48 Hours - Daddy's Little Girl

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

16-year-old Mindy Berenyi admitted she fatally shot her father, but claimed she was a victim of physical and psychological abuse. At trial, Berenyi insisted she murdered her father in self-defense. A family is torn apart when ‘daddy’s little girl' became his killer.  "48 Hours" correspondent Susan Spencer reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 6/25/2001. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

I come from a small town, farm community. I think people think, well, you have the right to raise your child, how you want. What goes on behind closed doors, stays there. That's what we were always told in my family. Whatever goes on here, you better not ever tell anyone. The mystery of what really went on here in this middle class house in Antwerp, Ohio, is at the heart of an unspeakable crime. crime. A beloved father lies dead. His daughter Mindy, a high school cheerleader, is in jail,

awaiting trial for killing him in cold blood. I had said before, you know, out of anger, I could kill him. But I'm not a murder. She doesn't deserve to be there. We, myself as a parent, should have saved her. And I didn't I didn't. So. Packing up at her Indianapolis home. We'll get up there tonight. I'll take Mindy her clothes.

Mindy's mother, Shirley Barreni, is preparing for the fight of her life. Court starts tomorrow morning. She'll be taking the stand at her daughter's murder trial to explain what happened. She was still daddy's little angel there. To a father-daughter relationship that had once seemed magic. She loved him to death, and he loved her to death. Shirley met her future husband, mechanic Andy Barreni, in high school. I'd just turned 18 and Andy wasn't quite 17.

They married just six weeks later when Shirley learned she was pregnant with another man's child. You must have felt like he was rescuing you. Well, basically. But after 15 years and three children, the marriage fell apart. I truly believe deep down he loved us, he just didn't know how at all. Depressed and dispirited, Shirley, gave up custody of teenagers Steve and Scott and of six-year-old Mindy. He told them that I was the one that wanted to leave, that I didn't love them.

Did you want to go live with your dad? Yeah, I did. It was a good life at first. It wasn't long, Mindy says, before life with the father she adored became a living hell. And he would have me go in his room with him, and he would have me massage. him first and things started then things started what do you mean like having me touch him and telling me that you know no one loves me like he does and um and how old were you about eight and when she rejected him she says he just started to hate me almost I felt like her father began abusing her emotionally what's wrong

with you why are you so goddamn stupid you're a whore you're a sleigh but you're never going to amount to anything. You make me sick. Her older brothers eventually left home. Her father remarried. Mindy became a teenager and wanted her freedom. I wanted to go spend the night with my girlfriends and talk to boys on the phone.

I guess I wanted to do the things that every other teenager must do. That's when she says Andy Barrenny became impossibly controlling. I got a job at McDonald's, and he came. I kept a log of the odometer. He knew exactly how many miles it was to and from my job. He searched her room and more. He recorded my phone calls. He locked up the phones when he wasn't home.

If I was talking on the phone, he didn't like it, he would rip the phone out of the wall and grab me by the neck and choke me, throw me against the wall. Now 16 years old. I just kept getting worse and worse. Mindy found out she was pregnant. She would later miss Carrie, but she didn't know that then. How did you think this was going to play out?

I thought he would kill me. On the afternoon of September 27, 1995, Mindy came home to discover her father had searched her room again. This time, he had found her ashtray. I just got really scared. He just told me the night before that if he caught me smoking again, it would be the last time. And then I started to think about being pregnant,

what he was going to do. It just kind of all built up. She broke into her father's bedroom and took his shotgun. She was going to kill herself, she says. I went into the bathroom because I figured if I messed up and I didn't kill myself, I didn't want to get in trouble for making a mess on the wall. What stopped you? Every time I got ready to pull the trigger, I just, all I could think of was that I was pregnant.

So then I just decided that I couldn't. But before she had a chance to put the gun back, Mindy says, her father came home from work. Right when he opened the door, he hollered, where the hell are you? I just got really scared, really angry. I just screamed at myself to stop, but I couldn't. The next thing I remember is I'm turning around and looking at me. I just said, oh my God, Dad, I'm sorry. Mindy Perenni insists she killed her father in self-defense.

To convince a jury of that, she will use the risky and rarely successful battered child defense. She'll claim physical, but especially emotional abuse, abuse that left her in such terror of her father that one look from him that night sent her over the edge. She killed her father. She shot him, but she didn't murder him. Mindy's attorney, Larry Delabio. What would you call this? Self-defense, pure and simple. At that particular time, in her mind, there was a...

perception of imminent danger of fear. But a huge problem for the defense is that Mindy told no one, not one soul about the abuse until after the killing. Nobody's known about it until now. She didn't tell anyone. She never told anybody. I was scared. I didn't trust anyone. Why didn't we see something wrong even there compared to what she used to be? In hindsight, Shirley clearly remembers her daughter's cries for help. She'd called me she said mom you're not listening to me I mean clear as a bell you're not listening to me I can't take this and I said okay Mindy we'll get help but nothing Mindy told her mother she came close to the abuse she now describes she would say he yells at me all the time he won't let me do anything

that kind of thing but other than that no looking back surely says she should have understood what really was going on I should have known I was just stupid because she says she experienced exactly the same kind of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband he used intimidation threats and violence to control you did he physically beat you he didn't beat me he would choke me slam me against the wall you can get beat and the pain goes away it takes you years and years to get over somebody making you feel like you don't want to live she left her three children with him because she says she had no choice. I was afraid of him. She never dreamed.

Mindy would become his next target. I never believed that he would do it to her too. Because she was his little princess. There's no excuse for me leaving her there. Can you ever stop blaming yourself? Maybe when she's home, maybe. She was just as afraid as I was. So she understands my fear and I understand hers. An earlier trial ended in a mistrial, so this time, Shirley will have her last chance to fight for her daughter's life in court. I really believe in two to three weeks, Mindy will be home. Where she belongs. It's a heart-wrenching tale, but is any of it true? He was a great father. He wasn't a child abuser. Andy's family tells a totally different story. You see, she was just lying all the time, running away.

Of an out-of-control teenager who cut down her father in cold blood. I feel for Andy still today. I go to the cemetery and feel like I have to apologize to him for what's happening to his name. I feel he's seeing this going on. Did he spend much time down here? Oh, yeah. Summertime was river. life. It's been four years since Andy Barney died. Andy knew where every rock was in the river.

But his second wife, Joni, still cherishes every memory with every glimpse of the river behind their house. We had a pontoon. The weekends, we'd go on the pontoon. When Mindy'd go, he'd pull her on a tube, then she'd go tubing in the river. They married in 1992. Jony helped raise Mindy from the time she was eight. She was a sweet little girl. I loved her as my own. And Joni says that as the only other person actually in the house watching it all unfold, only she knows the true relationship between Mindy and Andy Baranee. He was a great father. He was not a child abuser. That is the issue here. Right. And that is definitely not a true statement. She says Andy was nothing like the monster Mindy and her mother described.

Andy was a strict parent, but he wasn't an abusive parent. Lady, you ask almost 99% of the people that knew Andy, and I would bet you anything that you would not find one man that says anything against Andy. Andy's parents, Bill and Ruby, live just two doors away. Looks like rain coming in, don't it? And would frequently drop by the house. And here... Now, this is Mindy.

What do you think of when you see this picture today? sadness that it just remind me of what Mindy was and what Mindy is. The sweet little girl that Mindy used to be was replaced overnight, they say, by a teenager they hardly knew. You have to realize what kind of a girl you're working with. She's not an ordinary teenager, no way. Mindy's grandparents and her aunt Linda Koss described a 16-year-old headed for disaster. You see, she was just lying. all the time. Doing drugs, running out of the house, running away.

Stealing his car. And a father desperately trying to save her. He was protecting her from the consequences of her own actions. That's the reason, Joni says, for the strict rules Andy imposed on his daughter. She says he locked up the phones. Yes, he did do that. She was calling friends in Indianapolis and making arrangements to run away. Check the odometer on the car. And yes, he did that after she had. had skipped work one day. Go through her room looking for things. He would look for cigarettes. He didn't like her smoking. In the months leading up to the killing, Joni kept a diary,

chronicling Mindy's misbehavior. Quite a bit in there. Many times that she snuck out of the house, drinking, and just the lying on where she was going and who she was with. It was to the point where you didn't believe a word that she even said. She was completely out of control. I became, She was the way she talked to her dad. She was so mean to him. It was just tearing his heart apart. Yet in all those years, Joni says, she only saw Andy lose his temper once.

She called him a very bad name, which he flew hot and he grabbed her by the throat. But that was the only time that he ever touched her. And as far as emotional abuse in terms of calling her names, belittling her, telling her she was worth nothing. That was not true. As for any sexual abuse. Did she tell you any of that? No, and I do not believe it. Joni, your testimony in this is so important because there were just the two of you in that house. Right. The jury is going to look at this and determine that one or the other of you is lying.

Right. And it's her. It was Joni who walked in on a distraught Mindy that night. I walked into Mindy with a gun to her head. The first thing she said was I shot Daddy's dead. She says her first thought was to get the gun out of Mindy's hand. I convinced her to go out in the kitchen and sit down and smoke a cigarette. Andy's body lay just a few feet away. Did you realize he was dead? There was twice I had seen him the first time I'd seen the pool of blood,

and then the next time he hadn't moved, so yeah, I knew. Then. She finally got Mindy. into the car unarmed and drove to the sheriff's department where Mindy tearfully confessed. The next day, Ruby Breni did something perhaps only a mother could do. And I thought it. And I told her how much I loved it was nothing more because I was going to come with it. The next day, Ruby Breni did something perhaps only a mother could do.

She cleaned up her son's blood. It was the last thing I could do for him. Not to have strangers in here, but for me to do that. Now, the close-knit family that once counted Mindy among its own will face off against her in court, convinced that this was murder, pure and simple. Do you believe that she actually sat down and planned it ahead of time with this? I think she planned it. I absolutely think she knew what she was going to do.

She shows no remorse. I can't be sorry and tell lies at the same time for her to murder him and then come back and do this like murdering him a second time is hard who is the abused who is the abuser who is the criminal who is the victim

hold the court doors on two it's clear all right it's day one of Mindy Barreni's murder trial in Lima, Ohio. Yes, sir, can I help you. Larry Delapio, Mindy Barini's lawyer. And her lawyer is feeling the pressure. She's a good kid.

She should be out. She doesn't deserve to be in jail. But 20-year-old Mindy faces life in prison, unless a jury believes her risky defense, that she was a battered child. Sleep last night? Battered, not just physically, but emotionally. We're just going to tell them the facts.

We're going to tell them the truth. Battered until at 16, she had no choice but to kill her father, Andy. If I had said, Dad, I need your help, I'm pregnant. He would have killed me or he would have beaten me very badly that day. So you think you did the only thing? Yes. She must realize what she has done. It's the most heinous act.

Andy's family and his second wife, Joni, hope the jury will see Mindy as they now do. as a calculating killer with a story concocted to get away with murder. We're going to read through this. Before the trial begins, Mindy and her main ally, her mother Shirley, will be okay. We just have to tough out this couple weeks. Meet in a private back room. You're ready.

The counsel for the state may make his opening statement. Ladies and gentlemen. State prosecutor Joseph Burkhard. Mindy Barreni is guilty of aggravated murder. And there's no legal excuse for her to walk away from this crime. Mindy's story, he says, is pure fabrication. This is a poem that Mindy wrote. And on the bottom, there's a knife with a heart, and there's blood dripping off the knife.

This is what Mindy's thoughts were. This is truly who Mindy was. She planned this murder, he insists, from the moment she broke into Andy's bedroom to steal the gun. This is Andy Bruny's master bedroom. If indeed she intended to kill herself, Burkhart wonders why then she went to the kitchen bathroom. Rather than going to this bathroom, which is located next to the master bedroom, she traveled across the house here to this small bathroom located off the kitchen, and that's where she sat for about an hour before her father came home.

That bathroom was the perfect spot, the prosecutor says, for Mindy to lie in wait. Mindy is in here. Correct. Andy comes through this door. Yes. In court, Burkard also highlights how Mindy's claim of self-defense makes no sense given how Andy Barrenny died. The cause of death was the shotgun blast to the left back. Mindy shot her father in the back.

We have a man that's standing 40 feet away. We have a teenager in the middle of the room with a shotgun. There's no confrontation. No verbal exchange, no physical exchange prior to the shooting. But jurors can buy the prosecution scenario and still not convict if they accept the battered child theory, if they really believe Mindy feared for her very life. The thing that's real critical is what did Mindy perceive was happening at the time that she shot her father. She says she was terrified.

No. She said that she was totally pissed. She said that she was mad. She was angry. Remember this? Fear has never come into the equation until much later when all of a sudden, oh, I was fearful of my father. Raise your right hand. After two days, the prosecution wraps up its case.

She's solemnly swear. With testimony from Mindy's stepmother, Joni, who concurs. Mindy would go toe to toe in arguments with her father. The defense has a lot of work ahead. Burkhar said he wanted to argue it. Hopefully we can show that Andy was the aggressor, that Andy created the confrontation. Hopefully the jury will see that. The next day...

I'm a nervous record. What's rioting on this, tell me. My father's life. At this time, the defense would call Shirley Barini. My biggest fear is that I am not going to be able to get through to the jury. Shirley testifies that during their marriage, Andy was violent and abusive to her and their two sons. Our normal humiliation and verbal beating place was at the kitchen table. He would make us sit there for hours, and I mean hours.

But he never turned his wrath on Mindy. By age 15, however, she called me crying and said, please, Mom, please, I can't take this anymore. Did she ever tell you anything specific about any bad things that Andy was doing to her at that time? No. So Shirley left her there. She made one comment. Please don't do this to me, Mom. But you did?

Yes. After that, Delabio says Mindy fell apart. She was diagnosed as depressed, suicidal, and homicidal. She spent nine days in a hospital, but still told no one about the abuse. The fear of going back there anyway, and then having told everyone,

just far outweighed the risk of telling, and maybe I wouldn't have to be. have to go back. So doctors released her to the one person she was trying to escape, her father. It was like a turning point for me. I just didn't care about myself anymore. That's when DeLavio says her drinking and drug use escalated, and she was running away. The last time I tried to run away is when social services became involved. Social services in the person of child abuse investigator Laura Alvarado. Our agency received a call from a father who was upset and was having some problems with his daughter.

But when Alvarado interviewed her, she sided with Mindy. I didn't feel the child was an unruly child. I felt that the child was troubled by what was going on in the home. In your investigation, did you see signs of physical or emotional abuse? Emotional abuse. Again, Mindy pleaded for help. She said, if my mother doesn't want me and doesn't want anything to do with me, and I'm willing to go to a military school, a foster home.

But Mindy was a minor, and what to do was Andy's decision. A week before the killing, when Alvarado saw Mindy for the last time. She just didn't open up as much, and it was like she had just given up, and she was not disclosing anymore. Thank you very much. I have no further questions. Because, says Delabio, Mindy by then had given up hope. As he heads out to the jail two nights later, Big day, important day tomorrow.

He must make sure she doesn't lose hope again. Mindy's credibility is going to be big tomorrow. I mean a lot. The jury sees her. Mindy will testify tomorrow. I have nothing to lie about. And that means stealing herself to relive the abuse that she says drove her to kill.

As tough as it's going to be, put yourself there. Put yourself there. Put yourself there. Okay? As tough as it might be to talk about it, is getting down to it. I would like nothing more than I go home. To be someone, to raise children. And you shot your father.

Yeah, I know. Is there a price for that? I think every day I look in the mirror and didn't know that. It's a pretty tough price to pay. I hope that's enough. That was our only son. Yes. It's four years to the day since Andy Barreni was killed.

What's been the toughest part? Just being without my husband. And ironically, today Andy's killer, his daughter Mindy, will finally take the stand at her murder trial. What is the possible sentence here should she be convicted? She could face 33 years to life in prison. Her testimony is crucial. It's up to Mindy to convince the jury that her father abused her for years.

Although she never told anyone about the abuse until after she killed him. I know what the truth is, and I hope that they see the truth, too. I hope they see through her lies. Here at this time, we would call Mindy Brenny. As Mindy prepares to take the stand, her mother Shirley is worried. She has told us story so many times. At some point, you start to toughen toward that hurry. I think sometimes they want to see.

that emotional breakdown. Yeah, I'm worried. Mindy, you said you would go home from the bar? What happened then? Mindy begins by recounting the years of abuse. First, sexual. She would tell me to massage the back of his knee. Then he would roll over.

Then verbal. And he said nothing but a goddamn worthless slut, just like your mother. Then physical. That's when he picked me up by my hair and started slamming my head against the door. Abuse that she says left her in fear of her life. Were there threats?

Threats every day, jerking me around every day. I never knew what he was going to do. The jury is now excused about 10 minutes. During a break in a private back room, her attorney worries, Mindy isn't getting her story across. Don't think you have to tone it down when you're out there, react. Okay? Don't feel like you have to sit there and narrate the story, though. Okay? Just tell them exactly the way it happened.

God, Larry, I can't remember what those arguments were like. arguments were like, I mean, they were so, kind of happened every day. I don't know how to explain it. I just explain it how it happened. I can't say, well, this is what happened this time, because I can remember him, he would stand up the window. Or just say, if I say that, he would just turn on and hit me. Just, you know, that noise he would make?

He's, like, ah, and he just. Try to follow me a little more this time. I'm trying. Okay, you picked up the gun, and then you walked over into the bathroom, which is marked C on State's Exhibit 1, correct? During cross-examination, Prosecutor Burkhard reminds the jury

that on the day of the murder, Mindy went out of her way to get to the kitchen bathroom. Why didn't you go to the bathroom that was right next to the bedroom? Because I got into the shower, because I figured it would be easier to clean up. And although Mindy claims she killed her father in self-defense... Just approximately how far away from your father are you? About this far?

He was 40 feet away from her. Probably a little bit farther. When she shot him in the back. And you used this story. 12-gauge shotgun. Shoot your father in the back, didn't you? Yeah. I have no other questions.

Before she gets off the stand, Larry gets one more chance to question Mindy. Mr. Burkhard showed you a number of drawings that you have. You said that's a heart with a knife going through. Right. What did that represent? Just I felt like my heart was broken. I felt a lot of pain. The pain of an abused child, intent on committing suicide that day.

But every time I got ready to do it, I couldn't because I knew I was pregnant. And I just, I didn't want to kill my baby, too. She spends six grueling hours on the stand. You did fine, they believe you. Yes, they do believe you. We're done with you. It's going to be, man. It's just, no, no, no, it's just going to be, you know, it's just going to be how they're going to listen to all those things

and how they're in interpret all those things. You did a fine job. You did the best you could. You did all that you could. You didn't think it weren't good. I think it weren't good. No, you know. You can find the truth.

No, it was. If you think it went bad, I want you to tell me, I'm not prepared for the worst. Look, if I thought it went bad, I would say it went bad, okay? If... You certainly don't think it went great. No, no, I'll think it went great. But one unexpected observer was moved by her testimony.

Jill Harris, a juror from Mindy's first murder trial, has driven miles to be here. I just felt that I connected with her some way and I should be there. Just to show support that someone cares. The first jury's deliberations were tense. We did a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, a lot of walking the floor. An anonymous call to a juror forced a mistrial. But not before the jury came to its own conclusion about Mindy. Did your jury believe her story?

Most of us, yeah. I believed that she did suffer from depression and better child syndrome. And the first vote was leaning in her favor. Seven of us wanted acquittal. Really? Yes. Counsel for the defendant, he calls next witness. Including his case, Larry Delavio calls psychiatrist Dr. Kathleen Quinn.

She was profoundly depressed. She says Mindy clearly showed signs of post-traumatic stress. Just the hearing of his footstep or hearing him crack open a beer would make her feel scared about the next confrontation. On that fateful day, her fears intensified. He had searched her room again. She was pregnant. Her father didn't know that. She had taken a gun out of his room. Did Mindy Brinney perceived that she was in danger of suffering imminent death or great bodily?

great bodily harm at the hands of her father the day that she shot him? Yes, she did. Thank you very much, doctor. I have no further questions. In rebuttal, the prosecutor calls his own expert, Dr. Barbara McIntyre. Did you see Mindy Brenning being fearful of her father? No, I did not. This was a young woman who consistently defied her father, swore him, called him names, threatened

to kill him. Her diagnosis. Ms. Brenning did not meet the criteria to be considered as suffering from bad a child's But the prosecutor has saved his most damaging witnesses for last. The only other people who knew what it was like to grow up in that house. All my life, I saw them experience it. We talked about it. Your Honor, we have next call Steve Brenning.

Mindy's brothers, Steve and Scott. You solemnly swear the testimony you're about to give him this case. They refuse to have their testimony taped, but they say that no abuse took place. They said it didn't happen, but neither one of them would look me in the eye. When you're dealing with a situation like that in a close family and a close-knit community, you deny abuse. I'll have a real tough time for giving them for this. Real tough time.

The verdict, when 48 hours returns. This is it. This is the culmination of all the work all the time. Two weeks after Mindy Barreni's murder trial began, it's time for the jury to decide her fate. Let's do it. At the end of this. Okay. Get on the things.

Okay. The question, did she cold-bloodedly plan her father's murder? Mindy Barreni removed the final hurdle, and the hurdle was Andy Barney. Or did she kill him in self-defense? She had an honest belief that she was in imminent danger of great bodily harm, that her dad was finally going to break. After years of abuse. You have the ability, ladies and gentlemen, to send Mindy back to her mother. At this time, the jury is excused to start their deliberations.

While the jury deliberates... Hey, you guys help you, man. Oh, God. Mindy is returned to herself. I think she's coming home. But it's a huge gamble. By choosing not to accept a plea agreement, she could be convicted of aggravated murder.

Mindy is being tried as an adult, so a guilty verdict could mean life. By contrast, if the jury buys her story, she could simply walk out of here. For now, all anyone can do is wait. The waiting. You gotta wonder what 12 people are thinking. The points.

I hope they can tell who's lying and who's not lying. They had to have saw. Scott, Steve, all the lies Joni told that she got caught in. Who knows? And it's up to them, basically. It's pretty nuts that mom can't be here. And that's the scary part. I hang out a little bit upstairs, I think some more than else.

Don't be gone too long. All right. Be mad. Be mad. After 24 nerve-wracking hours, we do have a verdict. The nine-woman three-man jury reaches a verdict. With her boyfriend Dave at her side, Shirley braces herself.

As does the family of Andy Barani. Mindy is found defendant in the end for any guilty of aggravated murder. Mindy is found guilty of the most serious charge, aggravated murder. Not only did she kill him, the jury says, she planned it from start to finish. The judge sentences her to life in prison with no chance of parole for 23 years. I can't, I can't really. It's all too much for Larry Delabio. Oh my gosh.

He faints. And Mindy, barely able to stand herself, is led away. In her grief, Shirley lashes out at the Barini family. On the way back to her cell, a still shaken Delavio tries to get medical attention for the nearly catatonic Mindy. Medical. People are going to take care of you, okay? Just be okay. All right?

I love you. She's the one suffered because of my mistakes. And that's what's wrong about it. We were really shocked. It's the day after the verdict... I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. The Barini so desperately wanted.

We didn't expect it to be this severe, but I'm just glad that my sons name and character was more or less cleared up that he was not the monster they made him out to be. I'm sorry, Wendy, but that's what you deserve and that's what you got. Do you think in retrospect it was a mistake to try to use this defense? No. It's what happened. And I'll get people to understand.

It's the last thing I do. She said, Mom, I'll be all right no matter where I am. So we'll keep fighting, and as long as she stays strong, she'll be okay. Mindy Barretti was released from prison in 2013.