“He’s Safe With Me, I Promise.” He Wasn’t.
“He’s Safe With Me, I Promise.” He Wasn’t.
Pharaoh Lance VanVactor was born on July 24th, 2011, in Lancaster, California, to parents Douglas Van Vactor, who went by the name Rick, and Adriana Brown. Adriana chose the name Pharaoh for a reason, as she knew from day one that her son was going to be her little king, and he certainly lived up to it. He had strong opinions about how things should go, right down to how he played with other kids, but his grandmother Carol Roberson said just that smile would win you over. His family remembered him as a boy who could light up any room he walked into, as he waved at strangers, said hi to everyone he passed, and if he spotted someone who looked sad or hurt, he would walk right over and put his arm around them. He had a big heart for such a little guy and never needed to be asked twice when there was something to be done, especially around the kitchen.
Music was his thing of any kind, and he would dance and sing to all of it, while also loving eating, drinking juice, going to amusement parks, swimming, and taking trips to Chuck E. Cheese. Bath time was a highlight, and so was brushing his teeth, which apparently was a genuine passion for him. He liked playing with other kids and had a full rotation of favorites, including hide and seek, patty cake, little piggies, and peekaboo. Story time was a big one too, as he never turned down a book from his mom or his dad. At the time of the events of today’s story, Pharaoh was only two years old, and at some point, Rick and Adriana separated and shared custody of Pharaoh, their only child together.
Rick, who was 41 at the time, lived in the Los Angeles area and worked as a shuttle bus driver, later going on to become a certified personal trainer, a tap dance instructor, drive for Uber, and sell wigs and extensions online through his business Temple Pure Hair. Rick’s social media accounts painted a man who enjoyed fitness as well as traveling the world, and Rick is most known for his appearance on Before the 90 Days. Meanwhile, 22-year-old Adriana was from California City, a sprawling, sparsely populated desert city in Kern County about 110 miles northeast of Los Angeles. California City is one of those places that sounds bigger than it really is, having been planned in the 1950s to become a major metropolitan center with wide streets laid out across the Mojave Desert in a grid pattern.
At the time, Adriana was dating a 26-year-old man named Matthew Kenneth Barry, and Rick had met Matthew twice in person while they spoke on the phone a few times. According to Rick, their relationship was kind of volatile and they argued all the time, but he never mentioned anything physical. Adriana had met Matthew through a mutual friend in California City, and by the fall of 2013, they had been together for about five months. She held off on introducing him to Pharaoh for the first couple of months, and when she finally did, Matthew was eager to win the boy over. Pharaoh wasn’t always warm to him, but Adriana figured it was because her son was missing Rick, since Rick and Pharaoh were very close.
Matthew apparently had a temper, which Adriana described by stating that he could get very mad and would punch things like walls, but she was clear that he had never been physically violent to her or to Pharaoh. People close to Matthew said he had been in the military and had since become a drug user, with his sister stating he was suffering from PTSD, but no one suspected what Matthew was actually capable of. On Sunday morning, November 17th, 2013, Adriana and Matthew drove to Rick’s Los Angeles area home to pick up Pharaoh, and Rick handed his son over at 4:30 a.m., which would be the last time Rick ever saw his little boy alive. A few days later, on November 19th, Matthew, Adriana, and Pharaoh were running errands together when Matthew said he needed to make a run out to the Home Depot in Mojave for some tools.
Adriana asked to be dropped off at their California City home first, and he agreed, then asked if he could take Pharaoh with him, to which she said yes as they headed out at 2:30 that afternoon. The plan was to be home before dark, but about an hour after Matthew left, Adriana started texting him because she wanted Pharaoh brought home. Matthew texted back claiming that they were already in Mojave, though California City to Mojave is only a 15-mile drive. Adriana then asked him to meet her so she could take Pharaoh to Lancaster to visit her mother, but Matthew never showed up, and her sister’s texts were met with claims that he couldn’t get the tools and had to go to Rosamond instead, before he stopped responding entirely.
Adriana got scared, rushed to her sister’s house, and called Matthew over and over without any answer, eventually calling hospitals and finally going to the sheriff’s office on Wednesday morning to report Pharaoh missing. At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, November 20th, detectives sat down with Adriana and told her that her son was dead. What investigators uncovered was that Matthew never went to the Home Depot and instead took Pharaoh off-roading in the Mojave Desert outside of California City, where his truck became stuck in the sand and investigators later found it. On the morning of November 20th, a bus driver spotted Matthew and a small child lying beside a road outside California City and pulled over to ask if they needed help or a ride into town.
Matthew carried Pharaoh onto the bus and told the driver the boy wasn’t breathing, prompting the driver to call his dispatch and arrange for medical aid while driving toward the city center. During that bus ride, a dispatcher pleaded with Matthew to perform CPR on Pharaoh, but Matthew refused and also refused to let anyone near the child. It wasn’t until Matthew spotted police waiting at a California City intersection that he began to perform CPR, but by then it was far too late. California City police, firefighters, and paramedics met the bus at the intersection of Neuralia Road and California City Boulevard, where Pharaoh was pronounced dead at the scene and Matthew was arrested immediately.
Rick got the news the following day by phone, stating that the coroner called him and told him his son was beaten to death, while he still had a voicemail on his phone from Matthew saying the boy was safe and promising nothing would happen to him. The Kern County Coroner’s office determined that Pharaoh died of blunt force trauma, and his death was ruled a homicide. Court documents released in the days after Matthew’s arrest detailed the full extent of Pharaoh’s injuries, showing that his face, the top and back of his head, and the area around his spine were all bruised, with more marks running across his arms, legs, and inner thighs from head to toe. The official autopsy confirmed blunt force trauma to the head and abdomen with bleeding on the brain, and investigators also noted tearing to the child’s anus, which reports stated Matthew chuckled upon hearing.
When investigators confronted Matthew with these findings, his story started to shift as he initially claimed Pharaoh flew out of his car seat and hit the dashboard during their off-roading trip and that he performed CPR afterward, later trying to suggest the CPR itself caused the bruising, a claim a reviewing pathologist knocked down. After Matthew’s first court appearance, Pharaoh’s maternal grandmother Carol Roberson expressed her anguish in the courthouse lobby, saying she just wanted to know why and noting she had a bad feeling about Matthew from the beginning because he couldn’t maintain eye contact. Rick stated he could not accept any punishment less than the death penalty, feeling anything less would mean Matthew got off too easy, and before the funeral, family members were allowed to view Pharaoh’s body, with Rick noting he could only see his son’s head and arms.
Matthew was charged with first-degree murder and assault on a child under the age of eight resulting in death, and he was held without bail in the Kern County Jail after pleading not guilty. The case moved slowly with arraignments pushed back, stretching across nearly five years, though it ultimately did not go to trial because in October of 2018, Matthew changed his plea to no contest to first-degree murder. On December 19th, 2018, he was sentenced in Kern County Superior Court to 25 years to life in prison. Former deputy DA Nick Lackey addressed the court, stating that Matthew Kenneth Barry took his girlfriend’s toddler out to the desert and beat him brutally before taking his body onto a bus where many people noticed he had a dead child and notified the police.
Lackey added that nothing could bring the victim back or make the family whole again, but that it was an appropriate sentence for a man who deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison. While it remains difficult to understand why Matthew received 25 to life when others who committed far less received life without parole, records from the California Department of Corrections as of May 2026 show Matthew remains incarcerated at age 38, with a parole eligibility date listed as May of 2031. Although he is very unlikely to ever be paroled given the horrific nature of his crime, seeing that date as just five years away remains deeply unsettling for all who remember the case.
Rick started posting videos of Pharaoh on YouTube one month after his son’s death, and many of those videos remain available online today as a bittersweet archive of a bright little boy’s life. His later videos transitioned mainly into workout content, travel, and lifestyle footage, but Pharaoh is still subtly present in the background through photos on the mantle, a framed painting, or a drawing. If one watches Rick’s 2019 workout video titled Tap Out XT Sprawl and Brawl, the framed photo of Pharaoh can be clearly seen behind him as he trains. Years went by as Rick built a new life, marrying again and having more children, so that by late 2025 he had five kids in total, consisting of three grown from previous relationships and two young sons aged two and six, while his oldest child was already 29 years old.
In an interview, Rick expressed that he loves being a dad, noting that it brings joy to his heart and that he considers it a blessing. In late 2025, Rick was cast on season 8 of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days on TLC, a show that followed Americans pursuing relationships with people overseas. TLC described Rick as a jack of all trades and a divorced single dad who believed he had finally found the right woman to complete his family. Rick, now 52 at the time of filming, traveled to Madagascar to meet his girlfriend Trisha Staley, a 25-year-old midwife. According to Rick, he loves to travel, and on a recent trip, he met two very attractive women from Madagascar, thought to himself how beautiful they were, and decided to go on a dating site in search of love in Madagascar.
The show did not lead with the tragedy of Pharaoh, focusing instead on Rick and Trisha’s long-distance relationship, a five-day ghosting incident, and some pretty significant trust issues that came to light over the course of the season. Although we choose not to delve too deeply into Rick’s appearance on Before the 90 Days because the core focus should remain on honoring Pharaoh’s memory, a specific clip from part one of the Tell All proved particularly jarring and controversial. During the exchange, tensions flared regarding personal backgrounds and parental standing, leading to heated remarks where past lives and personal attacks were brought into question on national television.
Although Rick has been in the public eye recently due to his television appearance, he has not made any extended public statements regarding Pharaoh’s death beyond the initial interviews he gave back in November of 2013. Pharaoh’s funeral was held on Wednesday, November 27th, 2013, exactly one week after his body was found, with Forest Lawn Valley Memorial Park and Mortuary in Newhall, California, handling the arrangements. Those who came to say their final goodbyes remembered him as a happy, vibrant kid who loved to dance and was always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone around him. His obituary, written by the people who loved him most, concluded with a powerful and enduring message: we love you, Pharaoh, live like the king you are.
