Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Child Actor Was Murdered - The Judith Barsi story

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

This is the story of Judith Barsi and her journey into Hollywood stardom.

So this is Judith, and Judith is only five. But she's on her way to being a Hollywood star. However, there's a problem. Her parents don't have a lot of money. Now her mom is Maria and her dad is this guy, Yosef. They're on welfare and Yosef is just a local plumber and it doesn't help that he's constantly drinking. But one day, all that changes. See, Maria is determined to get Judith into show business.

So she spends a lot of time teaching her to be poised and well-spoken. And then one day she takes Judith ice skating at an ice rink in Hollywood. Now this rink is often used as a location to film TV shows and movies. And on that day, there just happens to be a commercial crew there filming. And allegedly, there's a director there and he sees little Judith ice skating and he ends up casting her in a different shoot he's doing. And from there, boom, Judith's career takes off. She gets an agent and she lands her first commercial role for Donald Duck Orange Juice.

And after that, she starts working more and more and gets placed in other commercials. Then she gets her first role in a TV series called Fatal Vision, where she plays a little girl who's unalived by her father. Then she gets cast in Twilight Zone, Punky Brewster, Growing Pains, Cheers. And within a few short years, Judith is pulling in over $100,000 a year from her acting. And Yosef and Maria start to see their bank account slowly climb out of the red. And eventually they have enough save to buy their own three-bedroom house in a decent neighborhood. This is a dream for them. And everyone is happy for Judith, except for Yosef.

Yosef isn't a TV star, he's just a working man, and his young daughter is making significantly more money than him, making him no longer the breadwinner. And over time, his drinking starts getting worse and worse, and a mountain of resentment starts building up in him. And of course, he takes this out on his wife and daughter. And he and Maria argue, and they fight a lot, and at one point Yosef threatens to on alive, Maria, like it gets bad. But Judith, who's around nine at this point, she doesn't let her chaotic family life stop her. She nails audition after audition and eventually she's cast in a little movie you may have heard of called Jaws. Well, not Jaws, but one of the sequels, Jaws Revenge. But

whatever, this is huge for her and it's filming in the Bahamas, which means they'll get to spend a few months there. And predictably, Yosef's drunk ass isn't happy about this. He gets insecure and worried that Maria and Judith might run off and abandon him. So the night before they leave, he corners Judith, and he pulls out a knife, and he threatens her. If you don't come back to me, I'll unalive you. And the next day, Judith and Maria leave to film Jaws. But Judith is never the same. And over the next few months, her mental health starts to decline, and it's beginning to show. Like she starts pulling her eyebrows out and her cat's whiskers, but this whole time, she's still acting, she's still landing roles. And she gets cast as one of the

lead voices in All Dogs Go to Heaven. Goodbye, Charlie. I love you. And she's cast in what ends up being her favorite role ever. She's the voice of Ducky in the Land Before Time. And she ends up delivering one of the most iconic catchphrases from that movie. Yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep.

But even as she continues to be successful, her home life is still chaos. And Yosef is still abusive. And one day, while at an audition, Judith just loses it. She starts crying uncontrollably and no one can get her to calm down. While Maria, she knows all of this going on with Yosef is bad for them, and she's had enough. So she takes some of the Judas's earnings and she secretly rents them an apartment across town to use as sort of a safe house

so that she and Judith can low-key stay there during the day to avoid being around Yosef as much as possible. And allegedly, Maria's plan is to eventually take Judith and permanently move to that apartment, leaving Yosef for good. Until. One day, out of nowhere, Judith doesn't show up to an important meeting. Instead, she's at home with her mom and dad. Now, this next part is actually some speculation,

because we don't actually know exactly how this happened. But it's speculated that on that day, Yosef finds out about Maria's secret apartment and about her plans to eventually take Judith and leave him. And when he finds this out, he just loses it. And so he goes and he gets his pew-pue, and he aims it at Maria, and he pulls the trigger. Then he walks into Judith's bedroom,

and while she's sitting there on the bed, he unalives her too. She was only 10 years old. Then, at some point after, he dumps gasoline on them, and he sets them ablaze. And then he goes into the garage with his pew-poo, and he unalives himself. I guess they didn't have a lot of outside family, because sadly, Judith and Maria were buried in a local cemetery,

in unmarked graves. But then, 16 years later, fans of Judith raised money and got them headstones. And on Judith's headstone, they made sure to put a quote from her favorite acting role. Yep, yep, yep.