Tracey Gangell said. “He said he needed time to grieve.”
The details of Gray and Price’s relationship and what he shared with her family are now the subject of intense questioning in Supreme Court.
The court heard claims Gray knew some of the meanest people in Melbourne, hiring bouncers known to sort out problems for bikies.
Tracey Gangell outside court on Wednesday.Credit: Eddie Jim
On Wednesday, Gangell told the Supreme Court she had been in frequent contact with Gray, 60, while he was friends with her daughter, but maintained that stopped after a court hearing in May 2021.
She said Price and Gray were close friends for many years until, on the eve of him applying for council licences to open the Daily Planet and Harem brothels in Melbourne, Price blackmailed him, telling him she wanted $100,000 or she’d report that he’d raped her.
She was found dead in her apartment on May 4, 2020, a week after police believe she was killed during the early hours of April 29.
Her then boyfriend, Ricardo Barbaro, was later arrested and charged with her murder. He has pleaded not guilty and is currently on trial.
Text messages aired in court for the first time on Wednesday revealed Gray wrote to Price’s sister Danielle Price on June 15, 2020, saying it was “not possible to love someone more than I love Ellie”.
“Also I keep forgetting to explain something which might seem odd, I have not sent tributes or death notices for a reason. I just don’t want anyone to connect my surname with my occupation and then presume that Ellie knew me because she worked for me,” a message from Gray’s phone read.
“I just wanted to protect her.”
The following month, he sent a message to the slain woman’s sister about how, after his father died, he began buying run-down brothels as a distraction and that he’d taken on the “Melbourne project” – in South Melbourne – for the 26-year-old.
Gray said he borrowed $1 million to fund the project, and would take Price there at least twice a week to see the construction.
“It needed Mark and Ellie to bring it back to life,” he wrote. “When you and mum come down to court or holidays we can visit xx.
“I wanted to transform it into something as beautiful as Ellie.”
Gangell maintained she was unaware that Gray ran brothels until after her daughter died, and didn’t know about the messages he was sending Danielle.
Other messages and emails defence barrister Rishi Nathwani aired in court indicated both the Price sisters and Gangell had been added as contacts for Gray’s brothels before Price’s death.
Accused killer Ricardo Barbaro arrives at court this weekCredit: AAP
Those venues, the court heard, included Liaisons, Stiletto and Touch of Class in NSW, and Harem in Melbourne.
“The two sisters, Ellie and Danielle, can be contact names for the two biggest brothels in Sydney, and I’ll make Tracey the contact name for Harem palace in Melbourne to keep it in the family,” a message from Gray’s phone to Danielle Price read.
“It can be our secret lol.
“When I finish the Daily Planet, we’ll need to use the kids’ names. Lucky you have a few names to use.”
Gangell denied being aware of this or suggestions Nathwani made that Gray had known violent thugs and some of the “meanest people in Melbourne”, some of whom included security guards also used by bikies.
The mother also denied there had been a plan for her, her daughter and Gray to avoid giving truthful evidence at an earlier court hearing. This, Nathwani indicated, may have included instructions from Gray to withhold information about his connection with brothels, giving money to Price and anything about her job.
Nathwani also asked if Gangell was aware that Gray had paid not only for Price’s $100,000 Mercedes-Benz and rent, but also a breast augmentation, nose reconstruction and porcelain teeth veneers during their friendship.
“I wouldn’t know,” Gangell replied. A horse riding accident in March 2021, Gangell said, had affected her memory.
She said Gray did later ask not to be contacted by the family after they returned to Tasmania, where they live and where Price is buried. He also failed to help pay for her headstone after earlier offering to do so, she said.
Police allege Barbaro killed Price, 26, inside her Park Street apartment before leaving the scene in her Mercedes-Benz in the early hours of April 29, 2020.
When she was reported missing days later, police found her body on the floor of her bedroom with six stab wounds including a large cut to her neck.
Barbaro was arrested in NSW on May 13, 2020, after hiring a van and driving interstate.
The court earlier heard there had been instances of violence between the two in the lead-up to Price’s death amid an on-again off-again relationship marked with jealousy.
The trial before Justice Lex Lasry continues.
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