Helen butted in, saying that she would take us to see Phil. As she led the way Lance and I looked at each other with a ‘what the?’ look and agreeing gestures — neither of us wanted her in the room with us. How were we meant to say goodbye with her there? We felt as if she had gatecrashed our last moment with Phil.
It was so awkward. I honestly feel like I didn’t get to say goodbye properly — I just couldn’t in front of her. To me it was more of a reality check that yes, it was him there in the coffin and this was real.
(Lance is still really messed up about never getting things right between him and Phil. He feels Helen took away the chance he had to say something. Since Phil’s memorial Lance has had several sessions talking with Phil, sitting at his grave and having a few drinks.)
When we came back into the lounge area, Helen sat down and we started making arrangements. Helen was stressing out; she was having some sort of row with her son Adam by text, over Phil’s car. Andrew picked us up a big feed of fish and chips and we all headed back to Helen’s for lunch.
When I entered Helen’s home, she made some comment about Phil dying in the bed. I was confused — wasn’t he found in his truck? — but before I could think too much about it, she came over with her mobile phone and said, ‘Here’s the text message he sent me.’ It said:
Im sorry honey i cant keep going like this. I love you so much. Please take care and tell ben i love him.
I’m like a sponge — I absorb everything but don’t always process it straight away. It was all too much to deal with and think about. Besides, there was no time to dwell on inconsistencies. Helen was trying to hunt down a top she wanted to buy, and was trying to get Adam and his then girlfriend Kasey to the shops to get clothes for the funeral. In the end, Roger took Helen shopping and I went and got Adam and Kasey, and we met up at South City Shopping Centre in town, where Helen keenly purchased clothes for them both.
I dropped Kasey and Adam home and headed back to Helen’s. I packed up the things I needed to set up at the church the next morning and headed back to Lance’s place. As per the phone call from my parents’ house, Helen had agreed that we should get Peter Hay involved. He got on to Helen and helped her to organise the funeral at Wainoni Baptist, followed by a cremation at the crematorium at Linwood.
That night I practised reading the card Helen had given me, that she said Phil had left in her underwear drawer. It made me wonder why he would leave her a card that said ‘With you by my side, I believe that anything is possible’ and then kill himself.
I remembered when I rang Helen on one of the days immediately after Phil’s death that she said she’d just cleaned the toilet, and commented that she was a bit compulsive and did it every day. I laughed to myself now as I read the card, thinking, she cleans the toilet every day but took two days to change her underwear and find the card? I could tell from what it said that it was a card he’d given her previously, definitely not one he’d left her to find after killing himself. I guessed she had used that line to get me to read the card instead of what I had wanted to read. I felt manipulated.
On the Saturday I arrived early at the church with Lance and his then fiancée Sammy. We set up Sammy’s stereo for the music and I set up the table for the funeral book, with a photo of Phil and a couple of his prized model cars. I threw the box back in the car and parked it down the road.
As I walked back in I spotted my good friend Tarnz and greeted her with a hug. It was so calming and grounding to have her there.
In the courtyard of the church, Helen was on her phone, once again stressing over Adam. Her friend Wilma had gone to pick up Adam and Kasey but for some reason they had refused to come with her. I called Sam and arranged for him to call in and get them. In the end Adam and Kasey arrived by other means, late, and when the funeral director offered to seat them near Helen they didn’t want to, and sat on the other side of the church.
The casket was open, with the lid sitting at an angle with a beautiful arrangement of dark red and white flowers on top. Before the service started the funeral director put the lid on and locked it down. This felt so final. I couldn’t get my head around how Phil had gone from the happy, lively man who had been in Australia at the end of March to taking his own life just over a month later. What changed in that time? He had been making plans to shift to Australia then — what could have gone so horribly wrong that led him down this dark path of no return?
The service started and I realised I had left the card I had to read in the car, so had to leave to get it. The lovely funeral director, Glenn, offered to get it for me but I declined, racing down the road in a straight skirt that only allowed me to take small steps. I made it back into the church red-cheeked and puffing. My legs were wobbly and I felt sick as I stood in front of everyone to do my reading, but somehow I found the strength to read the words:
Helen, when you came into my life I realised that what I’d always thought was happiness couldn’t compare to the joy loving you brought me. You’re a part of everything I think and do and feel. And with you by my side I believe that anything is possible. Thank you for the miracle of you. You are, and always will be the love of my life. All my love forever Phil.
See what I mean about it being a strange thing to say just before killing yourself?
Along with Dad and my brothers, Phil’s friend JP and Ray, Phil’s neighbour and work colleague, I carried Phil out to the hearse. Mum and Dad sat in the front seat of the hearse and immediate family followed it to the crematorium for the committal.
At the crematorium, Helen and her oldest son Greg were talking quietly off to the side with Glenn the funeral director. She told us that Greg knew Glenn from school. But then she told me they were trying to get Glenn to reopen the casket for Greg to say goodbye.
AFTER A LATE MORNING-TEA WAKE, we headed back to Helen’s. Rhys played pool with our cousin Stephen on the table Phil had made in the sixth form at Shirley Boys’ High School. That table held so many memories for our family. Helen offered Andrew the pool table.
The following day was Mother’s Day. I called over to Helen’s in the afternoon after a quick shop at the local supermarket for Kiwi food to take home. Helen was going on about a text she had received from Adam, saying that he was accusing her of having murdered Phil. I thought she was being a bit of an attention-seeking fruit loop as her kids seemed to have made no effort to have been in touch with her for Mother’s Day.
That night we went for dinner at The Garden restaurant: Mum and Dad, Helen, Andrew and Rhys, Roger, Lance and Sammy and me. Mum and Dad were solemn but grateful they had their other three children there. I felt pretty uncomfortable; I had had a little to do with Andrew over the custody of his son but I still felt estranged from him, and I felt Roger still blamed me for his marriage break-up. I didn’t really want to go but I knew I had to.
At the dinner I watched Helen. I didn’t think she seemed like a person who had just lost someone she loved. I also thought it was strange that Helen had bought Adam and Kasey clothes for the funeral but now, two days later on Mother’s Day, there was no sign of them, only accusing texts. There didn’t seem to be any contact from her elder son Greg, either.
Over the weekend it had come up that I would be coming back to Christchurch the following month for Lance’s 21st. I invited Helen to come to the party and she invited me to stay at her house, but I declined as I had already made a hotel booking for me and my boyfriend at that time, Sean. I said I would call over for a drink, however.
Sammy and Lance took me to the airport around midday on the Monday to fly back to Brisbane with Andrew and Rhys and Roger. Mum and Dad and Helen were also there to see us off.
When I hugged Helen goodbye, she gave me an envelope and told me to wait and open it on the plane. Once we’d cleared Customs and were out of Helen’s sight I opened the envelope. It contained a card that read:
Dear LeeAnne
Thank you for all your help & support at such a painful time. You have been a tower of stren
gth and I am proud to have you as a ‘sister’.
Love Helen
Inside the card was a plaque that read ‘To a truly remark able woman’, with a sickeningly sweet piece of poetry on it. I showed it to Andrew as I did the fingers-down-the-throat gesture and said, ‘What a suck-ass. She’s no sister of mine.’
Four
Back in Australia
Over the next 11 days I called Helen’s home three times to see how Mum and Dad were getting on, as they were staying there. During this time Mum and Dad had been catching up with Ben and Zak, Phil’s older son, and my friend Andrea had been facilitating the return of some of Ben’s personal items that had been left at Phil and Helen’s.
On the Saturday two weeks after the funeral, Helen messaged me asking me to call her. It was 3.30 p.m. in Australia and I was outside pruning the hedge.
I called her straight back. She told me she had found a suicide note in the safe. She said she hadn’t been able to remember the code before now and had only just gotten into it to sort through Phil’s paperwork.
Helen read the note to me. She told me it said that he had found out that Ben wasn’t his son and that he couldn’t face him again. According to Helen, he had also written that he knew Helen would have problems with Karen, and that he was sorry.
I was totally shocked; I knew Karen had fallen pregnant pretty soon after she and Phil had started seeing each other, but Ben looked like Phil. I didn’t question it, however; I just listened to all Helen had to say.
It reminded me, however, of something else strange Helen had said to me in the past weeks. Apparently the funeral director had taken a DNA sample from Phil, as he had a friend somewhere who could get a DNA test done cheaply.
Helen also claimed to have found a booklet printed off the internet in Phil’s briefcase that explained how to be a male prostitute. I had to try not to laugh at this, as Phil would be the last person on this earth to go down that line. Helen also said she had found a little black book full of women’s phone numbers that indicated that Phil had been having an affair. She backed up this claim with information she said she had received from her ex-boyfriend Barry, who had attended the funeral and sat next to the woman Phil was supposed to be having an affair with. Helen said Barry had introduced himself to this lady and she had said her name was Sharon, that she was from Chertsey and had been having an affair with Phil for six months. Having gone through his paperwork, Helen said she had found evidence of purchases from a florist for 18 weeks before his death — even while they were in Australia on holiday. She said it was on his credit card statements.
I was blown away by all her accusations and immediately rang Andrew. We both agreed there was no way Phil would ever be a prostitute or have an affair. We were both shocked about the suicide note, however.
I called Helen’s after tea to check on Mum and Dad and to see how they were coping after seeing the suicide note. They were shocked at the news but said they saw Ben as their grandson, no matter what.
I asked Helen if she was going to tell Ben about the note and that Philip had found out he wasn’t his son, and she said she would ask the Victim Support counsellor what she should do. Things were busy in Australia for Andrew and me, as we had a custody hearing for Rhys that Wednesday, so neither of us was fully processing the information that I had received from Helen. Driving back from Brisbane around 6 p.m. on the Wednesday I called Helen’s to give Mum and Dad the good news that Andrew had won his fight for custody of his son.
Helen answered the phone and explained they had been out for dinner, as Mum and Dad were to head back to Australia the next afternoon. She told me she had received the DNA results from the test organised by Glenn the funeral director, and they showed there was only a 0.00000001 per cent chance that Ben was Phil’s — so no hope in hell. She hadn’t told my parents that she had got the results.
I spoke with Mum and Dad and told them I’d see them in Aus soon. They were relieved to hear the news of the custody hearing, but they sounded exhausted by everything that had been going on.
HELEN AND I KEPT IN touch by email and phone after the funeral. If she wanted to talk to me, she would text and ask me to call her.
In one of our conversations she mentioned that her ex-boyfriend Barry had come to visit, and Mum and Dad had arrived home to see him hugging her. She explained how supportive he’d been, and that they were going out on a date the day after Mum and Dad flew home. Helen explained how the relationship had fallen apart years ago due to issues with both their children, and that he was a lovely guy. She told me he owned his own home and a brand-new vehicle, plus had a secure, well-paid job.
I felt as if Helen wanted my blessing on them rekindling their relationship, which I gave, as I was more interested in what she was doing when it came to the DNA information and suicide note. I really didn’t care what she did in her personal life; I just worried about Ben and what she was going to do with this information.
In the 11 days between Mum and Dad returning to Australia and when I flew to New Zealand for Lance’s 21st, Helen talked to me about a trip to Motunau Beach with Barry to stay at his home there, a work trip out of town … and then that he was shifting into her house, as her boyfriend.
Helen with Barry, before she was charged with Phil’s murder. (Fairfax Media NZ/The Press)
Five
In the House of a Murderer
So many things had happened since I had made our initial plans for Lance’s 21st. With an awesome Valentine’s Day special on flights to New Zealand, I had booked for my boyfriend Sean to come with me, spend one night in Queenstown and stay in a hotel in Christchurch the rest of the time. But Sean lived 10 hours away and worked another two hours from there in the mines, and when it came down to it, coming to New Zealand was just too difficult so he bailed. After Aaron’s mate pulled out as well it ended up being me, Aaron, Rajon and Lacau.
Helen met us at Christchurch airport with Phil’s car, and we drove to Hornby McDonald’s to meet Lance. Aaron and the girls headed off with Lance to stay the night. I dropped Helen home and headed to the hotel I had booked.
I sat outside thinking about how it was meant to be and how lonely it was going to be stuck in a hotel by myself. When I went to check in, they asked for a $200 bond. With having to come over for the funeral, things were tighter financially than I’d planned, and I explained I didn’t have enough for the bond. Thankfully, they offered to cancel my room and refund my deposit in full.
That was all good, but now I had nowhere to stay. I remembered Helen’s offer but didn’t really want to stay there, let alone now she had her new/old man there. We had already made plans for me to go over for a drink that night; maybe I could just crash there and sort out something else the next day.
I headed to Lance and Sammy’s to pick up a phone Lance had offered to let me use. This was Lance’s time with his sisters and brother and I knew he wouldn’t be impressed if I stuck around too long, but it took a lot for me to pick up the landline and call Helen and ask if it was OK for me to stay the night. Helen insisted I stay there the whole time, and that the kids could stay too, when they needed. I wasn’t that comfortable with it but thought I could always make other plans once I’d got through the next day.
When I pulled into the driveway at Helen’s there was a new Kia Sportage in the drive. So this boyfriend was real, and here. How awkward was this going to be? I asked myself.
Helen introduced me to Barry and we took my things into the spare room across the hallway from the main bedroom that Barry now shared with Helen: the room, and the bed, that Philip died in.
I tried to sort out the phone Lance had given me as we poured drinks, but without any luck. Helen offered me Phil’s SIM card, which had credit on it that needed to be used, and a phone from her work. Initially I declined, saying I’d get it sorted with Lance tomorrow, but she insisted. With an early hair appointment and so many other things to do it was probably going to be the easiest option, so I accepted.
As I sa
t on the couch with my drink — vodka, crushed limes and soda water — Helen disappeared into the hallway. As she came back into the room she handed me a piece of paper and said, ‘Here’s the note I found in the bedside drawer.’
So this was the note she had told me about on the phone. But hadn’t she said she had found it in the safe? I took another gulp of my vodka and looked down at the note. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Firstly, it was typed.
But I didn’t even bother reading the text; I just stared at the handwritten ‘Phil’ at the bottom.
There was no way Phil had written this. Phil was left-handed and wrote very firmly, almost engraving. This ‘Phil’ was light and whispery — definitely not his handwriting.
I could tell that Helen knew I was upset, but she thought it was about seeing the note. But in fact my brain was whirring, putting together all the odd happenings and inconsistencies in what she’d said since Phil’s death.
I was now completely sure she had killed Phil. And, I wondered to myself, was Barry involved as well?
I got another drink, stronger this time. Helen left the room again, this time returning with a handful of other stuff.
There was a picture of Phil and a lady dressed in 1930s gear, as if they were off to a fancy-dress party. Helen proclaimed that this was a woman he had had an affair with. Phil had never seemed to age much over the years, so it was hard to look at the photo and work out how long ago it might have been taken. I came up with several options: it could have been taken well before Helen was on the scene, or they could have been going to a fancy-dress party with a friend and Helen had taken that photo. Who would know, but one thing was for sure: I knew Phil hadn’t been having an affair with anyone.
Black Widow, The: How One Woman Got Justice for Her Murdered Brother Page 3