A Mother's Story (22 page)

As I return from the toilet, I hiss at Wayne, ‘I am not going to go back and sit in that police car not knowing anything while they all have their fucking arse-covering meeting in here. You go and tell them right now to come out here and you tell them to tell me what's going on, because if you don't I'm going to go in there and I'm going to be really angry.'

Wayne looks a little concerned and dutifully goes inside. I am seething. I
need
to know what's happening. This is my son! I
deserve
to know what's happening.

One of the senior police officers comes out to the car and explains that they have established a major crime scene. ‘Luke has been killed, Rosie. And Greg has been shot. We need to do a thorough investigation.'

Tears run down my face as I nod.

After a while, I can sit in the car no longer. I walk back into the clubhouse and find the sergeant in charge. ‘I want to see my little boy,' I say, choking back tears. ‘He's all alone out there. I need to be with him.'

‘I'm sorry, Rosie, but you can't go out there,' comes the reply. ‘We're looking after him, I promise.'

‘But I need to see him.'

‘Trust me, Rosie, you wouldn't want to see him like that,' the sergeant responds. ‘It's not how you should remember him.'

As I walk back to the car, I can make out the shape of a small body lying in the cricket nets. I can't go to him. I have to leave him out there in the cold. My boy. My baby boy. Alone out there in the nets.

Tyabb oval is your typical playing field in semi-rural Victoria: a patch of manicured brown-green grass set among the paddocks that encircle the township. There's the Ivor Ransom Scoreboard at one end of the oval, and large metal signs around the oval's fence advertising the Kings Creek Hotel (Bingo on Thursdays), the Peninsula Motor Inn and Harvey Smash Repairs.

Families from the area spend lots of time driving to and from the Tyabb oval, and standing on its sidelines. Sheltering from blazing summer sun during the cricket season and shivering on the periphery during the cold winter mornings of the AFL season. It's a safe place, for the most part. A place where the wholesome practice of junior sport is carried out year round. It's not the sort of place you expect your child will witness a murder.

Of all the unbearable details of that night, 12 February, easily one of the worst is that the only eyewitness to Luke's death was an eight-year-old boy. He had left his cricket bag at the nets and had gone back to collect it while his dad, Cameron, waited in the car park.

The little boy ran, screaming in a wide-eyed panic across the grass to his dad. ‘The man hit the boy! He hit him with the cricket bat. He hit the boy in the yellow T-shirt in the head.'

As Cameron would tell me later, it took a moment for him to register. At first, he thought his son was telling him he had been hit by a cricket bat. But that made no sense. He was panting there in front of him, looking perfectly normal. Then he looked across to the cricket nets and saw Greg kneeling over Luke, who was lying prostrate and motionless on the ground. Cameron says he looked on in confusion as I ran towards him, screaming for him to call an ambulance. He called triple zero, telling them to send an ambulance immediately, then he saw me fall down, get up, fall down again, wailing, yelling for anyone to help.

Having dispatched an ambulance from Frankston, the ambulance officer asked Cameron to go to the nets and report back on the extent of Luke's injuries. I was screaming about a cricket ball to the head; his son had come running with a story of a father hitting his son with a cricket bat. It was all happening against the backdrop of a normal summer's evening of cricket practice, and none of it made sense.

Cameron approached the cricket nets and came within 5 metres of Greg, who had gotten up to his bag then returned to sit down next to Luke.

‘Is he okay?' Cameron asked, following the prompts of the ambulance dispatch officer. ‘Is he breathing?'

Greg turned and, upon seeing Cameron approach, jumped to his feet and charged at him, shouting at him to stay back.

Cameron recoiled, horrified not only at having Greg run at him, but also at the sight of Luke, lying in a pool of blood.

‘Is he okay?' he asked again.

‘He's fine,' Greg replied. ‘He's gone to heaven now.'

Cameron was in shock – now suddenly party to a horror that had nothing to do with him. He was simply taking his boys home from cricket training.

When finally the ambulance arrived – having initially gone to the wrong oval in Tyabb and then missed the turn-off to the cricket club – two paramedics leaped out and made towards the cricket nets. Greg wouldn't let them anywhere near Luke, threatening them with a knife. They retreated to their ambulance and waited for the police to arrive and contain the situation.

Police reports from the night record that when the police arrived, they jumped from their cars and ran towards the cricket nets. Upon seeing them approach, Greg got up from the nets and met them halfway across the lawn between the nets and clubhouse, covered in blood, knife in hand.

‘Drop your weapon and get on the ground!' they screamed at him, drawing their guns. Greg continued to advance on them. By now, there were four or five police officers and multiple cars. The scene was a blur of sirens and flashing lights and shouting.

Brandishing the knife, Greg ignored police commands to get down, to drop his weapon. One of the police officers pulled out his capsicum spray – but it dissipated in the wind and had no effect.

‘Drop your weapon! Get down on the ground!'

Greg kept advancing. He lunged at one of the officers. Two shots rang out in the night. Greg fell to his knees, then collapsed on the ground, felled by a bullet to his chest. The police officers approached, one of them kicking the knife to the side, guns drawn and pointed at the hulking man writhing on the ground in front of them. He had been shot, but was still thrashing. It
took several police and paramedics to subdue him and restrain him until the police helicopter arrived.

‘Let me die! Just let me die!' he protested as paramedics tended to him.

When finally the paramedics reached Luke in the cricket nets, he was dead. He had been dead for almost thirty minutes. One of Greg's shoes had been placed beneath his head, one of Greg's shirts placed over his head.

Greg was airlifted to hospital and admitted to emergency surgery. He died just after midnight.

*

I still feel sick about whether Luke knew what was about to happen. If he did, why didn't he run? Why didn't he scream out? Was it because Greg was his father and he trusted him implicitly? If Greg had said, ‘Turn around, Luke, and look the other way, we are going to go to another world together' – was that something he would have done? Was there any fear? Was there a moment when he wondered where his mother was, and why she wasn't there to protect him? It's a thought that horrifies me and will haunt me for the rest of my days.

I am only grateful that I didn't see it happen. I don't know what force in the universe made me turn my back on the cricket nets at the moment Greg killed Luke, but I will be eternally indebted to it. Had I seen it coming, had I realised what Greg was about to do but been powerless to get there in time to do anything about it – I would be living a whole different sort of horror.

As it is, I already torture myself daily with the what-ifs. What if we had stayed home from training that afternoon? What
if I had put my foot down and said no to the extra five minutes of practice in the cricket nets? What if we had never returned from England? What if I had never met Greg?

‘It was premeditated,' the homicide detectives all told me on the night. ‘You did nothing wrong.'

But what if Luke knew it was coming? What if he was in those cricket nets, even momentarily aware of what was about to happen? What if in that moment of fear he looked for me and I wasn't there to save him?

I didn't read the autopsy report, because I knew it would be too distressing. But I was assured by those who did, and those I trusted, that Luke would have lost consciousness from the initial blow to the back of his head. He would not have felt a thing. He would not have been conscious when his father cut his throat.

It's funny how in the most awful of circumstances you can find comfort. No matter how unspeakably heinous the situation, the human spirit finds consolation in the smallest of things. The smallest of mercies.

Around midnight of the night Luke was killed, I was taken to Mornington Police Station to give a statement. The police had offered me the opportunity to put off giving my statement until the following day – but I wanted it all recorded, I wanted it out of the way. Even in the depths of shock and despair, I knew there needed to be a reckoning – and the process had to start straight away.

And so I sat in an interview room with two detectives and I talked. And I talked, and talked and talked. They wanted the whole story from the beginning. Where and how Greg and I had met, what the nature of our relationship had been, exactly what I had witnessed at Tyabb oval.

At some point while I was giving my statement, displaying a kind of out-of-body composure in the face of events that should have rendered me speechless, Greg died on the emergency operating table. Doctors had tried to save him from the injuries sustained by the gunshot wounds, but they were unable to. A small mercy for all concerned.

Early the next morning, I was dropped home in a police patrol car. Lee was awake, waiting for me to return. I floated in a kind of daze into the house and opened a bottle of wine. Lee looked at me as if to say, are you sure that's a good idea? At this time of the morning? And I threw him back a look that said, I don't give a fuck what time of the morning it is, I'm having a drink. I sat at the kitchen table with Natasha and Lee and, still in shock, we drank the bottle.

I must have taken myself off to bed and fallen asleep at some stage. When I woke up, I was still in my clothes from the day before. I became aware that the house was filled with people. I came out of my bedroom, still dazed and confused. Silence fell as I walked into the room, my hair a mess, my clothes crumpled, my face puffy from crying. Someone offered me a cup of tea, another asked if I wanted something to eat. I batted them both away. I didn't want anything. I curled up on the couch cuddling Luke's SpongeBob SquarePants soft toy, half-listening to the hushed talk around me.

Everyone was in shock, all speaking about how unexpected it was that Greg had killed Luke in such a violent way. And all I remember thinking was, well of course Luke had to die. As Greg's world had continued to contract around him, as I had started to pull away from his influence and control, as Luke had begun to show signs of wanting to put some distance between himself and his father, there was never going to be any other outcome. Greg had killed Luke to make me suffer. It was his final act of control and power. While I had clung for so many years to a desperate belief that Greg would never hurt Luke, it was obvious to me now that there was no other possible outcome.

At a certain point I tuned in to a conversation that a group of my friends were having about what to do about the media
pack that had assembled outside my front gate. One of them volunteered to go out and tell them there was no comment to be made, that I just wanted to be left alone.

And I remember sitting up and saying, ‘Hang on a minute. You're trying to make decisions about what? On my behalf? Without me? No you're not. If anyone is going to deal with the media it is me. This is happening to me. He was my son, this is my pain. I won't have anyone speaking on my behalf.'

The room was stunned into silence. It was only day one and people were already struggling to come to terms with my style of mourning. The tiptoeing around, the walking on eggshells: I knew it was well-meaning and I appreciated the concern, but I just wanted people to act normally around me. I craved conversation, even banter, not just respectful silence. This was my home, not a funeral parlour. I needed my friends to be friends. To cajole and make inappropriate jokes. To stop modifying their behaviour as if I had become a completely different person. I was more than aware of the tragedy that had befallen me. I didn't need it amplified with cloying behaviour. It was my son who had been killed, so I would be the one to set the tone for how I would grieve that loss, not anyone else.

And so, horrified at the thought that someone else would speak on my behalf, I went outside towards the waiting media pack. I had no idea what I was going to say. I was just determined to get out there and speak. I mean, what could possibly happen? It wasn't as if the twenty journalists out there, with their cameras and notebooks and iPhone recorders, meant me any harm. I figured they had come all this way, they were out there trying to do their job, I would simply walk out and thank them for coming and tell them that I just needed to be left alone. My philosophy had always been, whether it was a colleague or a tradesperson
who has come to fix something at your house, just let people do their job properly.

I would learn months later that I had deviated from the playbook when it comes to these things, and that this split-second decision would set in train another series of events that would completely change my life. Apparently, accepted practice in these situations is for a member of the bereaved's family to come out, make a statement and send the journalists back to their respective newsrooms.

As I approached, cameras were pulled up onto shoulders, microphones were extended in expectation and notebooks were primed. What I didn't know at the time was that none of the assembled reporters knew that I was Luke's mother.

As one of the reporters would later tell me, it was only as I started to speak that it began to dawn on them that I wasn't a family representative, but in fact the mother who had just witnessed her son being murdered. I was too dazed and confused to really register any reaction among them, but people have told me the effect was electric.

My friends started to walk towards me to try to form some sort of protective shield around me. But this was my journey, this was my pain. I had spent a lifetime standing on my own two feet, and that wasn't about to change now. I hadn't planned to say anything other than ‘thank you for coming', but as I stood there, I felt the need to account for myself. Out of respect for Luke's memory, I wanted them to know a little about his and my story.

And so the words just started tumbling out.

‘No one loved Luke more than Greg,' I began, fighting back tears. ‘No one loved Luke more than me. We both loved him. I did what I believed was in the best interests of Luke. He was a little boy in a growing body that felt pain and sadness and fear for
his mum. And he always believed he would be safe with his dad. And he would have trusted Greg.

‘If anything comes out of this, I want it to be a lesson to everybody. Family violence happens to everybody, no matter how nice your house is or how intelligent you are. It happens to everyone. And this has been an eleven-year battle.'

I finished speaking and everyone had fallen silent. I thanked the reporters for their understanding and turned to walk back inside. I had no idea what time of the day it was; I had no idea what I had said. All I remember thinking afterwards was: God, I hope I didn't say something stupid.

Looking back, I was clearly in shock. You're in a state where you don't really know what you are doing or why you are doing it. Those first few days were all a blur. I can't remember the chronology of anything. Days turned into nights, and nights somehow turned back into days. I spent most of the time curled up on the couch hugging SpongeBob. I didn't change my clothes for three days. People kept trying to get me to eat. I think I may have nibbled on a strawberry, but I wasn't hungry. I don't know why people feel the need to feed you at moments like that. The last thing you feel like doing is eating. It was not like I was going to starve. But I guess it gives them something to do. To make sure ‘you keep your strength up' – even though you feel like there's nothing in life worth keeping your strength up for.

I would wake up and there would be people at the end of the couch, or sitting around my bed. Each time I came out to the living room, the house would be filled with more people and more flowers. And over the course of the next two or three days, I told and retold my version of events at Tyabb oval, probably just trying to make sense of it all myself.

There were so many people at the house that my friend Molly
went out and brought in one of those big hot-water urns, and someone else went out and bought a load of new coffee mugs, because I didn't have enough. And everyone just came and went, to support me, to support each other.

Somehow, and I don't know how people knew, but they all got the message that I wanted people to come. If they were friends and they wanted to see me, or mourn Luke, I made it clear that they should feel free to come. And so they did. It was a stream of people. Anyone who knew me in any way, shape or form came. My friends were obviously there, but also people from the cricket club, representatives of the school, the local church, Luke's AFL team. His death had touched people in a fundamental way: the flowers and tributes poured in as complete strangers mourned the death of a little boy they didn't know, but whose brutal passing had touched the humanity in all of us. Mourning the boy killed by his father at cricket practice, mourning for God only knows what personal tragedies his death had reminded them of.

Lee had been to my doctor to get a script for painkillers, and when the thoughts in my head became too loud and the simple act of being awake proved too painful, I took them and fell into a fitful sleep. But there was no respite in sleep. I would dream of Luke. I would wake and wonder why his feet were not touching mine in the bed. And then it would hit me and I would wish I were dead. Death was preferable to enduring another waking hour knowing that I had lost my little boy for good.

And then I received a call that someone needed to identify Luke's body. Again, a host of friends stepped up, all offering to undertake the onerous task. But I was determined to do it myself. He was my son. I was his mother. I felt like it was my duty. As a parent sometimes you just have to step up to the plate and do the things that are tough. I had been there for him from the very
beginning of his life, and I wasn't about to abandon him now at the end of it.

I asked my friend Jill to come with me to the morgue. Of all my friends, she was the most level-headed and sensible. I didn't need histrionics, I just needed calm. And so we drove in to Melbourne together, located the morgue and went inside. After a series of formalities, we were led down a maze of corridors and into a dimly lit room. And there he was. He was just lying there, looking like he was asleep. It was my Luke, but it wasn't him. There was a glass screen separating us. He was lying on his back so that I could see his face in profile. He had a white cloth around his neck. He didn't look battered or bruised, as I had feared he might. There was no obvious sign of the trauma he had suffered to the back of his head. It was him, but without the essence of him.

I remember talking to him, telling him how I would miss his spaghetti legs on me in bed. I sat in the half-light, telling him about the fuss that was being made over him, the flowers, the cards, the people who had come to the house to celebrate his life. I told him how his dog, Lily the golden retriever, was missing him, how she pined for one of his cuddles. I told him how the PlayStation hadn't been turned on for days, and joked that it must be a new record. I told him how sorry I was. How, as his mother, I'd only had one job to do in life: to protect him. And how I had failed. And how I would have to live with that for the rest of my life.

I talked to him for quite a bit, and I could have gone beyond the screen, but I didn't. Because I would have been tempted to touch him. And I knew that if I did, he wouldn't be Luke.

I wanted to sit there and talk to him all day, but I knew I couldn't. I knew I was going to have to muster the strength to leave. I took one last longing look at my little boy, then turned and walked out the door.