Shooting Victim Had Reputation as Peacemaker

Charles T. Barbagallo, a slight, gentle man, was killed by a friend he was trying to help, a relative said Friday.

Barbagallo, 41, a mail carrier from San Clemente, was shot to death by Mark Richard Hilbun, who went on a killing rampage Thursday, police said. Just seconds before he died, Barbagallo tried to calm Hilbun, who had walked into the Dana Point Post Office that morning and started firing.

“We were told he tried to talk the man into not pulling the trigger,” said Vivian Boyd-Hall of New Hampton, N.Y., Barbagallo’s cousin and godmother. “That’s the kind of person Charles was. He was a peacemaker.”

News of Barbagallo’s death has spread through the small cities of New Hampton and Goshen, N.Y., and New Milford, Pa., where his parents now live and where a family reunion had been scheduled for May 30.

“He was going to fly in. Now I don’t know what we’ll do,” Boyd-Hall said.

Barbagallo was an only child and a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., who moved with his parents to New Hampton, a town of about 4,000 about 50 miles northwest of Manhattan. He became an honor student at John S. Burke Catholic High School in nearby Goshen, where he loved concerts, plays and his pets, especially dogs, Boyd-Hall said.

“He loved dogs. Any dog he had did everything but talk,” Boyd-Hall said. “That’s because Charles was so gentle and loving with them. He was really a good kid.”

After graduating from State University of New York, College at New Paltz, Barbagallo got a job with the U.S. Postal Service and headed to California to escape the cold winters of New York, Boyd-Hall said. In California, he met Mary Jane Galletly, a nurse, and they shared a home in San Clemente.

But he remained close to his parents, Boyd-Hall said. His mother used to send him Italian food that he said he couldn’t get in California, as well as Toll House cookies and apple pie.

“His mother lived for Charles,” Boyd-Hall said. “He was all she had. We are all only children in our family. Maybe that’s why we are so close.”

Barbagallo’s parents flew to California on Thursday night and are staying with another postal worker who worked with him in Dana Point. As long as Hilbun is still at large, Galletly and the family have been told to stay clear of the home in San Clemente, Boyd-Hall said.

Barbagallo’s fellow postal workers say it is ironic that the two friends of Hilbun’s, Barbagallo and Peter Gates, were shot. Gates was wounded.

“Hilbun was more friendly with the two people he shot than any other people in the building,” said a Dana Point mail carrier who asked to remain anonymous.