Probably the single event of the unfolding story is the point when there was a clash in the dialogue of the case against Ewen MacDonald was on the day he was acquitted. Kylee Guy ran from the courts with an entourage to a car waiting outside screaming that EM had killed her late husband. Until that point she had been mostly tearful, and by my impression, paraded before the Jury many times in order to raise sympathy for her and animosity toward EM. Much earlier I actually questioned whether it was a trial of 'dramatic effect' relying on something other than evidence to gain a conviction.
Thing is Kylee doesn't know the truth of who killed her husband and she may long ago have been influenced by learning of the attack against her home by EM and Boe, or by being told that the police had foot print evidence that proved EM was the killer. If there was something she was holding back we would have known before now. What we know is that Kylee has left the farm, relinquished her share in some way, has a media manager and an internet site in the 3 years since her husband Guy was shot and killed on the driveway outside their home. Just on that departure from Court, that was clearly choreographed, attendants in a huddle around her limousine waiting by the side walk cameras at the ready. Whether the 'demonstration' was for the waiting media can only be speculated upon but the message seemed to be to them.
Callum Boe's lawyer told the Court at the time of his sentencing that a defining moment in the relationship with Ewen was when they attacked 19 bobby calves with a ball pein hammer. Up to that time Callum obviously hadn't considered poaching prize deer off neighbouring farms, carrying their heads away as trophies was anything more than a general evening past time. It was at that point, the lawyer said, that Boe had realised, having help kill the calves, 'that MacDonald was capable of doing anything.' Then he became afraid of him. A watershed moment, for the young farmer to feel empathy with one kind of dead animal but not another. In context it may have been exactly the line police had hoped Callum Boe could be encouraged to tell the jury. We don't know why Callum Boe didn't give evidence but there are indications that he got a relatively light sentence, co-operated with the police and there was some anticipation that he would give 'dramatic' evidence against EM, not about the charges he faced but about how evil EM was. Of course that was a 'conditional' evil and nothing to do with the murder other than by drawing a long bow. The person who was going to reveal EM's evilness was his long term mate, confidant and partner in poaching missions and revenge attacks. Not quite the Minister's son from the local church.
I'd say that statement was going to go into evidence at EM's trial if the Court had allowed it so I wonder why it is released to the public now when the case is before the High Court. I think that is because the picture drawn of this case never mirrored a crime of murder but provision of hope that it might do so if attended by enough unsettling diversions. That statement would have been wrung for every small drop of it's worth. The prosecutor would have hammered it home in order to overcome the lack of evidence against MacDonald. It would have been another dramatic piece, Callum Boe no doubt brought through a side door and surrounded by police to heighten the effect - the good bad guy, entering the Court suddenly fearful of his mate of many years. Evidence of murder, no. Kylee Guy announcing that she 'knew' that EM had killed her husband, evidence, no.
Well, the worm has turned or will be turning for many. The country seldom if ever has had a murder case of this type before. Not in the time of the internet anyway. We've never seen victim's families commission media management or launch appeals for money for themselves. It's new territory and takes a little getting use to. Whereas there has normally been a natural, kiwi-type, circumspection to be reserved and not look too closely or comment upon publicly it seems that there has been a type of invitation into the world of the families concerned that will continue to fire opinion for years, maybe longer. I think that is unfortunate, something like the floodgates being opened not in anticipation that flooding will go further than was intended or calculated, effect others, and maybe never stop.
Look back for a minute at the 'style' and substance of the trial, the 'props' deliberately placed to make it one of high theatre rather than of serious and emotionless control that one assumes should attends such a grave matter. That wasn't Kylee Guy's choice, or that of her mother and fathers-in-law, that was a tactic and style introduced to substitute for evidence that didn't exist. I've seen else where some of the original Bain hate-siters reforming their witch patrols, grasping at single words to concoct a campaign against Ewen MacDonald. Yet again they're the puppets to another kind of control, one of rumour, and being 'all knowing and informed.' By who, one might ask. The answer is by the Crown that brought a case that didn't exist and attended it with a reality tv type drama, who had 'evidence' from a stalker and thief that EM wasn't a nice man even though that had been laid on thick at the trial. Has there been any benefit? I don't think so because we've lurched toward trial by dramatic turn, 'public jury' decisions by on-line polls. Criticism of the Courts and the Law. For what, for a family that still has no answers and children to grow.
Boe may have lead the police to believe the killing of the calves with a hammer, made him change his mind about Macdonald, but what they (the Police) should have known, and Boe, did indeed know is - farmers have been killing bobby calves with hammers for years. It is the quickest and least painful death and is common practice. To call a vet to a sick calf is too expensive, and then there is the runts, who just aren't worth saving, and will die anyway.
ReplyDeleteAs horrible as it sounds, when hit in the right place, their deaths are very quick, compared to other methods.
Sure, he shouldn't have killed the calves, but to make out the hammer attack was something extremely violent and painful for the calves, is again, playing on the emotions of an ignorant public.
If we accused every farmer that had killed calves in the manner, of murder, the courts would be very busy.
Yes it's pretty hysterical. It could equally be said that killing the poached deer and cutting off their heads was mutilating them, something which hadn't bother Callum Boe clearly.
DeleteKilling calves with a hammer may be usual, but not this way, where many of them were not killed and many had been repeatedly hit. The calves were not killed cleanly and efficiently...many of them were not killed at all, just badly harmed and had to be dealt with the next day. After the Police allowed them to: they were kept as they were, alive and in great distress and pain until the police 'released' them to be euthanased. So it would seem that it is not causing unnecessary pain and suffering to animals which is the crime, or if it is, the owners and police are also culpable 'after the event'.
ReplyDeleteThis was a brutal and cruel act towards the animals by Boe and MacDonald, no denying that. But it does not mean that Ewen MacDonald is a murderer, only that there was good reason to suspect him. Because the investigation of the murder was inadequate to prove anyone particular (including MacDonald) did it, mere suspicion is all that remains, but tempered with evidence that it may have been someone else. If suspicion is enough for the witch sniffers, it's not enough for me, and thank goodness it's not (usually) enough for the justice system to convict. I wonder if the lack of evidence was due to MacDonald's brother being a detective? If otherwise something akin to the cartridge in the AAT case might have been found? Who knows.
One point that has sparked my curiosity is the boot prints (again). The other farmers said that there were distinctive boot prints found after the burning of the maimai and the slaughter of the calves. If that were the case, and if the boot prints were the same as those found when Scot Guy was killed, I cannot imagine that wouldn't have come out at MacDonald's murder trial. So the obvious inference is that those prints were different. In which case, that's another piece of evidence to suggest that the perpetrator was NOT the same person. In the interests of fairness then surely that should have been noted one way or the other?
I can't really disagree with anything you say. In particular the boot prints clearly were not from size 9 dive boots, as identified by the 'expert,' must have been photographed and surely were identifiable again to the farmer's that noted them.
ReplyDeleteI shudder at the thought that someone may have been attempted to be persuaded, or persuade another, they 'could' identify the prints as the same as those found at the murder scene.