I used a late night at Shelley’s as an excuse to go to bed early with the girls. Tomorrow was going to be my make or break, so I needed to at least try to get a good night’s sleep.
Before leaving for work, Helen told me to use her hairdryer for the girls and took me into her room to show me where it was. A few minutes after Helen left for work, I got the girls into the shower and instructed them to wash their hair, then headed into Helen’s bedroom in search of the suicide note. I carefully checked the drawers, making sure I left no sign I had been there, while listening to the girls in the shower. The last thing I needed was the girls catching me going through Helen’s things!
Rajon and Lacau loved the QEII swimming pool and a visit there had been the plan for today, but now I had an appointment with the police so they were off to hang out with their brother Sam. I had arranged to meet Andrew’s friend Duane outside the Hornby Police Station, for moral support. With Duane by my side I felt a lot stronger fronting the police with my allegations.
Detective Sergeant Mark Keane was a lovely man. We talked about my allegations before writing up a statement. When he asked where the suicide note was I almost laughed; like it was my job to illegally acquire someone else’s property and bring it to the police. I explained that I only had a small window of opportunity to search for it but didn’t find it, and wasn’t that the police’s job.
When I was explaining that the letter was typed, Keane commented that in all his years in the police force he had never come across a typed suicide note. Duane also backed this up as being strange. He worked in a first-response volunteer fire brigade out of town and had attended several suicides in his work and never come across or heard of anyone else coming across a typed suicide note. During our conversation Duane also mentioned Helen’s lack of emotion and his encounters with her after Phil’s death.
Keane handwrote out my statement, outlining the family and their relationships to each other, the breakdown of my relationship with Phil and Helen, and the stories Helen had told me about Phil’s affairs and the suicide note. He explained it would be passed on to the detective who was in charge of the file regarding Phil’s sudden death.
I left the police station feeling that Keane had believed me. I farewelled Duane and he assured me he would back up my concerns with my family.
Checking my phone, I realised Sam had been trying to get hold of me. When I picked up the girls, Sam explained that when he had tried to call he had been greeted by Phil’s answerphone message, which made him freak out and hang up. I just wanted to call the number and listen to Phil’s voice too, but decided it would be more upsetting than comforting.
At dinnertime I drove to Sammy’s parents’ house, where Lance and Sammy were having dinner, to pick up Aaron and tell Lance what was going on. I asked Aaron to go and sit with the girls in the car.
When I explained to Lance that I believed Helen had murdered Phil, Lance went off, saying I wasn’t to go back to her house but should come and stay at his place. I reasoned that if I did that, Helen might realise that I knew she had murdered Phil and hide any evidence. I’d stayed there for four nights since concluding she was a murderer with nothing happening to me, so I reassured him I would be OK. I emphasised that he was not to say or do anything that could jeopardise an investigation.
We hugged goodbye, with Lance holding me a bit longer than usual. It was a lot for him to take in, as he had always been close with Phil until the falling-out caused by Helen.
Back at Helen’s I repacked the bags and we got an early night. We had to leave by 4 a.m. the next day to make our flight.
As Helen drove us to the airport, I messaged Sean then carefully went through the phone, making sure I had deleted all texts, phone numbers and call logs. The last thing I needed to do was hand her any evidence of my suspicions. I placed the phone in the centre console and thanked her for the use of it, the car and her hospitality. We hugged and said goodbye, and I reiterated that I was only a phone call or text away if she needed someone to talk to.
Six
Breaking the News
Dad picked us up at the airport. Aaron jumped in the back seat with the girls and I got in the front. As Dad drove he asked how our trip had been. I quickly breezed over the good things, then hesitated. This was so hard: Mum and Dad had stayed with Helen for three weeks after Phil’s death, supporting her in the belief they were mourning together.
While Dad was driving at 110 km/h on the highway probably wasn’t the safest time to tell him of my suspicions, but it just came out. He asked me if I was sure, and I said I had no doubts. I think he was open to another option than suicide, as that went against their religious beliefs.
He told me he had received several interesting emails while I was gone. Firstly, Helen had emailed to say she had received confirmation of the DNA test results. She claimed there was only a 0.00000001 per cent chance — that is, no way — that Phil was Ben’s father.
I cut in, laughing.
‘Took her long enough — she gave me that story on the phone the night before you left Christchurch after the funeral,’ I said. ‘If she had had the test result then and it was real it would have been on official paper and been a more credible way of showing you. But she’s never had tests done — it’s another one of her lies. I bet if I ring the funeral director that she claims helped her he’ll have no knowledge of it.’
Dad said Helen had also spoken to Maryanne from Victim Support about telling Ben that Phil wasn’t his father, and she had said it wouldn’t be a good idea for Helen or us to bring it up. ‘That’s because Helen wouldn’t want us to bring it up because it’s a bloody lie,’ I said.
Dad had also received an email from Karen, who had said she was concerned about Phil’s death. When we stopped off at Mum and Dad’s to pick up my car I went in and had a look at it.
In the email, Karen made it clear that no matter what has been said against or about her in the past, she had never stopped Phil from seeing Ben, but that Phil refused to see him on many occasions because of false accusations from Helen. She said that over one period of three months, Phil had had no physical or verbal contact with Ben because Helen had told Phil that Karen was sending her abusive text messages. Karen had tried to get Telecom to prove she wasn’t sending the texts but it meant she was going to have to hand over her entire phone log, with all the details of who she had called or messaged with, and she didn’t want Helen to see that, so she simply changed her cell-phone number.
Karen said Ben had started receiving ‘filthy and abusive’ text messages, which she had Telecom investigate. She said Telecom investigated and found that the messages came from Helen. So there were another few months that Phil had no contact with Ben.
In the email, Karen said she ‘always admired Phil for his caring and attentive ways where Ben is concerned. Phil loved Ben deeply and he showed it, but where Helen was concerned there was always trouble.’
Then came the clincher: ‘I don’t for one minute think that Helen isn’t to blame for Phil’s demise.’ Karen wrote that Phil had moved out on several occasions after disagreements with Helen, so why kill himself this time?
‘There’s not one single fibre in my being that believes Phil would do what he did intentionally. Not one! Perhaps it was a silly game he thought he was playing for attention from her and she let things go … I don’t know.’
Karen added that Helen had told her about Phil’s narcolepsy diagnosis, and that he felt he couldn’t live without driving, and that a business venture in Australia had fallen through and that was why he had killed himself. But she didn’t believe it.
‘What I do know is that Phil would never have texted Ben as he did and arranged to meet him the following morning and then killed himself that night. It doesn’t add up and I feel there’s more to the story than we have all been told,’ Karen wrote.
Karen also wrote of a time when Helen had seriously ‘misbehaved’ in front of Ben. Ben had been staying at their house when Helen had deliberately
taken an overdose of her insulin (she was diabetic) in an attempt to get attention. Ben had been completely freaked out by her behaviour and Phil had had to bring him home early.
‘Oh my God, déjà vu,’ I blurted out. ‘This happened — this truly happened. It was the first Sunday in October 2004 — I was there.’
I had flown to Christchurch on the Thursday and Phil had offered me the use of a car while I was there. Turns out it was Helen’s car. On the Sunday morning when I was at Andrea’s house, Phil called and said we needed to switch cars. He didn’t seem stressed or upset — it was just a simple car swap.
Andrea and Paul’s oldest son Drew came with me for the drive from the east side of Christchurch, right near the beach, across to Phil and Helen’s house in Halswell, in the southwest of the city. As we pulled into the long driveway Phil came running towards us in a panic, with Ben. He explained that Helen had taken an insulin overdose. She was in the bedroom and he didn’t know what to do.
I parked the car and ran inside. Strangely, Helen’s two sons were sitting quietly in the lounge with the TV on. I walked into the hallway and found Helen in the master bedroom. She blurted out that her kids didn’t even care what happened to her. I couldn’t get any information out of her about the insulin — she was too busy pointing out the lack of attention she was getting.
I excused myself from the room and called Andrea to see what she thought, as I had no idea of the effects of an insulin overdose. When I went back in to check on Helen and ask her more questions she was gone — she had snuck out through the internal access to the garage and was who knows where. We spent the next half-hour or so hunting the streets for her.
I called Karen as soon as I finished reading the email. Firstly, I apologised for not recognising her at the funeral home. She later explained that Helen had been very creepy when they’d gone in to see Phil, initially refusing to let them go in by themselves and then touching Phil and trying to get Ben to touch him, and suggesting Ben write Phil a letter that she would put in his pocket. I told her she hadn’t let me and Lance go in by ourselves either and we laughed; did she think that without her there Phil was going to tell us she murdered him?
I explained to Karen that we were on the same page — that I believed without a doubt that Helen had murdered Phil. I arranged to call her and talk further when I got home.
Dad then showed me an email Helen had sent Mum and Dad an hour after her imaginary visit from the police with the death-threat letter. This was awesome: more proof!
Hi Mum and Dad
I had a visit from the Police this morning regarding a letter I supposedly sent to Karen. I had evidently threatened to kill her and Ben. She has also given them a copy of that phone conversation. The Police have said that even if it was a call between Karen and I, which I assure you it was not, then she could actually be charged for recording a phone conversation without permission. They feel due to the media device used, there is no way that could have been recorded from a phone call. I really don’t know what is going on here. As I said I did ring Karen about the letter from Ben’s Solicitor, which she denied having anything to do with and then she hung up on me.
Karen rang me about 2 a.m. informing me that she will destroy me and will not allow Ben to have any contact with ‘his’ family whilst I am involved with you. She was adamant that Ben is Phil’s boy and doesn’t know how anyone thought they knew any differently.
I’ve spoken to my lawyer this morning and am transferring ownership of the house to a trust for my boys. Once this is done I will be moving and starting afresh. I know this probably seems pretty drastic, but with everything that has gone on it is the only chance I have of retaining or regaining any sanity.
LeeAnne will no doubt fill you in on more detail when she gets home as to what has been going on here for quite some time.
I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I feel it is more important for Ben to have people he can rely on in his life whereas I am old enough to cope with the whole situation.
Love Helen
It was laughable: did she really think I believed her lies enough to spread them? And what a feeble attempt at a strategic move to have nothing more to do with our family.
The drive home went quickly. I was on a mission and now I had an ally …
I CALLED ANDREW ON MY drive home and explained things to him, including that I’d taken Duane with me to the police. Andrew was also a believer, which was a great relief.
That afternoon I spoke to Karen again, for over an hour, each of us explaining what had made us draw our conclusions of foul play. Karen explained that the morning of Phil’s death Ben had been waiting, looking out the window for his father to arrive to drop off his hoodie, as they had been texting about it the previous day. Ben had been at his father’s from Friday night till teatime on Saturday, and Phil was due to start a new work run on Ben’s side of town on the Monday.
While Ben was waiting for Phil, he received a text from Helen’s son Adam, asking him to tell Karen to call him urgently. When Karen had said she was busy, Ben said Adam was insisting it was urgent.
Karen called Adam and he told her that Phil was dead. Karen couldn’t believe it and thought — and hoped — it was a cruel joke of Helen’s. She wasn’t willing to tell Ben this horrid news until she confirmed it.
She called the landline and Helen answered. She confirmed Phil was dead and passed the phone to a policeman. Karen, still not trusting Helen, asked the policeman for his name and station and, after getting off the phone, called the station to check.
That night Karen went on the internet and Googled the coroner’s office. She sent them an email outlining the concerns she had over Phil’s death and suggested they check for insulin in Phil’s body, thinking back to the earlier overdose incident. She had thought from the outset that Phil didn’t have it in him to kill himself. He’d left Helen before when their relationship went bad, so why would he not just leave her this time? She didn’t know about Helen’s story about the narcolepsy diagnosis at this stage.
The following morning, she followed up with a phone call to the coroner’s office. She gave me the name and number of the person she had spoken to there.
The next day I started early, before 7.30 a.m. Australian time, calling the coroner’s office. The man I needed to speak to finally answered at 11 a.m. (He was probably about to make a stalker complaint about me, this being my sixth call of the day!)
I voiced my concerns to him and asked a lot of questions about Phil’s death, including the estimated time of death.
‘It’s not CSI,’ he replied dryly. He explained that there are always too many variables to get an exact time of death, so it had been declared as occurring between the time Helen stated Phil went to bed and when she said she found him dead.
He explained that Phil’s death was in the hands of the coroner, who would make a finding on the cause, and gave me the contact details of the coroner’s coordinator.
By the time I’d spoken to this man and then Karen, when I tried to ring Detective Sergeant Mark Keane at 1.30 p.m. Australian time he had already gone for the day. I realised that the two-hour time difference between the two countries was going to limit my ability to contact people.
I was intent on the Thursday not to be evaded by the police and started calling the detective who had been assigned Phil’s file, whose number Keane had given me, at 5.40 a.m. and managed to catch him just before six. I made arrangements for him to be forwarded the emails Dad had received from Helen regarding the DNA test and the police visiting her over the death threat, as additional evidence.
After work that day I called Karen again, and we talked about many things, including Helen’s alleged DNA test and getting our own test done. Karen was more than happy to do this as we both knew it would prove Ben to be Phil’s son, and show Helen to be a liar.
I decided to contact Glenn the funeral director to confirm my belief that he had had nothing to do with Helen’s supposed DNA test. Glenn was furious with H
elen making up such allegations. He explained that that sort of behaviour from a funeral director would have them thrown out of the industry. I explained that I never believed it to be correct but I needed to ask and confirm from him that it was a lie.
I then spoke to the coroner’s coordinator about the job of the coroner and the process they would go through. He explained that the family could request a formal inquest which would give us the opportunity to ask questions and see and hear the evidence before the coroner. I instantly said yes, we wanted to do that. We also discussed the DNA issue and he explained that once the inquest was over we could get Phil’s bodily samples that were taken at autopsy to use for our test.
When I started looking further into DNA testing, however, the lady I spoke to suggested testing my parents rather than Phil, which would prove that Ben was fathered by one of their sons. This process seemed a lot quicker than waiting for an inquest. I sent off the request with credit card details for payment, and Karen set up an appointment for her and Ben to be tested. The lab would send packs to Mum and Dad’s doctors for them, and the samples would be couriered back to New Zealand for testing. (When we eventually got the results, of course they showed that it was 2.1 million times more likely that Phil was Ben’s father than a man not related to my parents.)
On Sunday I called Vicki, Phil’s first wife, and had my first in-depth conversation with her about the situation. Helen had shown her and Zak the ‘suicide note’ the preceding weekend. Apparently Helen had also originally told her that the narcolepsy diagnosis was the catalyst for him taking his life, and had extended on the fairytale by telling her that our mum had it, which is why Phil knew how much it was going to impact his life. This was of course a complete lie and I told her so. I said to Vicki, ‘How dumb is Helen, adding Mum to her lie? Does she think we would never talk to each other?’
Black Widow, The: How One Woman Got Justice for Her Murdered Brother Page 5