Speaker 1: It's a Friday night in March twenty eighteen, and twenty
Speaker 1: nine year old Katie Hayley is lounging on the couch
Speaker 1: on her phone after a big day on her feet
Speaker 1: working at a local Melbourne tavern. Her ten month old
Speaker 1: daughter is tucked up in bed and Katie is exhausted.
Speaker 1: She's ready to rest, zone out do some scrolling, but
Speaker 1: her boyfriend Shane has picked a fight again. He didn't
Speaker 1: stop messaging her all day, calling, texting, checking in, accusing
Speaker 1: her of lying, of cheating, of doing something wrong, of
Speaker 1: posting something he didn't like on social media. But this
Speaker 1: time Katie has reached her limit. I'm over it, she
Speaker 1: tells him, and begins to angrily pack a bag. She's
Speaker 1: ready to get both herself and her daughter out of
Speaker 1: this house, away from him. She tells him she doesn't
Speaker 1: love him anymore. She tells him it's over for good.
Speaker 1: He has pushed her too far with his controlling, possessive
Speaker 1: behavior that Katie never makes it out the door. I'm
Speaker 1: Jemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a
Speaker 1: podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
Speaker 1: the people who know the most about them before you
Speaker 1: listen today, this conversation does talk about family violence, so
Speaker 1: listen with care. What twenty nine year old Shane Robertson
Speaker 1: did to his partner and the mother of his baby
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen is so violent. The judge that eventually
Speaker 1: sentenced him condemned his uncontrollable rage while locking him away
Speaker 1: for twenty four years. I'm going to describe his actions
Speaker 1: on that fateful evening because it's important to understand how
Speaker 1: horrific they were as we revisit this story. But consider
Speaker 1: this your warning. Katie was struck at least two to
Speaker 1: three times in the face and twice in the throat
Speaker 1: with a forty centimeter dumbbell bar while her daughter slept
Speaker 1: in the next room. Shane then left the house with
Speaker 1: their baby, and without calling an ambulance. He left apology
Speaker 1: notes on the kitchen table and called his mum. I
Speaker 1: bashed her brains in he confessed, there are brains everywhere.
Speaker 1: Katie's body was only identifiable from her dental records. This
Speaker 1: story isn't just about a horrific homicide. It's a textbook
Speaker 1: example of a coercively controlled DV relationship which escalated into
Speaker 1: extreme rage filled violence. Since her murder, Katie's sister, Bianca
Speaker 1: and father Boyd have become public advocates against domestic gendered violence,
Speaker 1: determined to warn others about coercive control and the warning
Speaker 1: signs that were missed. Bianca joins us now to tell
Speaker 1: us about her sister. Bianka, Thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: on True Crime Conversations. Firstly, I want to acknowledge your
Speaker 1: sister and just say I'm so sorry for your loss
Speaker 1: and what you've been going through for the past nearly decade. Now,
Speaker 1: she sounds like she was an incredible person.
Speaker 2: She was she was honestly the best sister I could
Speaker 2: ever ask for. She was the best mother to her
Speaker 2: two beautiful children, the best daughter, and she is so
Speaker 2: so deeply misspi us.
Speaker 1: All take me back to your childhood. How did you
Speaker 1: grow up, Where did you grow up, and what did
Speaker 1: your family unit look like.
Speaker 2: Our family has always been really close, so growing up
Speaker 2: we were really really close. My sister was nine years
Speaker 2: older than me, so we didn't really have that sibling
Speaker 2: friendship per se. We were constantly bickering. I was the
Speaker 2: annoying little sister when she was a teenager, she was
Speaker 2: you know, too busy to play barbie dolls and things
Speaker 2: like that. So we never were really close growing up,
Speaker 2: but our whole family was super close. My sister was
Speaker 2: just someone that you could get along with. She was
Speaker 2: very shy, very reserved, but to us, the people that
Speaker 2: knew her, she was very loud, very out there, was
Speaker 2: very quirky. She had a very interesting way of looking
Speaker 2: at the world. Some of her most famous lines are,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't go camping, you'd go tempting. Or wasn't insects
Speaker 2: attacking her? It was animals. So it was just like
Speaker 2: those little quirky things that just constantly made us laugh.
Speaker 2: And yeah, she was just a very pivotal part of
Speaker 2: our family.
Speaker 1: What was Katie most passionate about in life?
Speaker 2: She was most passionate about her children. Ultimately, she always
Speaker 2: wanted to be a mother growing up. That was just
Speaker 2: kind of we always knew that she wanted to be
Speaker 2: a mum, and she did become a mom from a
Speaker 2: really young age, and that was her greatest passion in life.
Speaker 2: She also did love hairdressing and she became a hairdresser.
Speaker 2: She was amazing at it. I was her guinea pig
Speaker 2: from the age of ten, so I was annoying her
Speaker 2: because you know, I'd get my hair done and I
Speaker 2: would complain about it because she's my sister. She wasn't
Speaker 2: my hairdresser, so I would complain about it. She would
Speaker 2: complain back that I had too much hair, and then
Speaker 2: you know, I wouldn't get that hair treatment. I would
Speaker 2: get that get in the shower, pull your own foils out,
Speaker 2: and I'll try it kind of vibe. But she was
Speaker 2: very passionate about hairdressing, and she was just very passionate
Speaker 2: about her children and ultimately just wanted to give them
Speaker 2: the world. Do you remember her relationships prior to Shane
Speaker 2: and like her kind of love life, What was her
Speaker 2: relationships like? What was she like in them? Unfortunately for Katie,
Speaker 2: she doesn't have a great track record in relationships, and
Speaker 2: I think that really set the precedents for all the
Speaker 2: relationships that proceeded, because when you're young, you kind of
Speaker 2: once you've kind of entered into those sorts of relationships
Speaker 2: where you aren't valued or that behavior is kind of
Speaker 2: there and you're kind of made to feel less than
Speaker 2: you gravitate to people like that. You think that that's
Speaker 2: all you deserve in this life, and so Unfortunately for Katie,
Speaker 2: she didn't have the best of relationships. Not all of
Speaker 2: them were terrible, they just definitely weren't right for her.
Speaker 2: And it was something, especially being a mum at such
Speaker 2: a young age as well, that she had to kind
Speaker 2: of consider her children in all of the relationships or
Speaker 2: anything like that, that what was in the best interest
Speaker 2: of them. But it definitely was a pattern of behavior
Speaker 2: of her not being appreciated and her obviously not valuing herself.
Speaker 1: More so, for context for listeners, when she met Shane,
Speaker 1: she was already a mum, she had a son. How
Speaker 1: did she meet him? What was the start of their relationship?
Speaker 2: Like, So, Katie met Shane through mutual friends and they
Speaker 2: just started off as friends. We were introduced to him
Speaker 2: just in a general friend group at Aidan's birthday party.
Speaker 2: He seemed nice enough, they bantered. It was really just
Speaker 2: a nice friendship. But then ultimately, you know, feelings happened
Speaker 2: and they ended up dating. And he had already got
Speaker 2: two kids from a previous relationship as well, so obviously
Speaker 2: we thought, oh, this is great, Like, he knows what
Speaker 2: it takes to be a parent, He understands the sacrifices
Speaker 2: that you make and that they are your main priority
Speaker 2: in life. So we thought, like, this is a great dynamic, Like,
Speaker 2: she seemed really really happy. It was probably the happiest
Speaker 2: we'd ever seen her. They seemed to just get along
Speaker 2: really well. There was an element of lightheartedness about their
Speaker 2: relationship despite ongoing issues with ex partners and everything like
Speaker 2: that that you could weigh you down. But she seemed
Speaker 2: really really happy. He seemed really happy, and we were
Speaker 2: just really excited that she'd finally found someone that we
Speaker 2: thought appreciated her and made her this happy, bubbly person
Speaker 2: that we know she is.
Speaker 1: Did you spend much time with him? Did you get
Speaker 1: on with him?
Speaker 2: We did so. We welcomed him into our family, like
Speaker 2: we went on family holidays with him, which, in hindsight,
Speaker 2: looking back, like it makes a lot of our memories
Speaker 2: really hard to look at because he's there. So there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of attempts at the photoshopping to remove him.
Speaker 2: We've had lovely people reach out and they have removed
Speaker 2: him from family photos because we can't look back on
Speaker 2: the last few years of Katie's life without him being
Speaker 2: a presence there, even to the extent of looking on
Speaker 2: her social media like, we don't get to just enjoy
Speaker 2: looking at her photos of her and her kids because
Speaker 2: he's popping up in all of them. He's very present.
Speaker 2: But we were, yeah, very welcoming. We did lots of
Speaker 2: things together, Christmas's birthdays, like, it was very normal. We
Speaker 2: all hung out, it was Yeah, it was just a
Speaker 2: good vibe, like to go on a family holiday, like
Speaker 2: there was no issues. We all stayed in the same cabin.
Speaker 2: It was just we all got along. It was all jokey.
Speaker 2: We liked him at that point.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like there weren't any red flags, or
Speaker 1: even if you look back in hindsight, were there any
Speaker 1: kind of under.
Speaker 2: The circace in the beginning of their relationship and even
Speaker 2: a couple of years into it. I wouldn't say that
Speaker 2: there were many red flags. Obviously we weren't in the relationship,
Speaker 2: and we've come to know that when person control is
Speaker 2: kind of involved in relationships, it's very easily hidden. It's
Speaker 2: quite insidious. But from us looking in, there was no
Speaker 2: red flags. The red flags came from the moment that
Speaker 2: they ended up having a daughter together, and it seemed
Speaker 2: to be a sense of jealousy, a sense of Katie
Speaker 2: wasn't giving him the adequate time or attention, and I
Speaker 2: would say that that's when the real red flag started
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 1: Can you explain how that jealousy grew because it seems,
Speaker 1: I mean, Katie's daughter was only ten months old when
Speaker 1: she died, so it's a relatively short period of time.
Speaker 1: How did this behavior escalate? What did that look like?
Speaker 2: It started off really trivial, really little kind of just
Speaker 2: jealousy things where it was just nagging her about the
Speaker 2: time that she was not spending with him, or like
Speaker 2: she was always tired. Just these little remarks or comments
Speaker 2: about where she was spending her time, which anyone that
Speaker 2: is apparent to a newborn knows that they are very
Speaker 2: time consuming and any good parent spends that time with them.
Speaker 2: Any good parent, like she also still had her six
Speaker 2: year old son. He was going to school doing sports activities,
Speaker 2: so she was run off her feet up until giving birth.
Speaker 2: She was still working as a hairdresser twelve hour days,
Speaker 2: so for her, it was it seemed just silly. It
Speaker 2: just seemed like he wasn't understanding the gravity of being
Speaker 2: a parent, and I guess obviously becoming a parent with
Speaker 2: someone else, you also see their true colors. You see
Speaker 2: them in a parenting capacity that wasn't co parenting where
Speaker 2: you get to be the fun parent every odd weekend.
Speaker 2: So it started off very innocent, just little remarks in that,
Speaker 2: but it quickly grew to why aren't I your profile picture?
Speaker 2: You're always are posting the kids. You never spent time
Speaker 2: with me. He was complaining about intimacy, that she wasn't
Speaker 2: being intimate with him. She's given birth, she's tired.
Speaker 1: Two young kids, exactly.
Speaker 2: You know. She went back to work relatively quickly. I
Speaker 2: believe Indy was three or four months when she went
Speaker 2: back to work because she didn't want that burden of
Speaker 2: finances to fall on Shane. So she was very much
Speaker 2: wanting to be involved to give the kids the best
Speaker 2: life so that they weren't struggling. And ultimately I ended
Speaker 2: up getting her a job at my work, waitressing at
Speaker 2: our local family bistro, because the money was better than
Speaker 2: being a hairdresser and it meant less hours because in
Speaker 2: addition to that, Katie also had a broken back from
Speaker 2: a car accident when she was nineteen, and so she'd
Speaker 2: done years of standing on her feet for twelve hour
Speaker 2: days with a broken back. She'd gone through labor, she
Speaker 2: carried children, all with the broken back. She was a
Speaker 2: very resilient, strong woman, and I will forever admire her.
Speaker 2: She is the motivation for whenever things feel too tough
Speaker 2: or too hard for me. I'm like, but Katie could
Speaker 2: do it, like Katie did it, So for her to
Speaker 2: go back to work, I thought, this is better for you,
Speaker 2: Like you can actually take those breaks. It's shorter, it's
Speaker 2: in between school hours, like I could take shifts for her.
Speaker 2: If she couldn't work, I could take the night shifts.
Speaker 2: So I thought I was helping to make sure that
Speaker 2: their relationship didn't suffer because she wanted to help him out.
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, I'm doing a nice thing here
Speaker 2: and she's working with me, so hopefully that alleviates some
Speaker 2: of that behavior that he was starting to exhibit. But
Speaker 2: it ultimately just escalated it far beyond what we could
Speaker 2: have expected.
Speaker 1: Well, it kind of got to more, much more surveillance,
Speaker 1: didn't it, So like a lot of checking in what
Speaker 1: did that look like?
Speaker 2: So for Katie, once we started working together, there was
Speaker 2: this element of him needing to know where she was,
Speaker 2: what she was doing at every second. And when I
Speaker 2: say that I don't say that lightly. She was on
Speaker 2: the phone from the moment she had to walk into work,
Speaker 2: she would sign on, pop off the phone, and then
Speaker 2: the moment that she finished her shift, she would sign
Speaker 2: off and he would be calling. He would know instantly
Speaker 2: if she hadn't called him to say that she was
Speaker 2: finished her shift. And sometimes she wouldn't call him straight
Speaker 2: away because we would stay back a little bit and
Speaker 2: like she would come and talk to me about a
Speaker 2: shift or we had something to discuss, or occasionally we
Speaker 2: would stay back and just eat our lunch together because
Speaker 2: my mom was minding her daughter at the time, which
Speaker 2: Mum used to laugh at and go, oh, don't mind me,
Speaker 2: I'm just babysitting. You know, you guys, enjoy your lunch.
Speaker 2: But it was really nice to have that quality time
Speaker 2: with my sister as well. But he would know, and
Speaker 2: so that would be cut short because he would be
Speaker 2: calling her. He would be harassing her. He would be
Speaker 2: texting her going, I know you finished work, you know,
Speaker 2: why haven't you called me? And it ultimately like just
Speaker 2: kind of ruined it that we wouldn't do it anymore
Speaker 2: because it was just he was just constantly at her
Speaker 2: from the moment she finished work. Then escalated further into
Speaker 2: him actually watching her from the car park opposite our work.
Speaker 2: He would sit in the car and observe her at
Speaker 2: work and how she would interact with customers or co workers,
Speaker 2: and all the while my mom was minding their daughter,
Speaker 2: who he was supposed to have gone and picked up.
Speaker 2: He was too obsessed with what Katie was doing at work.
Speaker 2: And obviously we only found all this out in hindsight,
Speaker 2: like we only found this out after right what happened
Speaker 2: to Katie, But knowing it, it makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 2: given we knew how persistently he was calling her, how
Speaker 2: much he was trying to dictate how she used social media,
Speaker 2: who she was posting, who she could talk to. It
Speaker 2: was psychotic, to be frank, like, the behavior was just
Speaker 2: completely something we've never dealt with, and we kept putting
Speaker 2: it down to jealousy, which is like, he is ridiculous,
Speaker 2: He is so immature, Like that was kind of the
Speaker 2: behavior because Katie was handling it, and she didn't seem
Speaker 2: overly concerned.
Speaker 1: She was just like, he's ridiculous, right, So she wasn't
Speaker 1: kind of scared by the behavior. She was kind of
Speaker 1: biting back a bit as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, so she wasn't Like Katie is not one
Speaker 2: to shy away from conflict. As I grew up with her,
Speaker 2: specific I know she's not. She wasn't one to back
Speaker 2: down and neither was I. So any behavior that she
Speaker 2: didn't agree with, like she would call it out or
Speaker 2: she would say like I'm sick of this. She would
Speaker 2: hang up on him, like she wouldn't just jump at
Speaker 2: his call. But you could see that it was consistently calling,
Speaker 2: and because she had that setting on her phone where
Speaker 2: it was light up every time she was getting like
Speaker 2: a text or a call, the flash would light up,
Speaker 2: we always knew, like if she was on her phone
Speaker 2: if he was calling her or texting her. Well, that's
Speaker 2: how I personally knew, without her telling me. Yep. It
Speaker 2: even escalated to the point where my best friend who
Speaker 2: we worked with, he had just moved over from Tasmania,
Speaker 2: so he hadn't made a lot of friends, and we
Speaker 2: were hanging out quite a lot, which meant Katie was
Speaker 2: around him because he was coming to our house, you know,
Speaker 2: hanging out, and Katie would be there to pick up
Speaker 2: the kids or drop the kids off. So it was
Speaker 2: all just we were all just friends, basically co workers.
Speaker 2: He didn't like that, and he actually contacted my friend
Speaker 2: and basically said, like, stop talking to my partner. You're
Speaker 2: causing issues in our relationship. All these things, which we
Speaker 2: told Katie, and Katie addressed that with Shane head on
Speaker 2: and was like, that's not okay. And it all stemmed
Speaker 2: from the fact that his car had broke down one
Speaker 2: day they were both heading to the same direction. She
Speaker 2: had India in the car. I believe she had Aiden
Speaker 2: in the car as well, and she dropped him home
Speaker 2: and he felt that that was not acceptable and spiraled
Speaker 2: from there and to the point that he created a
Speaker 2: fake Facebook page pretending to be a female to message
Speaker 2: our friend to try and get intel on Katie. It
Speaker 2: was kind of like probing and prompting to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's okay, you can tell me if there's any hot
Speaker 2: girls that you're work, you know, any girls that you like,
Speaker 2: all these sorts of things, and my friend knew instantly
Speaker 2: it was him, So we told Katie, and Katie addressed
Speaker 2: it with Shane. She went, I know you've created this
Speaker 2: fake profile, Like you're ridiculous, This is not okay. Don't
Speaker 2: do it. Like cut it out, and they had a
Speaker 2: full blown conversation about it where he even then messaged
Speaker 2: me and was like, you know, even when I get
Speaker 2: bad advice, like I shouldn't be behaving like this, all
Speaker 2: these kind of acknowledgments of he didn't deny it. We
Speaker 2: never denied that he did it. He knew that he
Speaker 2: got caught, and.
Speaker 1: He knew what was wrong. By the sounds of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he and he even like to the extent
Speaker 2: he used that same profile to flirt with his male
Speaker 2: profile to make Katie jealous.
Speaker 1: It's just wild to see, like the person you met
Speaker 1: changed that much.
Speaker 2: It was a very it felt like a very drastic change.
Speaker 2: But something that I've realized is that that is the
Speaker 2: person they always are, that is always underlying. They're just
Speaker 2: very good at presenting themselves in a certain way until
Speaker 2: someone is trapped and then they can't get out. So
Speaker 2: it seemed very sudden to us. It seemed to be
Speaker 2: the escalation of them having a child together. But we
Speaker 2: believe that this behavior was ongoing throughout their relationship, and
Speaker 2: whether or not Katie saw it for what it was
Speaker 2: and hadn't told us, or it was just very subtle
Speaker 2: that you don't even realize that it was building up
Speaker 2: to that point.
Speaker 1: Or to label the behavior to be clear, this is
Speaker 1: coercive control what we're talking about. Some of the other
Speaker 1: behaviors that go hand in hand with this are things
Speaker 1: like isolation and gas lighting and financial abuse. Did any
Speaker 1: of those kind of play into their relationship that you
Speaker 1: knew of?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So there was quite a bit of gas lighting,
Speaker 2: just on every kind of topic. I can't even pinpoint.
Speaker 2: It was just that consistent, making her feel crazy, making
Speaker 2: her feel like things weren't as they seem, even to
Speaker 2: the point like he was supposed to be at work
Speaker 2: one day he bumped into her at the same shopping
Speaker 2: center she was at with my nana, and he was
Speaker 2: just like, oh, this is such a coincidence. And when
Speaker 2: she was like, this isn't a coincidence, like you were
Speaker 2: meant to be over the other side of town, he
Speaker 2: gaslit her and he was like, nope, it's you know,
Speaker 2: made her feel crazy for thinking that she was being
Speaker 2: observed monitored. Followed essentially the financial abuse of it was
Speaker 2: a very simple thing that I feel a lot of
Speaker 2: people wouldn't even realize is financial abuse. He wouldn't give
Speaker 2: her money to get fuel.
Speaker 1: Which is transport.
Speaker 2: We would be out of fuel, which meant she then
Speaker 2: couldn't go anywhere. So my parents would pay to put
Speaker 2: fuel in her car because she would be left without fuel.
Speaker 2: And anyone with kids knows how hard it is as
Speaker 2: well to go and get fuel, get the kids out,
Speaker 2: then get them back in the car. The logistics of
Speaker 2: it just made it so much harder for her. So
Speaker 2: my parents would step in and when we were all
Speaker 2: out together, we'd get the fuel with her cut. But
Speaker 2: it's a way of which you wouldn't necessarily deem it
Speaker 2: looking at it in isolation, but when it's a repeated behavior.
Speaker 2: It was his attempt at making sure that she couldn't
Speaker 2: go anywhere, that she couldn't go to work, that she
Speaker 2: couldn't go to the shops, or that she was becoming
Speaker 2: a burden for someone else. And Katie was very independent,
Speaker 2: she was very strong headed, very you know, mature and
Speaker 2: grown up, and she didn't want to rely on her parents.
Speaker 2: So for someone like that, this was the ultimate way
Speaker 2: to make them retreat back in and to not let
Speaker 2: on what was going on, but also to then not
Speaker 2: want to ask the help, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, had it progressed to physical violence that you know
Speaker 1: of before, Not that.
Speaker 2: We're aware of, obviously we have our suspicions, but the
Speaker 2: first documented instance of physical violence in their relationship was
Speaker 2: the night that he murdered her. And that is the
Speaker 2: scariest thing about coursive control is that the most coursive
Speaker 2: control cases there is no documented violence. That's not to
Speaker 2: say that there isn't violence, but there isn't any documented
Speaker 2: So the first documented instance is often lethal.
Speaker 1: And that's why it's so hard for a court system
Speaker 1: or just a system to kind of look at an
Speaker 1: instance like Katie's story with this kind of coercive control,
Speaker 1: because even though it's so serious, there's nothing physical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing physical. So then they say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not like this was repeated behavior. You know it
Speaker 2: was you know, he's not a threat to the community,
Speaker 2: he's not a threat to society because he's only exhibited
Speaker 2: this one display of violence. And in my opinion, that's
Speaker 2: the scariest thing because of what made them snap like that,
Speaker 2: what made them go from zero to one hundred, what
Speaker 2: made them go from basically controlling someone to using excessive
Speaker 2: force to take someone's life, to me, you can't deem
Speaker 2: them safe for community. You can't deem them and at
Speaker 2: most they are definitely not safe for their next partner
Speaker 2: when they come out and that person is a part
Speaker 2: of the community. So there is no system in place
Speaker 2: in our court system. There's no system in place in
Speaker 2: the way we approach coercive control to show the seriousness
Speaker 2: of it, even when documented.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about the kind of week leading
Speaker 1: up to Katie's murder? Had you had she spoken about
Speaker 1: wanting to leave him? Did you know that that was
Speaker 1: perhaps on the cards?
Speaker 2: I did. Katie and I obviously got really close when
Speaker 2: we started working together. We'd only been working together for
Speaker 2: about seven months. But I would definitely say that we
Speaker 2: were friends at this point. We were sisters, we were friends.
Speaker 2: We were confiding in each other to an extent. We
Speaker 2: were both comparing relationships that we were in at the
Speaker 2: time that were less than ideal. Obviously I didn't know
Speaker 2: the extent of Katie's, she didn't know the extent of mine.
Speaker 2: But we would compare them and say, like, who had
Speaker 2: the worst day or whose partner was being you know,
Speaker 2: the worst that day. But again, we were saying to
Speaker 2: each other that we should leave our relationships. So I
Speaker 2: was saying to her, you need to leave, like he
Speaker 2: doesn't treat you well, you need to leave. She was
Speaker 2: saying to me, you need to leave, like he's not
Speaker 2: treating you. So we could see it for each other
Speaker 2: that we deserved more in relationships and that the way
Speaker 2: we like what was happening wasn't okay. Katies was obviously
Speaker 2: a completely different situation, but being twenty at the time,
Speaker 2: we were just comparing name calling or behaviors that Shane
Speaker 2: was doing, and it literally just kept escalating in that
Speaker 2: last week. That last week, it just got worse and worse,
Speaker 2: and the conversations with Kay was like She's like, I
Speaker 2: have to leave. I can't keep doing this. Right, it
Speaker 2: was always that I can't keep doing this. But then
Speaker 2: also at the same time, she didn't want to fail
Speaker 2: again because in her eyes, she had failed by having
Speaker 2: a relationship with her son's father and not working out,
Speaker 2: so she didn't want to have to do that again.
Speaker 2: She didn't want to have to go through the court
Speaker 2: processes for parenting plans and things like that. So she
Speaker 2: really stuck at it for a lot longer than she
Speaker 2: ever should have because she really wanted to give her
Speaker 2: children that family unit that we grew up with, and
Speaker 2: I think she definitely felt ashamed that she couldn't achieve that.
Speaker 2: And there's also that element of we have such wonderful
Speaker 2: parents and their relationship is no joke, not perfect, but
Speaker 2: it is the ultimate goal. The compassion and kindness that
Speaker 2: they show each other, the grace that they show each
Speaker 2: other when they're not doing well, is something that we
Speaker 2: aspire to have in our relationships. And your child, to
Speaker 2: them be in a relationship where they're not accepting that
Speaker 2: kind of love, they're actually accepting something far less and
Speaker 2: something that they don't deserve, that's crushing to a parent.
Speaker 2: So to come out and say that your parents are
Speaker 2: going to wonder, well, where did we go wrong? You
Speaker 2: don't see us behaving like that. And so for Katie
Speaker 2: it was I believe it was very much a sense
Speaker 2: of shame that she just wanted to be a mature
Speaker 2: adult and handle it herself, and it went far beyond
Speaker 2: the length of time that it should have.
Speaker 1: Up next, Bianca speaks about Katie's last day alive. I
Speaker 1: want to talk a bit about Friday March nights. As
Speaker 1: much as you feel comfortable because it was a pretty
Speaker 1: busy day, wasn't it. Katie had a lot going on.
Speaker 1: You saw her, your parents saw her. Can you take
Speaker 1: us through what the day looked like? So March ninth
Speaker 1: was it was just a regular day. Honestly, I had
Speaker 1: just gone back to UNI. I was studying criminology and
Speaker 1: psychological science. I was in my second year at that point.
Speaker 2: And I was meant to go to UNI, so I
Speaker 2: needed to get out of my shift, so my sister
Speaker 2: took my shift for me. I ultimately didn't end up
Speaker 2: going to UNI because I was slack and wanted to stay.
Speaker 2: It was a nice it was a nice day, it
Speaker 2: was nice weather. I wanted to go to the pool
Speaker 2: with my niece, which I regret deeply making Katie have
Speaker 2: that shift for me. We ended up going to the pool.
Speaker 2: We took Indie to the pool. It was a great day.
Speaker 2: She loved being in the water. We also had Aiden
Speaker 2: home from school, so we took him and we were
Speaker 2: all just hanging out, and my mum even commented, this
Speaker 2: is the best day ever, because it obviously was like
Speaker 2: it was just such a good day. We were having
Speaker 2: so much fun. Katie was at work and then she
Speaker 2: finished her shift a bit like earlier, my nephew had
Speaker 2: handover with his dad, so my dad was handling that
Speaker 2: just a few blocks away, and I like, ironically enough,
Speaker 2: Katie finished with enough time to drive their say goodbye
Speaker 2: to Aiden and they I'll see you on Monday, which
Speaker 2: originally my dad was like, why are you here, Like
Speaker 2: it's just going to cause issues. You've told him that
Speaker 2: I'm doing the hand you know, initially in that moment
Speaker 2: you're kind of like, oh, you're just going to cause drama.
Speaker 2: In hindsight, we are so grateful that she made it
Speaker 2: to give him a hug and a kiss and to
Speaker 2: say goodbye and to see him for the last time.
Speaker 2: Then my sister went back home. My dad needed a haircut,
Speaker 2: so she gave my dad a haircut, which my dad
Speaker 2: now looks at in hindsight that it was his haircut
Speaker 2: for her funeral. And I was just studying and I
Speaker 2: was getting annoyed by all the noise in the house
Speaker 2: because she was arguing with Shane on the phone and
Speaker 2: they were going back and forth that he wanted her
Speaker 2: to come home. She said, I can't, I'm cutting dad's hair.
Speaker 2: I'll be home soon. He just kept harassing her, like
Speaker 2: you never want to spend time with me, you know,
Speaker 2: please come home, like just he was just ridiculous that day,
Speaker 2: beyond ridiculous, and I could hear her in the front
Speaker 2: round droom saying like this is ridiculous. I can't keep
Speaker 2: doing this, Like I'm done. She just constantly said I'm done.
Speaker 2: And I'd heard it so many times because she deactivated
Speaker 2: Facebook because of how often he was trying to get
Speaker 2: into a social media how often he would block her
Speaker 2: out of her phone, So like that I'm done comment
Speaker 2: was something that I'd heard a lot, but I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that this time was going to be that I'm
Speaker 2: done moment. I ended up being a brad each twenty
Speaker 2: year old. I was like, oh, it's too noisy, I
Speaker 2: can't study, and I ended up leaving to go to
Speaker 2: the park to meet up with a friend to study.
Speaker 2: I didn't study, so I was just being dramatic at
Speaker 2: the time. And as I was driving back home, I
Speaker 2: saw my sister driving out of our street. She gave
Speaker 2: me her signature to honks, and that is the last
Speaker 2: time I ever saw her. We then proceeded to go
Speaker 2: down into Melbourne because Mom and I were going to
Speaker 2: be Ed cheering concert the next day. We were really
Speaker 2: really excited, so I went to the pop up shop.
Speaker 2: We got merchandise, and then Dad, mom and I went
Speaker 2: out for dinner. It was a really good night, like
Speaker 2: it was. I was just so excited. It was such
Speaker 2: a good night. And as we were driving back past
Speaker 2: Digger's Breast, I can't remember who if it was my
Speaker 2: mum and my dad, but one of them got a
Speaker 2: really sick feeling and just came over really unwell. At
Speaker 2: the time that we were like, oh, should we pop
Speaker 2: in and see Katie. Ultimately we didn't because whichever parent
Speaker 2: it was wasn't feeling well, so we went home. It
Speaker 2: wasn't until I believe two in the morning that we
Speaker 2: found out that Katie had been murdered via social media.
Speaker 2: A bit of context of how it all came about. Katie.
Speaker 2: When she got home, her in Shane went out for
Speaker 2: dinner with Indy and Aidan was with his dad obviously,
Speaker 2: so he wasn't home, so they just went out for dinner.
Speaker 2: They had dinner, they came home. I know that they
Speaker 2: had an argument about social media again about the work
Speaker 2: group chat about Katie not giving him enough time all
Speaker 2: these things. I know that she had said she was done.
Speaker 2: She started packing a bag. She said she was going
Speaker 2: to go to my mum's. She actually did leave the
Speaker 2: house that night and started driving. She only returned because
Speaker 2: Indy was asleep in her bed and she didn't want
Speaker 2: to leave Indy. So then she went to her son's
Speaker 2: bed and sat on the son on her son's bed.
Speaker 2: And obviously the police reports and everything told us that
Speaker 2: the neighbors had heard arguing. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, biting. All the neighbors had documented hearing it
Speaker 2: for hours at that point. At around just after ten,
Speaker 2: Shane texted his mum and said, she's leaving me. She's
Speaker 2: you know, she's breaking up the family. She's leaving me.
Speaker 2: His mom texted back saying whatever she said to him,
Speaker 2: and then he said, hang on, she's back. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you soon, and his mom texted and said, don't
Speaker 2: do anything stupid. Twenty minutes after that, he texted his
Speaker 2: mom and said, I've done it. I've bashed her brains
Speaker 2: in There are brains everywhere. So in that twenty minute period,
Speaker 2: Jane grabbed a dumb bellbar walked into my nephew's bedroom,
Speaker 2: where my sister was sitting on his bed and repeatedly
Speaker 2: struck her across the face and head, whilst their ten
Speaker 2: months old daughter was in the room next door. It's
Speaker 2: a vision that haunts me. I will never understand how
Speaker 2: someone can hurt someone because they don't want to be
Speaker 2: in a relationship with you anymore, especially when you are
Speaker 2: the reason they don't want to be in that relationship
Speaker 2: and they gave it there. She was defenseless, she was
Speaker 2: sitting on the bed. She weighed forty two kilos at
Speaker 2: the time of her death. I would say she was scared,
Speaker 2: But I truly know my sister, and I know that
Speaker 2: when they said they had an exchange before he did it,
Speaker 2: I know for a fact that if she saw that weapon,
Speaker 2: which it's speculation that she would have seen it because
Speaker 2: he held it behind his back, I have no doubt
Speaker 2: that he would have. He did say to her that
Speaker 2: he was going to use it on himself, and then
Speaker 2: I have no doubt that she would have been go on,
Speaker 2: go on, do it, because that is the attitude of
Speaker 2: my sister. Yeah, I truly don't believe that she thought
Speaker 2: he was capable of killing her, because she would not
Speaker 2: have gone back to that house.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, Bianca, It's just it's horrific.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's not something that we ever thought would
Speaker 2: happen to our family. We that night found out via
Speaker 2: a social media post from Victoria Police. The local community
Speaker 2: page had been going off for a few hours saying
Speaker 2: that what's going on in summary, there's police helicopters, there's
Speaker 2: police on foot, there's dog squad, like, what's going on.
Speaker 2: Earlier in the evening, my dad had got a phone
Speaker 2: call from Kiden Police saying that they were looking for
Speaker 2: Shane's ex partner, who's the mother of his children, and
Speaker 2: that the address listed was our house. My dad said, no,
Speaker 2: that's incorrect. We built this house. They said, okay, we're
Speaker 2: just trying to locate her. Dad said, I know who
Speaker 2: you're talking about. That's my daughter's partner's ex partner. If
Speaker 2: there's anything like any concern, like, we can try and assist,
Speaker 2: you know, And they said no, no, all good. And
Speaker 2: Dad took their details because he thought that was really odd.
Speaker 2: And at this point we were thinking something really bad
Speaker 2: had happened to her.
Speaker 1: Because it's midnight, so you're all up at midnight going
Speaker 1: what's going on?
Speaker 2: So my brother was asleep. Dad was actually woken up
Speaker 2: by the phone call. So my mum and I were
Speaker 2: texting on our phones because we don't sleep. We struggled
Speaker 2: to sleep and we were watching what was unfolding on
Speaker 2: the local new our local community page. We were like, oh, like,
Speaker 2: I have a text exchange with my mum saying like
Speaker 2: I want to know what's happening, like it's so bizarre.
Speaker 2: And then she was trying to get in touch with
Speaker 2: Katie and she wasn't answering, and I'm like, really weird
Speaker 2: that Katie's not answering, And we put it down to
Speaker 2: the fact that Shane would often lock her out of
Speaker 2: her phone, or she wasn't allowed to have her phone
Speaker 2: with her, or she would just choose not to because
Speaker 2: it was easier than dealing with Shane cracking up about
Speaker 2: her being on her phone. So we just kind of
Speaker 2: went very weird. We ultimately went to well, I went
Speaker 2: to sleep. I'd just fallen asleep when my mum came
Speaker 2: and slammed into my room and was like, he's murdered her,
Speaker 2: He's killed her. And I then went on my phone
Speaker 2: because I was very confused, and I saw the post
Speaker 2: from Victoria Police that said a twenty nine year old
Speaker 2: woman has been located deceased in Digger's rest. They actually
Speaker 2: listed the street, which is very uncommon to actually liss
Speaker 2: the street before they were even notified family.
Speaker 1: So that's how you knew because it was her age,
Speaker 1: her street, her street, and.
Speaker 2: The twenty eight year old man was in custody assisting police. Obviously,
Speaker 2: it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out,
Speaker 2: especially as we couldn't get in touch with her. My
Speaker 2: brother then got woken up. Dad tried to call the
Speaker 2: police and he's like, hey, like, I have concerns for
Speaker 2: my daughter. I think it's my daughter. They were like,
Speaker 2: we can't tell you anything. So we all jumped in
Speaker 2: the car and Dad drove us down to the crime
Speaker 2: scene and that's how we got the confirmation.
Speaker 1: Do you know now why they didn't tell you? How
Speaker 1: you why you had to find out from a press release.
Speaker 2: Dad kind of went back and forth with them about this.
Speaker 2: We were kind of like, this isn't the protocol. Like
Speaker 2: I studied criminology, I was like, this is not how
Speaker 2: it's meant to happen, Like, you know, you tell us
Speaker 2: how it happens and a lot of what we've experienced
Speaker 2: in the years since is not what is, you know,
Speaker 2: textbook of what's supposed to happen. I truly don't know why,
Speaker 2: but we weren't going to wait, so we drove down.
Speaker 2: I recall thinking, and I know this is so horrible
Speaker 2: and I hate repeating it, but it was the mindset
Speaker 2: I was in at the time, hoping that it was
Speaker 2: his ex partner, hoping it was someone else, not Katie.
Speaker 2: I was like, please don't be Katie, Please don't be Katy.
Speaker 2: I remember we pulled into the street. We could only
Speaker 2: get probably not even halfway down the street because it
Speaker 2: had been taped off. Her house was completely lit up,
Speaker 2: police cars, crime scene cars, everything, And I just remember
Speaker 2: hopping out before Dad had even stopped the car and
Speaker 2: running to the tape. I remember my dad falling to
Speaker 2: his knees in the middle of the street and looking
Speaker 2: up in the sky like he was looking to the
Speaker 2: heavens like he was. And I just remember my mom's
Speaker 2: ear piercing screams, and she ended up getting put in
Speaker 2: the back of the car like just to sit and
Speaker 2: like and my little brother, who I always say was
Speaker 2: made to grow up, wait beyond his years. That night,
Speaker 2: he was just eighteen, talking to the police and the
Speaker 2: detectives and trying to get an understanding of what had happened,
Speaker 2: And even while we were there, ABC rocked up, so
Speaker 2: ABC were aware of it before the family were aware
Speaker 2: of it, and they rocked up at the scene, which
Speaker 2: was just ridiculous to me, and then snapped out of
Speaker 2: it and my parents were like, well, whar's Indie? Wear's
Speaker 2: indyed like, we can't do anything for our daughter wears
Speaker 2: Indie And we found out that he had actually left
Speaker 2: the premises in my sister's car with India on his
Speaker 2: lap and drove to his parents' house.
Speaker 1: The next few hours was that just about getting Indie back?
Speaker 1: Is that what the focus was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. So the next few hours was
Speaker 2: spent fighting with them, saying like, we want Indie back,
Speaker 2: like she is with us. Primarily she doesn't really know
Speaker 2: these people that don't really because there was a bit
Speaker 2: of animosity between Katie and his family, and a lot
Speaker 2: of it is what led to this kind of becoming
Speaker 2: as big as it did with Shane and not being
Speaker 2: told boundaries and Dad's like no, and it was basically
Speaker 2: we were taking We weren't taking no for an answer,
Speaker 2: and we ultimately ended up being able to go and
Speaker 2: get Indy. She obviously had nothing, We had nothing. She
Speaker 2: couldn't go into the house, so no nappies, no nothing,
Speaker 2: her stuffy like everything was kind of you know, contaminated,
Speaker 2: so we weren't able to get access to anything. We
Speaker 2: did end up taking her home that night and sorting
Speaker 2: out stuff in the morning. I remember I went down
Speaker 2: to Best and Less Like as soon as it opened
Speaker 2: the next day to get her her favorite stuffy because
Speaker 2: she can't sleep without her stuffy, and to get some clothes,
Speaker 2: and we had nappies dropped off at our door. But
Speaker 2: ultimately the biggest focus that night was to get Indy.
Speaker 2: We knew Aidan was safe, we knew that he was
Speaker 2: with his dad, so the biggest concern was to make
Speaker 2: sure that we got Indie. And then I just recall
Speaker 2: we were just kind of sat in the lounge room
Speaker 2: and watched her. I believe she was sleeping on the
Speaker 2: couch or on my mum. I don't recall, but I
Speaker 2: just know we were sitting there and we'd picked up
Speaker 2: my nanna as well. We had to go and wake
Speaker 2: up my nanna because we didn't want her to find out,
Speaker 2: so we had to go and wake her up at
Speaker 2: two three in the morning.
Speaker 1: What a surreal experience to be trying to kind of
Speaker 1: grapple with what's just happened to your sister, but then
Speaker 1: going to Best and Less and buying a stuffy like
Speaker 1: that must have just been so bizarre for you. It
Speaker 1: was really surreal, even to the point that I could
Speaker 1: have called work and been like, hey, you know, Kaye's
Speaker 1: not coming in, but I actually we drove there. My
Speaker 1: best friend drove me there, and I walked in and
Speaker 1: I was just like, hey, Katie's not coming in for
Speaker 1: a shift today.
Speaker 2: She's dead. Like it was just you don't know how
Speaker 2: you're going to react, and it was really weird. But
Speaker 2: I felt like I couldn't just drop that news on
Speaker 2: someone over the phone, like I wanted to also make
Speaker 2: sure that the people I'm telling are okay, because it
Speaker 2: was so jarring to me, and it would have been
Speaker 2: very jarring to our work community. You know. One of
Speaker 2: the managers was one of the ones who walked throughout
Speaker 2: one day because it was later, and he would always
Speaker 2: walk us out like he wanted to make sure we
Speaker 2: were safe, and Katie had mentioned to him in passing
Speaker 2: about how shame was kind of like jealous and all that.
Speaker 2: And my manager made a joke and was like, oh,
Speaker 2: should I like put my arm around you and give
Speaker 2: him something to talk about, like as a joke, and
Speaker 2: she goes, no, job, don't like that will cause you
Speaker 2: so many issues. And so I told him and like
Speaker 2: he was shocked, but you know, it wasn't surprised in
Speaker 2: the sense of how ridiculous that this person had become.
Speaker 1: Did the police come to you the next day? When
Speaker 1: did they get involved? Were you kind of given any
Speaker 1: support or explanations?
Speaker 2: The support was nonexistent. So basically, Katie was murdered on Friday,
Speaker 2: the ninth of March. This was the long weekend, and
Speaker 2: evidently crime just stops on a long week and so
Speaker 2: it was about three days I believe before any detectives
Speaker 2: came to our house to formally confirm that it was
Speaker 2: really yep. At this point Dad had had to We
Speaker 2: had friends who were on the police force and stuff,
Speaker 2: and you know, calls were made and things like that
Speaker 2: to you know kind of say like this isn't acceptable,
Speaker 2: this isn't okay. But yeah, Ultimately it was three days
Speaker 2: before anyone came. We originally thought the day after that
Speaker 2: there were these people in suits they were coming to
Speaker 2: the front doors. Were like they must be the detectives.
Speaker 2: They were journalists, and they basically were like at the time,
Speaker 2: do you have a comment? If not, we'll put out
Speaker 2: something anyway, And do you have a favorite photo of
Speaker 2: Katie because if not, we're just going to grub whatever.
Speaker 2: So basically we were kind of forced into I drafted
Speaker 2: up a quick, you know, statement, and we provided a
Speaker 2: photo because what were we going to do. They were
Speaker 2: just going to grub it anyway. But yeah, we didn't
Speaker 2: hear from the detectives or anything until three days later.
Speaker 2: During that time, we had found out what the murder
Speaker 2: weapon was via social media.
Speaker 1: Via social media at police came.
Speaker 2: The detectives came and said, oh, you know, so she
Speaker 2: was murdered with We're like, yeah, dumb belba And they're like,
Speaker 2: how do you know that? And we're like, it's all
Speaker 2: over social media.
Speaker 1: Did you find the media coverage because obviously the media
Speaker 1: are going to cover something like this, you know, like
Speaker 1: a young mother murdered. Was it hard? Like what was
Speaker 1: it like as the family having the media knocking on
Speaker 1: your door writing stories about your sister grabbing photos from
Speaker 1: her social media.
Speaker 2: It was a lot. It was very surreal. I will
Speaker 2: say that the media have been quite respectful of our family,
Speaker 2: and we are very privileged in that sense that we
Speaker 2: know that a lot of people's experiences are very different
Speaker 2: and we were very lucky, especially as my mum's cousin
Speaker 2: works as a cameraman and in media, so he kind
Speaker 2: of also put out that, you know, the vibe of
Speaker 2: you know, please do not harass, you know, don't like
Speaker 2: and don't make it about Shane either. Like there was
Speaker 2: a lot of that was about the details, but once
Speaker 2: more came out about Katie, they really did give Katie
Speaker 2: her voice and who she was, Like they didn't let
Speaker 2: her get lost in the story, which I know can
Speaker 2: quite often happen. So we are very privileged, but it
Speaker 2: was a lot. It was very surreal where we were
Speaker 2: a regular family, Like two days prior, nobody knew us.
Speaker 2: I was doing a bit of journalism as a part
Speaker 2: of my criminology degree, Like it was very foreign to
Speaker 2: be in the center of it over that weekend, obviously
Speaker 2: seeing the video footage from the crime scene so seeing
Speaker 2: her body bag get wheeled out, I'm seeing the bloody mattress,
Speaker 2: which at the time we didn't even clue in that
Speaker 2: it was a single mattress. We assume this had happened
Speaker 2: in her bedroom. So it was only once they told
Speaker 2: us it was Aidan's room that we clicked and we
Speaker 2: were like, that was a single mattress covered in blood.
Speaker 2: But they're all images that we should never have had
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 1: You should never have found that out from the media.
Speaker 2: Either, Like we saw the the glass door smashed, and
Speaker 2: obviously not being told any information for so many days,
Speaker 2: your mind is left to piece together what's going on.
Speaker 2: So we saw the smashed glass, we didn't know that
Speaker 2: was from the police smashing it to get in. Only
Speaker 2: we thought, oh my god, there's been a massive fight,
Speaker 2: Like she's fought for her life, she's you know, And
Speaker 2: that's also horrifying because you're then going to this situation
Speaker 2: that hasn't unfolded, and then you find out that she
Speaker 2: was completely defenseless sitting on the bed. And even then
Speaker 2: I still say she fought, like how like there is
Speaker 2: no way if there was an opportunity present, she would
Speaker 2: have fought. But yeah, dealing with the media. It was just, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a lot, and to find out a lot
Speaker 2: of the information from the media I think was very appalling.
Speaker 1: When you think back on those first few weeks, those
Speaker 1: first few months after losing Katie, what stands out the
Speaker 1: most to you the community and.
Speaker 2: How they rallied around us. We were really really lucky
Speaker 2: to have such a wonderful community and supporting us within
Speaker 2: a month of her just over a month after she
Speaker 2: was murdered, we actually had to lanna first birthday for Indie,
Speaker 2: and we had such wonderful friends and family helped rally
Speaker 2: around us on that day because at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, Indian only turns one once, and we knew
Speaker 2: that Katie had already bought her presence and had started,
Speaker 2: you know, to wrap them and get them ready. So
Speaker 2: we felt we owed it to Katie to give her
Speaker 2: this first birthday celebration. And you're doing this just over
Speaker 2: a month after you've lost Katie, and probably two weeks
Speaker 2: I think it was after we actually got to have
Speaker 2: a funeral for Katie. So it was just a very
Speaker 2: confusing and a very big blur. Genuinely, Mom and Dad
Speaker 2: would not have survived if they didn't have Indy, and
Speaker 2: I know that for a fact. They had no choice
Speaker 2: but to get up every day. They had a baby
Speaker 2: to look after. It was just a lot. And then
Speaker 2: dealing obviously with Shane's family and just there was a
Speaker 2: fair bit of animosity there and we were dealing with
Speaker 2: a lot of that in the week lead up, like
Speaker 2: after the murder. Dad was dealing with the rental people,
Speaker 2: dealing with all the stuff to do with Katie's estate.
Speaker 2: She didn't have a will, so it was just you
Speaker 2: didn't get time to grief. There has been no time
Speaker 2: to grief.
Speaker 1: I don't think people realize all of the admin that
Speaker 1: comes when something like this happens. You think you're going
Speaker 1: to be able to kind of sit there and grieve
Speaker 1: and cry and be able to Like you're saying, there's
Speaker 1: so much to do.
Speaker 2: And it's even more complex when both people who are
Speaker 2: listed on these things, whether it be electricity, water, the bills,
Speaker 2: everything like that, one of them's in prison.
Speaker 1: The other one said, so how do you get access?
Speaker 2: Yeah, then how do you get access? Not only that
Speaker 2: it essentially becomes his backwards and forwards because he's not sentenced,
Speaker 2: is you're innocental proven guilty. So at this point there
Speaker 2: is no knowing. You don't know when the sentencing is
Speaker 2: going to happen, you don't know what the outcome was
Speaker 2: going to be. Like it was very early days and
Speaker 2: it was just the ADMIN side. I think took well
Speaker 2: and truly over a.
Speaker 1: Year to kind of get through even just the fact
Speaker 1: that I know your dad did a lot of that,
Speaker 1: but he having to explain over the phone over and
Speaker 1: over again what happened.
Speaker 2: Well, see even dad, because Dad is not biologically Katie's dad,
Speaker 2: but by all accounts, he is the only dad she
Speaker 2: has ever had, and that is how she like, she
Speaker 2: was going to turn thirty that year and she wanted
Speaker 2: to get adoption papers. She wanted it legitimized. Like so
Speaker 2: he's Katie's dad wholeheartedly, But when it comes to ADMIN stuff, Yep,
Speaker 2: he's not Katie's dad. He has no rights to do it.
Speaker 2: So then you're trying to get a grieving mother to
Speaker 2: take on the ADMIN when Dad's trying to step up
Speaker 2: and do all that and he's not allowed to, and
Speaker 2: he's constantly being reminded that he is not Haiti's biological father.
Speaker 2: He lost his identity throughout this whole process. He for
Speaker 2: all accounts from the moment like she was born, was
Speaker 2: Katy's dad, and in that short period of time he
Speaker 2: was reduced to less than and he lost his identity.
Speaker 1: After the break, we hear about why the court interrupted
Speaker 1: Bianka's victim impact statement. Shane pled guilty, which saved your
Speaker 1: family the horror of a trial, but the case still
Speaker 1: goes through a very lengthy process. He went through, you know,
Speaker 1: the Melbourne Magistrate's Court and then the Supreme Court. There's
Speaker 1: lots of mentions, there's lots to do in that kind
Speaker 1: of time. What was that process like for you? I
Speaker 1: know you were studying criminology, but nothing prepares you for
Speaker 1: being thrown in as a victim's family. What was it like?
Speaker 2: Very confronting process. It was a very confusing process because
Speaker 2: I went in with the expectations of a system that
Speaker 2: works in the way that we are told it works,
Speaker 2: and knowing that all these people are coming out of
Speaker 2: my degrees with this optimism of this is how it works.
Speaker 2: You know, we are very victim focused and finding out
Speaker 2: it's really not. We found out very quickly that our
Speaker 2: system is very perpetrator focused. The well being and the
Speaker 2: interests of the perpetrator are at the forefront and always
Speaker 2: will be. But basically I remember the Magistate's court one,
Speaker 2: which was the first initial like plea hearing where he
Speaker 2: did plead guilty. We didn't even get to sit in
Speaker 2: that courtroom. We had to be walked in when it
Speaker 2: was time to hear his mention because there were no
Speaker 2: seats for us because his whole family and supporters took
Speaker 2: them all up, so we had to stand there. We
Speaker 2: weren't allowed in because there was no seats. Then I
Speaker 2: know when we went to the Supreme Court, we had
Speaker 2: to be separated because they essentially were doing the same thing.
Speaker 2: They were adding to the trauma of basically we like,
Speaker 2: you know, the victim blaming and that there was laughing
Speaker 2: whilst in the courtroom. His sister gave us the bird
Speaker 2: in the courtroom, and the judge didn't seem to care
Speaker 2: about that. They literally walked Shane right in front of us,
Speaker 2: like within arm's reach. Dad could have literally he flipped
Speaker 2: his ear, which I just don't think is very mindful
Speaker 2: of victims, Like make sure you're placing them in a
Speaker 2: spot that it's not, you know, and like Dad said,
Speaker 2: like tempting, tempting, but no, like he's like, I've got
Speaker 2: to be this person for Indie. Now, I've got to
Speaker 2: conduct myself in a way that is better than these people.
Speaker 2: But it was full of high stress. We're going there,
Speaker 2: we're hearing details of what's happened to Katie, We're reading
Speaker 2: police reports, we're hearing the character references. So we gave
Speaker 2: our victim statements. But during that process, you're audited. You're
Speaker 2: told what you're allowed to say and what you're not
Speaker 2: allowed to say, which.
Speaker 1: I don't think people realize. You actually have to get
Speaker 1: your victim impact statement approved.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so you have a lot of what you're
Speaker 2: not allowed to say what you are allowed to say.
Speaker 2: And I had decided to stand up in court and
Speaker 2: face him. I wanted him to have to look at me,
Speaker 2: which was a very daunting thing, especially with his supporters
Speaker 2: laughing overhead and like gauwking and you know, but I
Speaker 2: stood there, and he's barrister at the time opposed and
Speaker 2: objected to my victim's pack statement whilst I was on
Speaker 2: the stand, even though it had gone through the correct
Speaker 2: measures of being approved. We've only just recently got back
Speaker 2: to being not afraid to bump into these people in
Speaker 2: the supermarket, and that for the fear of what kind
Speaker 2: of behaviors were happening. Because when you so blindly support
Speaker 2: someone at the expense of victims, I think it's a
Speaker 2: pretty fair thing to say that, like, your life now
Speaker 2: feels like you can't trust people. We weren't allowed to
Speaker 2: be angry. We weren't allowed to Yeah, it was very cold, like,
Speaker 2: how can you understand someone's the impact that this kind
Speaker 2: of lost has on someone when you're not allowed to
Speaker 2: say how it's impacted you, which is one thing. And
Speaker 2: then we had to sit there and listen to the
Speaker 2: character references of what a great guy he was. And thankfully,
Speaker 2: thanks to Harry James, that's being abolished. Your reference ain't relevant,
Speaker 2: amazing because it's not what you were before you did.
Speaker 2: A heinous crime does not minish the crime in which
Speaker 2: you committed. And I think it's a great step forward
Speaker 2: for victims to not have to listen to what a
Speaker 2: great person their abuse are, their perpetrator, anything like that,
Speaker 2: their murderer is, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: you're there for that crime and that defines them.
Speaker 1: There have been some other changes since Katie's murder and
Speaker 1: Shane's sentencing in that coercive control laws are now in
Speaker 1: place in I was going to say a number of states,
Speaker 1: but it is a few states. It's only New South Wales,
Speaker 1: Queenslight and South Australia that have jumped on in the
Speaker 1: last few years. Was that a comfort to you that
Speaker 1: that is now recognized by the court system or how
Speaker 1: does that actually play out for you when you see
Speaker 1: it in the system.
Speaker 2: It was rewarding to see it actually be implicated. I
Speaker 2: think it's a great step forward to acknowledging that not
Speaker 2: all abuse is physical and that we are really trying
Speaker 2: to see the invisible essentially, which is such a challenge
Speaker 2: like you, but it gives victim a better standpoint to
Speaker 2: understand coursive control, to know that it is something that
Speaker 2: is illegal, that the behavior is just as bad as
Speaker 2: physical abuse. I won't say that I'm overjoyed about it
Speaker 2: because it's common sense and we should have already been
Speaker 2: implementing that with or without a law. If you're proving
Speaker 2: that someone is harassing you, stalking you, invading on your privacy,
Speaker 2: you know, basically restricting your ability to be a human
Speaker 2: being of your own capabilities. Then I don't think we
Speaker 2: need a law to say, hey, that's actually very violating
Speaker 2: and that goes against and especially when paired with in
Speaker 2: our case, a murder case, I think it should have
Speaker 2: definitely had more of a weighing in the sentence. I
Speaker 2: don't think we needed a law to tell us that
Speaker 2: that behavior contributed to her death, and that if intervention
Speaker 2: had happened earlier, if the warning signs had been recognized
Speaker 2: on a court level or on a police ability, then
Speaker 2: we may not have ended up here. I will say
Speaker 2: that I am incredibly disappointed in Victoria because we claim
Speaker 2: to be so forward thinking and that we are leading
Speaker 2: the way when it comes to family violence and all
Speaker 2: the preventions and all these things that they're doing, and
Speaker 2: they love to pat themselves on the back about it.
Speaker 2: You can't even implement coursive control laws and you wait
Speaker 2: until other states have done it, when we've got there's
Speaker 2: countries that have been doing it. And yes, it is
Speaker 2: difficult to convict I understand that, but there's a lot
Speaker 2: of things that are difficult, and with the right procedures,
Speaker 2: with the right paperwork, with the right documentation, there are
Speaker 2: ways to go about it. And in some cases, like Katie,
Speaker 2: it's very clear cut. You can't disprove that there was
Speaker 2: coursive control there. It is very evident, and I know
Speaker 2: in so many people's lives they would be able to
Speaker 2: point that out as well.
Speaker 1: What does life without Katie look like for your family?
Speaker 1: Now her kids are obviously nearly a decade older. What
Speaker 1: is life?
Speaker 2: It's a bittersweet. I would say we are living with
Speaker 2: a hole in our heart, it's a whole in our life.
Speaker 2: I think Katie's daughter, Indie puts it best. She misses
Speaker 2: her mum, but she doesn't know what she misses. And
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of the element of all of
Speaker 2: us where we we miss Katie. We know what we're missing,
Speaker 2: but her children don't. My children don't know what they're
Speaker 2: missing yet. They talk about their Auntie Katy all the time.
Speaker 2: They literally go out to where she's laid to rest.
Speaker 2: That's where we spend our mother's days, that's where we
Speaker 2: spend our birthdays, Christmases, Easter. This is our new normal
Speaker 2: with a person missing, and it's one where you play
Speaker 2: the constant what ifs. You constantly go like, what if
Speaker 2: it was like this? What if it was like that?
Speaker 2: I have to look at it as I met my
Speaker 2: partner through my sister at work, and ultimately we now
Speaker 2: have two beautiful children. So I have to say that
Speaker 2: without Katie and what happened to her, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: the life I have now. I just wish that she
Speaker 2: could be here physically, but she definitely gave me this life,
Speaker 2: and I'm eternally grateful for that. My daughter has her
Speaker 2: name as her middle name because I want her to
Speaker 2: be a very big part of our life. Her children
Speaker 2: are thriving despite the circumstances, but they're going to have
Speaker 2: a lot of trauma for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2: They're going to struggle to trust people. I don't even
Speaker 2: know what it looks like for them to get into relationships,
Speaker 2: and I know for a fact that he's going to
Speaker 2: be so hard for my parents to allow India to date.
Speaker 2: But I don't also restrict someone, you know, they don't
Speaker 2: want to control her. But I know that it is
Speaker 2: going to be a very difficult time to entrust someone
Speaker 2: the same way that they had to trust my partner
Speaker 2: and welcome him into our family. That we can't be
Speaker 2: completely shut off. But yeah, there's this big absence in
Speaker 2: our lives, and it's one that could have been avoided.
Speaker 2: It's one that you know, this isn't how our lives
Speaker 2: were meant to be. Every happy moment for other families
Speaker 2: and it is a sad one for us. There is
Speaker 2: no happy Christmases. There's moments of happiness. Birthdays. You know,
Speaker 2: India just had her birthday. It was a happy day.
Speaker 2: But I know for a fact that I go home
Speaker 2: and I cry that night. I know for a fact
Speaker 2: that my mum cries. I know that I'm physically unwell.
Speaker 2: The week leading up to our anniversary, which it's been
Speaker 2: eight years, you think it would get a bit easier,
Speaker 2: and everyone says time heels. But when someone's taken in
Speaker 2: this way that's so unnatural, and at the hands of
Speaker 2: someone else who you know will come back out into
Speaker 2: society and get to live their life, it just it hurts,
Speaker 2: and you're living on a countdown. You can't fully enjoy life,
Speaker 2: and then you know that once they're out, you're scared again.
Speaker 1: Lastly, Bianka, what do you want listeners who have heard
Speaker 1: your story and heard Katie's story to take away from
Speaker 1: our chat and hearing the details.
Speaker 2: I want people to understand that it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be physical abuse. Just because you don't have signs of
Speaker 2: abuse doesn't mean that you aren't being abused. Coursive control
Speaker 2: is very real. Coursive control is invisible, and it's so
Speaker 2: insidious and it creeps up. So I want people who
Speaker 2: are in those relationships to acknowledge that they deserve better,
Speaker 2: that it's not their fault, and to reach out to
Speaker 2: loved ones, family members, And in that case, I want
Speaker 2: family members and friends and general society to educate themselves
Speaker 2: on it, to see the signs. In case the person
Speaker 2: isn't able to see it for themselves, you need to
Speaker 2: be a safe space for someone. You need to not
Speaker 2: judge them, and you definitely need to not allow that
Speaker 2: isolation to take place. Because had we been more open
Speaker 2: with Katie and not so shut off about the behavior
Speaker 2: because we were just we just put it down to
Speaker 2: jealousy and she was handling it and we didn't want
Speaker 2: to get involved in the drama. They're adults, maybe there
Speaker 2: would have been a different outcome. I highly doubt it
Speaker 2: in that case. But if we hadn't shut off, we
Speaker 2: wouldn't be living with the Wattiffs. We would have been
Speaker 2: still her support person, and to this day, I've had
Speaker 2: to help friends and strangers who aren't ready to accept
Speaker 2: what's happening to them. And as hard as it is
Speaker 2: to watch someone go through that, don't leave them. Don't
Speaker 2: allow that isolation to take place, because that is their
Speaker 2: greatest weapon.
Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations is hosted by me Jemma bass Our.
Speaker 1: Senior producer is Charlie Blackman, the group executive producer is
Speaker 1: Alaria Brophy, and there's been video editing by Julian Rosario.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with another True Crime Conversation