Speaker 1: I'm Jemma Bath, host of True Crime Conversations, and welcome
Speaker 1: to part two of this episode revisiting a domestic violence
Speaker 1: crime with both the victim and perpetrator twenty six years
Speaker 1: after the fact. If you haven't listened to Elena's story,
Speaker 1: head there first. In her late twenties, Elena was threatened
Speaker 1: with a knife by a man she'd recently broken up with.
Speaker 1: The incident left her terrified, and it took a year
Speaker 1: long decline in her mental health for her to finally
Speaker 1: be diagnosed with PTSD. Now we're hearing from Kai, not
Speaker 1: his real name. We're keeping him anonymous at his request,
Speaker 1: but in our chat he didn't shy away from taking
Speaker 1: ownership for his actions. A reminder that this is just
Speaker 1: one story, and if you've been the victim of a
Speaker 1: violent crime, please don't take Elena and Kai's story as instructive.
Speaker 1: In most cases, women should never reconnect with their abuser.
Speaker 1: Cutting them out of your life is essential in the
Speaker 1: majority of cases. As far as we're concerned, encouraged, Kai
Speaker 1: and Alaina's story is very unique. Because they have reconnected,
Speaker 1: We've been given a chance to really examine the crime
Speaker 1: that shape them from all angles. To hear about how
Speaker 1: it affected them in the aftermath, on what path their
Speaker 1: lives took for the nearly three decades after just a Warning,
Speaker 1: Kai does delve into suicidal ideation, and there is some
Speaker 1: strong language used in one section of our chat. Here's Kai.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. Why
Speaker 1: are you here? Why have you decided to tell your
Speaker 1: side of the story.
Speaker 2: I'm here to assist everybody to understand the details of
Speaker 2: what happened with me and how I got there, and
Speaker 2: then you know, the tragedies that was you know, that
Speaker 2: came from everything and generally, yeah, truly genuinely would like
Speaker 2: to share my side of the story for the embedterment
Speaker 2: of women. And I know that, you know, men need
Speaker 2: to take responsibility and they need to you know, do
Speaker 2: work on themselves, and most don't know how to. And
Speaker 2: so because I've gone to rock bottom and committed crimes
Speaker 2: and crime against women, I think it's really important to
Speaker 2: turn up and to tell the whole storyline so that
Speaker 2: everybody can look at it and you know, take something
Speaker 2: from it, whether they're and you know, women problems in
Speaker 2: that in this type of space are caused by men,
Speaker 2: So it's only natural that men should come up to
Speaker 2: you know, turn up for the women and you know
Speaker 2: atone if that's the word, or to do more in
Speaker 2: their lives because you know, men need help.
Speaker 1: It's a really heartening answer to here. Actually, thank you
Speaker 1: for being here and for saying that.
Speaker 2: That's my pleasure, it's an honor.
Speaker 1: Before we get to that night in two thousand and
Speaker 1: everything that happened, tell us a bit about how you
Speaker 1: grew up your childhood, what kind of influenced you.
Speaker 2: I come from a very big family, and I come
Speaker 2: from a family, a Samoan family, and yeah, we had
Speaker 2: a really good upbringing. We're working class and parents worked
Speaker 2: really hard, made all the sacrifices, and at that time
Speaker 2: a lot of Pacific Island parents couldn't afford to put
Speaker 2: this their children into private schools. In our case, we
Speaker 2: were put into a private school that had turned public
Speaker 2: and they took in big numbers of Maori and Pacific
Speaker 2: Island students guys school and yeah, so I went to
Speaker 2: that sort of setup. I didn't do well at all
Speaker 2: linguistically language wise. We were always like five years behind everybody,
Speaker 2: you know, so if we're you know, we were still
Speaker 2: all at that time speaking Samoan from the ages of
Speaker 2: five to nine, so you know that we carried into
Speaker 2: our older years. If you didn't, you know, work things
Speaker 2: out fast enough, you would take that right through your
Speaker 2: whole career, and generally speaking, you would need to go
Speaker 2: back to school again, or you know, get lower jobs,
Speaker 2: et cetera, or go to My family upbringing was really
Speaker 2: really good. My parents were really hard working and they
Speaker 2: made us. They put us in a good position.
Speaker 1: What about things like drugs, alcohol, violence? When did they
Speaker 1: start appearing in your life?
Speaker 2: For me, it was even my brothers didn't even know that,
Speaker 2: you know, we were watching them. I was, you know,
Speaker 2: like the second youngest, and growing up as a little kid,
Speaker 2: you know, it was normal. It was just brothers and
Speaker 2: you know, a hierarchy in the brothers. And then you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I was about eleven and twelve that
Speaker 2: I started seeing things like we could look out the
Speaker 2: window and in the park and we would see other
Speaker 2: Pacific Island kids. We knew, you know, that they had
Speaker 2: had lost their way already, and so they were in
Speaker 2: the park sniffing glue. And that's so we were Christian,
Speaker 2: you know, Sam Owens, and we went to church and that.
Speaker 2: So that's all we knew really was church and our culture.
Speaker 2: But then when we looked out the window into the park,
Speaker 2: we would always see that. I could never thought that
Speaker 2: I had would graduate to something like that. So essentially
Speaker 2: I was copying what they were doing from watching from afar.
Speaker 2: And I started petrol sniffing in the garage around about
Speaker 2: twelve thirteen, and then so young, yeap. But the kids
Speaker 2: that were out there doing that, Maori and Pacific kids,
Speaker 2: they happened to be doing that, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so it was kind of like two worlds. Clearly we're
Speaker 2: in two worlds. And then there was a world in
Speaker 2: the park that I could see, and I gravitated to that.
Speaker 2: And as I got older, my older brothers got older,
Speaker 2: and then they started drinking the working and drinking, so
Speaker 2: it was casual working and drinking. And then what they
Speaker 2: didn't know, as I was gradually getting older and older,
Speaker 2: that I was hiding a lot behind there, you know.
Speaker 2: And so when they would have their drinking parties or
Speaker 2: their twenty first parties, we would be the barman, and
Speaker 2: so we would take like about seventy six cases of beer,
Speaker 2: Me and my best friend. We would hide about ten
Speaker 2: of them under the house. We would you know, rip
Speaker 2: them off at the party, and then during the following
Speaker 2: weeks we would have our own party and then we
Speaker 2: would go to school and hide some of them at
Speaker 2: the school. And yeah, so we lived double lives as.
Speaker 1: Very early, but it was normalized.
Speaker 2: We hid it so well from our parents, who you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't even know.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a bit about how your culture
Speaker 1: or your family treated women. Was respect and like equality
Speaker 1: for women something that was demonstrated.
Speaker 2: To you from what I had seen generally, and this
Speaker 2: is my experience, women were treated good. But men and
Speaker 2: women if they stepped out of line, you'd get the
Speaker 2: same punishment, which is severe. Like you know, yeah, you were.
Speaker 1: Just what is stepping out of line? What would stepping
Speaker 1: out of line look like for a woman?
Speaker 2: For women? You know, not doing what people were told.
Speaker 2: This is a general thing, you know, and if you
Speaker 2: don't do what you're told, then it is reinforced by violence, right,
Speaker 2: And so that was the kind of like irony or
Speaker 2: the paradox. You know, our parents loved us and they
Speaker 2: people can meter it out, you know, properly as it
Speaker 2: should be, but there are cases where you know, you know,
Speaker 2: and I've seen it too. You know that my mother
Speaker 2: would always jump in and stop my father if it
Speaker 2: got out of control, and then vice versa. If my
Speaker 2: mother got out of control, then my father would jump in.
Speaker 2: But generally speaking, in some more culture, there's a film
Speaker 2: coming out and it's called Tanner and it talks of
Speaker 2: a tenor guy and he talks about it. He openly
Speaker 2: talks about it. It's going around. He'll be in Sydney
Speaker 2: Festival coming out, and you know, he talks about the
Speaker 2: severity of the punishment, you know, and that they also
Speaker 2: talk about the metering out of punishment and yeah, so
Speaker 2: you would get it very badly if you continue to
Speaker 2: be disruptive. So women, I couldn't really say that I
Speaker 2: didn't see like purposeful things in my life in my
Speaker 2: family because there was a male dominated But I can
Speaker 2: understand from seeing things going wrong when men grow up
Speaker 2: and then they take it out on their women and
Speaker 2: their kids. Yeah, that's what I can see. They don't
Speaker 2: hold back in terms of they're using their frustration of
Speaker 2: their situations and overstepping the load on a person, which
Speaker 2: is in most some oons or Pacific islands can tell
Speaker 2: you about that situation that it's sometimes it's completely over
Speaker 2: the top.
Speaker 1: Did you experience a lot of violence against you?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did. I experienced you know, violence from just
Speaker 2: you know, boys being boys, and then violence outside of
Speaker 2: our family. Yeah, early youth gangs. So the next thing
Speaker 2: we progressed into was we were Catholic boys, good private
Speaker 2: school boys. But then we were in organized street youth gangs,
Speaker 2: and violence was a big part of that. And we
Speaker 2: used to train, like in every martial art form because
Speaker 2: we're knowing we're going to be going on the street
Speaker 2: and that other those other gangs down the road. You know,
Speaker 2: if we if we clash, it's all on.
Speaker 1: The other part of your childhood I want to touch
Speaker 1: on is you were forced to carry a lot of
Speaker 1: grief in your childhood. Can you touch on that because
Speaker 1: you lost quite a few family members.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I lost two of my brothers in a car accident.
Speaker 2: So given that I was already on all of these things,
Speaker 2: a very young alcoholic, you know, I guess that was
Speaker 2: by thirteen, by you know, by sixteen, seventeen eighteen, it
Speaker 2: was all on. But I think you know that was
Speaker 2: around when I was twenty one years old, and as
Speaker 2: a male, you know, going through all of that, it
Speaker 2: was really hard, and I didn't have many people to
Speaker 2: really talk about it. You know. If if I had known,
Speaker 2: you know, about Louise Hay then you know, then that
Speaker 2: would have been great. But I only found out ten
Speaker 2: years later, you know, so I started to look at
Speaker 2: other you know, forms of new age and all of that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, since when my brothers died, it was very
Speaker 2: hard for me because I was assisting you know, my
Speaker 2: family with our family business as well. You know, I
Speaker 2: was still in the church, you know, and yeah, it
Speaker 2: was really hard to take, you know, because it was
Speaker 2: on a night that it was at one of my
Speaker 2: friends party. Yeah, so, you know, losing them started, you know,
Speaker 2: a massive decline for me, and I started getting into
Speaker 2: hitting the drugs and alcohol, you know, that whole front
Speaker 2: that everything was okay, you know, I'm really strong, you know,
Speaker 2: big boys don't cry and all of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But in hindsight, looking back at it, I started to
Speaker 2: get into I just didn't care. I just you know,
Speaker 2: I actually wanted to die, you know, when I look
Speaker 2: back at it now, I really wanted to die. I
Speaker 2: hated my hated myself. You know, I didn't know I
Speaker 2: hated myself, but in everything that I did after definitely
Speaker 2: shows that, you know, I had lost respect for myself
Speaker 2: and then got into you know, drugs and alcohol and
Speaker 2: you know that smiling face in the front, but behind
Speaker 2: there was a massive tsunami of pain, anger, frustrate, it
Speaker 2: all hit and Yeah, so I used to you know,
Speaker 2: most of the people that I hang around with were
Speaker 2: related in gangs, et cetera, and was working on the doors.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a lot of drugs in the
Speaker 2: nightclubs and all of that sort of stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: there would be nights where I would take like twenty
Speaker 2: Exsta sy pills and survive that. Well, I'm still here,
Speaker 2: I'm still going. I used to drink, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't know I was a real full blow and alcoholic.
Speaker 2: When I was with one of my friends who was
Speaker 2: a meth dealer, and he was a nice guy. He
Speaker 2: seemed like a nice guy.
Speaker 1: A nice dealer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was actually a nice guy. He was very
Speaker 2: civil to me and I understand what he was doing.
Speaker 2: But one night we were he said, oh, yeah, come over.
Speaker 2: You know, we came over and then I wasn't a
Speaker 2: type to buymeth at all, but by hanging around with
Speaker 2: these guys all the time. I said, oh, try this,
Speaker 2: and next thing, I'm trying this. And then about in
Speaker 2: a few hours, I say, how are you feeling? Are
Speaker 2: you feeling all right? Is there everything? I said, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I'm fine. Yeah nothing actually, And then another three hours
Speaker 2: then they say how are you feeling now? I said, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: the same. Then nothing, I don't think it. And then
Speaker 2: they said to me, well you must be. You must
Speaker 2: be feeling it because you've drank one case of beer,
Speaker 2: one bottle of JDS and we have to go to
Speaker 2: the bottle shop. And I remember that night, right, and
Speaker 2: that's when my mind paused within that, within that dark
Speaker 2: time that's on just trying to show that that's the
Speaker 2: level of danger that I was doing to myself and
Speaker 2: I didn't care.
Speaker 1: It also shows the tolerance that you built up that
Speaker 1: you could handle that much our Cohlon drugs.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm not proud of it, because in reality
Speaker 2: now is although I have given up all of those things,
Speaker 2: the damage does not, you know, go away, just because
Speaker 2: you've stopped drinking and taking cocaine and all of that,
Speaker 2: like four to five years ago. The damage from twenty
Speaker 2: years five years is coming right now. Yeah, so I'm
Speaker 2: off everything. I don't do that anymore, but I do
Speaker 2: recognize that the damage of all of that is hitting
Speaker 2: me now.
Speaker 1: Up next, Kai tells me about the day he first
Speaker 1: met Elena. Let's go to the year two thousand, when
Speaker 1: you met Elena? Who were you then? Was this all happening? Then?
Speaker 2: At that time, I was still on my way down.
Speaker 2: And by the time I'm met Elena, you know, we
Speaker 2: were just hanging out and friends. And then yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what happened, and we were together. But you know, I
Speaker 2: do know that when we were staying together, I was
Speaker 2: still at that point where I was at the nightclubs,
Speaker 2: working and taking ten to fifteen twenty pills and coming
Speaker 2: home and trying to act straight, right, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what do you remember of that relationship. Do
Speaker 1: you remember it being a good, healthy relationship?
Speaker 2: Well, it was a okay relationship given what I've just said,
Speaker 2: you know, because I was still living a lie myself
Speaker 2: and I was hiding the fact that I was taking
Speaker 2: a lot of drugs and hanging around with a lot
Speaker 2: of people. The relationship, from what I can remember, because
Speaker 2: it was a long time, was you know, it was
Speaker 2: a normal loving relationship, a young people trying to find
Speaker 2: their way, and unfortunately, you know, the weight of everything
Speaker 2: it had to you know, it had to blow up
Speaker 2: in a sense. And that's where it all fell apart,
Speaker 2: was because you know, a lot of the drug taking
Speaker 2: and that I had never at that point in a
Speaker 2: relationship really given how bad it was, threatened her in
Speaker 2: a way, I was just normal. She was living with
Speaker 2: me and one of my friends, and she moved in
Speaker 2: and yeah, and so it kind of like at that
Speaker 2: same time the demise was coming really big and fast
Speaker 2: for me because of the alcohol and drug taking.
Speaker 1: When she broke up with you, she told us that
Speaker 1: you kept coming around a lot, and she kind of
Speaker 1: witnessed or watched you decline, as you say, she was
Speaker 1: watching you getting more and more distressed and upset. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that? Is that how you remember that time?
Speaker 2: I kind of like blocked a lot of it out.
Speaker 2: And there was only when I was just talking to Elena,
Speaker 2: you know about the podcast that listening to her, I
Speaker 2: was just going, oh, oh my god, please, no, wonder
Speaker 2: I blocked this out. You know, I'm such an idiot,
Speaker 2: and so, yeah, I really in honesty blocked it out
Speaker 2: of my head because you know, it was a reminder
Speaker 2: of that time and how she but I was. And
Speaker 2: that's a sad thing too, because you know, in hindsight,
Speaker 2: looking back at it, you know, Elena went off into
Speaker 2: her world, but she was obviously not well from that,
Speaker 2: and I was at that time that it happened, I
Speaker 2: was trying to save myself and I couldn't even have
Speaker 2: the courage to even think about Elena, to be honest,
Speaker 2: I was trying to think, how I'm going Am I
Speaker 2: going to stay alive? And that sounds probably selfish at
Speaker 2: this scene, but it was that was the reality. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, well.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the night. What do you remember about
Speaker 1: the night you were arrested? About the night everything happened.
Speaker 2: I was on drugs again, and I was drinking, which
Speaker 2: was even worse. I was drinking and drugs and alcohol
Speaker 2: was very bad. And yes, so all I remember was
Speaker 2: being at the house and something happened and I got upset.
Speaker 2: You know, I was feeling, you know, so down, and
Speaker 2: that I think at that time, I kind of like
Speaker 2: lost complete control of myself and I felt like just
Speaker 2: dying right there or then, or having any excuse to
Speaker 2: be to feel that way. So it was almost like
Speaker 2: I was I was almost showing myself, tempting myself to
Speaker 2: These are opportunities to either kill yourself or do something bad,
Speaker 2: so you can get shot by the coppers and it's
Speaker 2: a fast way out of here. That's how bad, you know.
Speaker 1: So when you grab the knife, were you thinking of
Speaker 1: yourself not hurting her?
Speaker 2: That's right in my mind. I wasn't, really, you know,
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. That's all I know. I don't remember,
Speaker 2: but I do know that I hated myself and that
Speaker 2: I would rather kill myself, you know. So I'm not
Speaker 2: sure on that night because I maybe had like five
Speaker 2: to seven pills and drank cases of beers and bottles
Speaker 2: of Jack Daniels was my weekly start the night off.
Speaker 1: Do you even do you have any memory of her
Speaker 1: that night? Because she was terrified? Can you picture her
Speaker 1: face or her reactions?
Speaker 2: I I can picture her face and her reactions, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's disappointing, you know, it's even to this day,
Speaker 2: it is still disappointing. Although my life has changed, although
Speaker 2: I have done this, it is disappointing that I did that,
Speaker 2: you know, with Elena. You know, of course she would
Speaker 2: have been scared, you know, and that I would be enraged,
Speaker 2: you know, from everything of the past, or just put
Speaker 2: into one, you know, and it's like it's just come
Speaker 2: out of me.
Speaker 1: You know that night Elena was powerless. You were a
Speaker 1: much bigger person than her. She was terrified. What is
Speaker 1: that like for you to think about a woman Elena
Speaker 1: being in that position where she feels so unsafe and
Speaker 1: she can't kind of get away.
Speaker 2: Now that you said that, it's like, I'm walking in
Speaker 2: back in that moment now, and I realized now that
Speaker 2: I locked the doors and trapped her in. I think
Speaker 2: I said something along the lines I want to kill myself,
Speaker 2: or I may, like I said, have threatened her. I
Speaker 2: think her ability to disarm me was a major turning
Speaker 2: point of the moment. She was able to do that
Speaker 2: because she was trained in martial arts that and it
Speaker 2: happened so quick, So in that particular situation, she was
Speaker 2: al though vulnerable, also strong mentally enough to do that,
Speaker 2: to engage in that. You know what, because I remember
Speaker 2: there's a tussle to get the knife. I obviously didn't
Speaker 2: win that tussle. She disarmed me so she was brave
Speaker 2: enough to use her combat skills to disarm me from
Speaker 2: hurting anybody.
Speaker 1: But there are so many women who don't win that tussle.
Speaker 1: Men are usually physically stronger than women, and we see
Speaker 1: time and time again that women are dying. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: that a sobering fact for you to understand and realize
Speaker 1: that could have happened exactly.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm so ashamed. You know, I was probably
Speaker 2: in denial about that happening to me, that that could
Speaker 2: have happened to me, but you know what it did,
Speaker 2: and so on that night, I never dreamed that that
Speaker 2: would happen to me. It happened. The reality is that
Speaker 2: she was able to disarm me. And if she didn't
Speaker 2: disarm me, I probably one thing is I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2: I don't you know, she may have not been here.
Speaker 2: The fact is that she was able to do that,
Speaker 2: you know, saved both of us.
Speaker 1: Do you remember being able to feel remorse for her
Speaker 1: in that moment or is that something that's come later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was not around because I was like gone, okay,
Speaker 2: but I do remember something happened and I kind of
Speaker 2: like come like dazed off or passed up. And then
Speaker 2: I looked up and I could see some blue and
Speaker 2: red lights bouncing off the wall, and I went, oh
Speaker 2: my god, what the hell? And so I realized, oh
Speaker 2: my god, what's happened here? And then I ran to
Speaker 2: the other side of the room, and I could see
Speaker 2: red and blue lights because we were on the third
Speaker 2: floor in a place in Bondai. And I looked down
Speaker 2: and I saw so many police cars, and then I
Speaker 2: started to add up one and one and then you know,
Speaker 2: and then I looked down and I could see all
Speaker 2: the police and then I saw a Lana down there,
Speaker 2: and I said, oh my god, something's happened. And then
Speaker 2: I realized, you know, because of the alcohol, and that
Speaker 2: that's something bad, is how thing, And so I had
Speaker 2: to talk to them from outside the window to ask them,
Speaker 2: you know, please, you know, please put your guns away.
Speaker 2: I'm happy for you guys to come up, but you know,
Speaker 2: the guy that got killed down the road, That's all
Speaker 2: I was thinking, because I was so scared. You know.
Speaker 2: After that, it was a traumatic night for Elena and
Speaker 2: for both of us, and I am so thankful that
Speaker 2: nothing serious happened on that night, but I can understand
Speaker 2: the amount of trauma that was caused to Elena and
Speaker 2: to her family and to my family as well.
Speaker 1: Are you sorry for what you did?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really sorry. I'm embarrassed. It's shameful, you know,
Speaker 2: because I let a lot of people down, and and
Speaker 2: my work and that found out. Everyone found out. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry for what happened, and sorry and thankful
Speaker 2: that nothing serious serious happened, that it never escalated to
Speaker 2: a higher level, you know where where she got hurt
Speaker 2: or I got hurt.
Speaker 1: I know that she called you and told you that
Speaker 1: she was going to be doing this podcast. Is that
Speaker 1: the first time you guys had spoken about that night?
Speaker 1: How was that for you?
Speaker 2: We had never spoken about the incident, the incident in
Speaker 2: full detail until she called me, because you know, but
Speaker 2: I had seen her many times out and about, you know,
Speaker 2: because we're in the same sort of and in those situations.
Speaker 2: She had a family and she had moved on, and
Speaker 2: I had never been well. I never spoke to her
Speaker 2: about it. We just got on with our lives.
Speaker 1: So you would have been unaware of the kind of
Speaker 1: after effects you experienced the PTSD, the kind of decline
Speaker 1: she felt for that year. What was it like hearing
Speaker 1: what your actions had done to her in the.
Speaker 2: Aftermath embarrassing again, you know, it's really when she explained
Speaker 2: it to me, I was, you know, I had my
Speaker 2: hands on my head looking down, you know, and I
Speaker 2: was happy to talk to her then, and you know,
Speaker 2: being here, I wanted to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 2: so for for her and for me and for others,
Speaker 2: for people to see, you know, how how quickly and
Speaker 2: how badly things can go, but where things came from.
Speaker 2: And she kind of like you know, protected me to
Speaker 2: quite a lot within that sort of framework, if that
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 1: You were arrested for what you did to her, and
Speaker 1: you went through the court proceedings. What was that like
Speaker 1: for you? Do you remember much of that?
Speaker 2: Because I was in court so many times then and
Speaker 2: even after, it's all molded into one big court case, right,
Speaker 2: you know, like I can't, to be honest, remember even
Speaker 2: being at the court. Really, yeah, that's how do.
Speaker 1: You remember what you were convicted with?
Speaker 2: No? I just you know, all I remember is that
Speaker 2: I had to speak about that in court in front
Speaker 2: of the magistrate, and I did or didn't have a
Speaker 2: legal support, you know, I don't even know the finer
Speaker 2: details of that.
Speaker 1: Do you think you have blocked that out from a
Speaker 1: psychological point or because of the drugs and alcohol or combination.
Speaker 2: I think it's both, because it was a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I was on so many drugs and that I can't
Speaker 2: even really weed out which core case was which court case, right,
Speaker 2: you know, because they were all very bad.
Speaker 1: Did you have a rock bottom? Where? When did all
Speaker 1: of this end? This constant drug taking in police and
Speaker 1: ending up in cells?
Speaker 2: When I guess when I was told the first part
Speaker 2: of it was when I was told by the magistrate
Speaker 2: to you're never out back into the eastern suburbs for
Speaker 2: ten years. Wow. Yeah, he doesn't want to see my
Speaker 2: face again and become in front of the court or else,
Speaker 2: you know you're looking at you know, data DA. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't until so I wasn't allowed back in the east.
Speaker 2: So I had a completely different you know, it was like,
Speaker 2: well that's where you were out west again, right, and
Speaker 2: it's like, all right, what's going out? So then I didn't.
Speaker 2: I blocked that whole life out, you know, I blocked
Speaker 2: everything out. I wasn't allowed to communicate obviously with Elena
Speaker 2: and all the people that I was hanging around with
Speaker 2: so it gave me a break to be away from everybody.
Speaker 2: And it was only by good fortune that I bumped
Speaker 2: into certain people that actually took me in and then
Speaker 2: I literally dried out. It went up and down again,
Speaker 2: up and down, you know, until there was a moment
Speaker 2: where I was in banks down and I rang up
Speaker 2: my mum and I told her I'm going to kill
Speaker 2: myself in front of this train and I'm ringing to
Speaker 2: say goodbye and I'm sorry, and she was screaming and not,
Speaker 2: you know, and telling me please don't, don't, don't, don't.
Speaker 2: And then I thought right there and then just as
Speaker 2: my life zoom to pass, you you know how you
Speaker 2: get those things, and this is it, this is it.
Speaker 2: You know, you're a fucking bastard. Throw yourself in front
Speaker 2: of that train, you fucking piece of shit, you know.
Speaker 2: And then there was something stopping me inside, and it
Speaker 2: was my mother was talking to me and telling please, please, please,
Speaker 2: And then I thought to myself, oh my god, standing
Speaker 2: on the station with the phone, looking at the train
Speaker 2: and talking to my mum all at one wow. And
Speaker 2: that's when I just my head just went down and
Speaker 2: said you better pick yourself up now, because everybody's going
Speaker 2: to be looking at me like, yeah, that guy, you know.
Speaker 2: And from that time I had to then like snap,
Speaker 2: snap the fuck out of it, and you know, I
Speaker 2: had to go through another level of embarrassment, but it
Speaker 2: was a different type. It was, you know, a type
Speaker 2: that I knew this time that I could get through
Speaker 2: whatever's coming. Now. I just survived all of that. You know,
Speaker 2: I could have got killed so many times by drug taking,
Speaker 2: by violence, by police, by everything that. You know, I thought,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what the fuck is going to look
Speaker 2: after my mom? I'm I'm the only one. I promised
Speaker 2: her and my dad that I would look after them
Speaker 2: till they died. And then they said that when you're
Speaker 2: when you finished looking after us and we passed away,
Speaker 2: then you can have do your life. You don't have
Speaker 2: to be Samolden. You don't even have to do church,
Speaker 2: you don't have to do anything. And so I agreed
Speaker 2: to that when I was young at that time. So
Speaker 2: that's what I remembered, and I went, oh man, it
Speaker 2: just hit me and I just went all.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, And that was the start.
Speaker 2: That was the start. And then I you know, I
Speaker 2: told my mom, you know that well, you know, she's
Speaker 2: passed away in twenty twenty four, and I looked after
Speaker 2: her till she died, and I really thank her and
Speaker 2: the many other women that helped me. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like Elena in that whole tragedy, she still helped me,
Speaker 2: and you know other people, my work, my bosses, they
Speaker 2: had to come and get me in jail, and you know, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was it. And then I had to dry up
Speaker 2: for another five years. And then I told myself, as
Speaker 2: much as how bad this is right now, as much
Speaker 2: as you're feeling this, well, you know, you're going to
Speaker 2: have to take it on the chin and take it
Speaker 2: day by day and you've got to be a better person,
Speaker 2: and that I can be a better person. Even though
Speaker 2: I hated myself, you know, all of that throughout my
Speaker 2: earlier life before Elena, I just thought that, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not going out like this. I'm not going out and
Speaker 2: I got more to give to the community, into the world,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to one get a job and I'm
Speaker 2: going to stay in that job. And if I stay
Speaker 2: in that job, then things should be better. And then
Speaker 2: that's how I just crawled myself out from doing you know,
Speaker 2: back to youth works and then my work.
Speaker 1: You know, in this second act of your life, has
Speaker 1: there been any violence? Have you added to that criminal
Speaker 1: record at all? Or is that something that's in the past.
Speaker 2: It is definitely in the past, okay, and that Yeah,
Speaker 2: some people's say to me, wow, you've got have been
Speaker 2: you know of this Biky gang, And I'm thinking, to
Speaker 2: my wild if I want to be, But you know,
Speaker 2: going back into that, I'm more into helping our people
Speaker 2: who are lost between cultures and that try and find
Speaker 2: themselves through art making.
Speaker 1: Before Elena reached out to you and you had that
Speaker 1: big conversation, had you apologized to her, had you reached
Speaker 1: out to her?
Speaker 2: I think I may have spoken to her once and
Speaker 2: apologized to her then, But I definitely I believe I
Speaker 2: would have apologized to her back in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you know there's shocking.
Speaker 1: Do you mean, like, once you sobered up and everything
Speaker 1: had died down, you think you reached out back then?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I believe I didn't. You know, if I didn't, oh,
Speaker 2: then you know.
Speaker 1: After the break, why does Kai believe taking responsibility for
Speaker 1: his actions?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: After all this time matters? There are not a lot
Speaker 1: of men doing this, and yet violence against women is
Speaker 1: a crime we're seeing every day. We're seeing women killed
Speaker 1: every week in this country. Yeah, why is it so
Speaker 1: important for men to speak up to talk about this stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because violence against women is a man's problem. It
Speaker 2: isn't a women's problem that women have to deal with it.
Speaker 2: You know, you've just seen my train wreck. You know,
Speaker 2: it was like multiple train wrecks. But given that I
Speaker 2: had tried to become, you know, on track to align
Speaker 2: myself with what my parents were. They were preachers and
Speaker 2: they looked after the big communities. You know, my father
Speaker 2: wanted me to be a priest, and that wasn't going
Speaker 2: to happen then. But I used the arts and community
Speaker 2: to assist people in telling their stories. Men need to
Speaker 2: take responsibility about their actions, and if you don't know
Speaker 2: how to do it, you need to go and seek help.
Speaker 2: And this is the thing about that whole stereotype about men,
Speaker 2: that men they don't cry, they don't you know, and
Speaker 2: then there's all of these other stereotypes or tropes, you know,
Speaker 2: the way men are meant to behave you know, it's
Speaker 2: just completely wrong. And we've been conditioned so badly as
Speaker 2: men in the modern day and in the past that
Speaker 2: we're the leaders, when actual fact, we're not the leaders.
Speaker 2: You know, the leaders are the ones that's going to
Speaker 2: bear the responsibility of the children. And that's you know.
Speaker 2: And as I was saying, you know, I'm an academic
Speaker 2: and I'm a historian, and when I read through sift
Speaker 2: through our history and I say, hey, this is so wrong.
Speaker 2: You know that in what appears in our salmon culture
Speaker 2: is that the women, the men are the white of
Speaker 2: the eye, and the women is the eye, you know,
Speaker 2: And so it's set up that what we call a
Speaker 2: fair and anger. And so that's one of the disappointing
Speaker 2: things that I can see in that sort of set
Speaker 2: up crossover in that it appears that the men are
Speaker 2: the leaders, when a natural fact the Samoans had always
Speaker 2: known that the leadership roles of chieftainship is so that
Speaker 2: the women what we call for it is dirt, that
Speaker 2: the women don't get dirty doing them. That role of
Speaker 2: the being the chief is lower than the women because
Speaker 2: the women are behind them guiding them. So even in
Speaker 2: our hierarchy, the women are still higher. So you know,
Speaker 2: from from me as a person that has done so
Speaker 2: wrong in this area, and now they're looking at it
Speaker 2: from his historical and it's like it's almost consolidating that
Speaker 2: hierarchy that the men are up here and the women
Speaker 2: are down there. It can come again feel like that,
Speaker 2: especially in you know, if you look at a hierarchical
Speaker 2: system that the men are chiefs, that means most people go, hey,
Speaker 2: the men are the chiefs, they're the leaders, you know.
Speaker 2: But then actual fact, our system that's for the men
Speaker 2: have to do that work because the women they're too
Speaker 2: busy doing all the real things. And another example in
Speaker 2: our true culture and some more, the women don't even
Speaker 2: do the cooking. The men do the cooking, you know,
Speaker 2: they go have to go out into the bush and everything.
Speaker 2: So so what I'm saying is that, you know, there
Speaker 2: is cultural presidents that you know, we should be making
Speaker 2: more time to re look at ourselves, relook at our
Speaker 2: systems and see what's going right and what's going wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, because I'm like, well, then, why why
Speaker 1: are so many men so violent towards women? Like you've
Speaker 1: just given us a great example of you know, in
Speaker 1: your culture, women are supposed to be the highest of high.
Speaker 2: And want to be powerful, you know, they want to
Speaker 2: be in control, and yeah, I don't think they're actually
Speaker 2: built for leadership, you know, when you really look at
Speaker 2: what I'm saying that and now everything's made man. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of cultures that women are there, you know,
Speaker 2: and when you look at those cultures, Yeah, So I
Speaker 2: couldn't answer all of the questions about why men are
Speaker 2: like that, but I definitely know that men need to
Speaker 2: listen more and that they need to break the stereotype
Speaker 2: of you know, like I had is, if I showed
Speaker 2: any sort of femininity in my youth, my brothers will
Speaker 2: smash it out of me.
Speaker 1: So how do we how do we change this? How
Speaker 1: do we turn and influence young boys into being good,
Speaker 1: nonviolent men. I know that's a huge question, huge, like
Speaker 1: what would have helped you as a young man? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what did you What do you think would have helped you?
Speaker 2: Because it was all hidden away. I couldn't even go
Speaker 2: and tell my mum what was happening to me because
Speaker 2: then I was scared, you know. So acts of violence
Speaker 2: was you know, always, you know, And I even had
Speaker 2: an academic, some of an academic say to me, oh,
Speaker 2: get over it. You know, you think that was bad.
Speaker 2: I had it worse. You know, and I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 2: get why don't you get over it just by telling
Speaker 2: me you had it worse, and that I'm trying to
Speaker 2: tell you, you know, how young men were behaving so badly,
Speaker 2: and that you know, that's not being said, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's why it happens, because things aren't being said
Speaker 2: at the right place, at the right time, and by
Speaker 2: the right people. So the conversations, more podcasts, more men
Speaker 2: coming out and talking about it is where we need
Speaker 2: to go, because we need to talk. So I believe
Speaker 2: that the churches need to pull their socks up. I
Speaker 2: believe the youth workers and that are continuing to do
Speaker 2: their jobs. I believe that more more adults should be
Speaker 2: trained to teach kids about about you know, growing up,
Speaker 2: and about women and how to treat women properly, and
Speaker 2: how to deal with your emotions as you're traveling through
Speaker 2: time and or else. These things are unchecked and they
Speaker 2: can go like grass will grow wild and continue like
Speaker 2: grass to be there. Sorry to use grass as a
Speaker 2: bad no, it's.
Speaker 1: A good analogy, because you're right. It just runs, it runs.
Speaker 2: Rapid, it just continues to be I want people to
Speaker 2: know that men, you're not alone, even men, and that
Speaker 2: you know, we should be talking more about it and
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be taboo.
Speaker 1: You know. What has it been like revisiting the crimes
Speaker 1: against Elena, thinking about men's violence, like living in this
Speaker 1: space in preparation for this chat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I it was really hard for me, But it
Speaker 2: wasn't you know, because all the stuff that is was
Speaker 2: more self conscious, you know, and it kind of like
Speaker 2: defeated the purpose of you know, if I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to come and talk about it, So I thought, nah,
Speaker 2: I want to do Yeah, I'm on the trajectory of
Speaker 2: doing good anyway. So if I can be of any
Speaker 2: use to anybody, if my voice or my story can
Speaker 2: help heal somebody, educate somebody, you know that you're better
Speaker 2: than that, And that's what I think. People have a
Speaker 2: low self esteem of themselves that do that, and so
Speaker 2: if I can reassure them that that's not the real
Speaker 2: you that you're meant to be, then I think that's
Speaker 2: really a good thing.
Speaker 1: Elena will be listening to this. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: want to say to her?
Speaker 2: Just in case I haven't said sorry or made it
Speaker 2: very clear. Yeah, I feel ashamed still, I feel sad,
Speaker 2: but I thank god in a way that nothing happened,
Speaker 2: and that the kindness that she showed me helped me
Speaker 2: during it and after, and she was part of my
Speaker 2: healing as well, because you know, it could have been worse.
Speaker 2: She could have just taken complete offense, but she had
Speaker 2: that inside her. I think she kind of like knew
Speaker 2: that I was a better person than that, and at
Speaker 2: that time I didn't think I was, and so she
Speaker 2: helped me through it to buy time for me to
Speaker 2: find myself. And that I'm very thankful for that, or
Speaker 2: else I could have been on a different trajectory right
Speaker 2: now and things wouldn't have been good for me. So
Speaker 2: I'm very thankful, and I'm proud of her that, you know,
Speaker 2: the work that she's been doing and in the space
Speaker 2: of trauma to help other people. She shown to me kindness.
Speaker 2: After all, at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here, thank you for
Speaker 1: telling your story.
Speaker 2: That's okay, I'm really you know, I'll do more in
Speaker 2: my capability to you know, help our people and young men,
Speaker 2: you know, become better people, you know, so they don't
Speaker 2: go into this because I don't think most people would
Speaker 2: have survived what I went through.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Elena and Kai for their honesty, courage,
Speaker 1: and willingness to take part in this episode. This is
Speaker 1: the first time we've told a story like this in
Speaker 1: this way on our podcast. We're especially grateful to Elena
Speaker 1: for reaching out to us, trusting us with her story,
Speaker 1: and giving us the opportunity to speak with Kai. We
Speaker 1: hope this episode has made an impact, showing the power
Speaker 1: of accountability, the lasting impact of violence, and the importance
Speaker 1: of having open, honest conversations about men's violence against women.
Speaker 1: I'll be back next week with another true crime conversation