by Mike White
Scott had given Katie to Kylee before they were engaged and this was her first litter. In the weeks before Scott’s death, they had printed flyers and put them up in several Feilding and Palmerston North shops, advertising the pups for $700 each.
The fact that the wavy-patterned shoe imprints found around Scott’s body had also been discovered outside the old cowshed made it likely that whoever killed Scott had also taken the puppies. Looking from Aorangi Road, the old cowshed was to the right of the driveway, about 100 metres from the gates and about the same distance from Scott and Kylee’s house. One scenario contemplated by police was that Scott had disturbed the thief as he came down the drive on his way to work and the shooting had followed an altercation.
When police issued a media statement asking for help locating the puppies, the response was phenomenal, with potential sightings reported from literally the length of the country. While ultimately unsuccessful, it illustrated both the public’s interest in the case and their willingness to help catch Scott Guy’s killer.
Two other major lines of inquiry were followed by police. The first was to look at other burglaries in the area and see if there was any connection with what had happened at 293 Aorangi Road. Perhaps it had been a burglary gone wrong—the real target being the puppies—and Scott got in the way.
But they soon ruled this out. The woolshed next to where the puppies were being kept was unlocked and housed potentially more attractive things to steal. But when police inspected it they found the dust on the floor was undisturbed, suggesting nobody had been in there to scout things out. They also surmised that any burglar would have been able to see lights and movement in Scott’s house and would have escaped before he came down the drive on his way to work, or hidden in the shed until he was gone. The ute itself had not been stolen and nothing inside it, including Scott’s wallet, appeared to have been taken. Instead, the police settled on the theory that the killing was targeted and planned.
Another possibility was that his death was somehow tied up with drugs. A persistent story they heard was that Scott had discovered a large cannabis plantation among one of their maize crops, or along the Oroua riverbank at the rear of the property, and pulled it out. But extensive investigations turned up only two incidents of drugs on the farm—once when two seedlings were found near the river and once when a worker was discovered with a plant.
Contractors who harvested the maize were all questioned, and none recalled any cannabis amid the crops. Police drug officers said nothing had ever been found in the area during operations. Moreover, Taonui Airfield, which was popular with trainee pilots and gliders, was nearby. The farm was right on its flight path, so aerial surveillance was constant and nobody had ever reported drug-growing.
Police also investigated Scott’s own drug use but considered it was minimal and found no evidence of recent use. Even his drinking was moderate. Some of his friends were known to have cannabis dealings but Scott’s contact with them was purely to do with farm matters. Ultimately, police determined that drugs weren’t part of what had caused Scott’s death.
Thus, at the end of 2010, after six months of intensive investigation and despite having a list of 60 ‘persons of interest’ drawn up from their general and burglary inquiries, police still had nobody that stood out as a prime suspect. There had been searches, roadblocks, flyers and thousands of interviews. They had sifted countless witness statements, pieces of potential evidence and hopeful leads from the public. They had also considered claims from several people that they were actually the intended target and Scott’s murder was a mistake.
As always in unsolved cases, psychics offered their visions and services. Even Kylee’s sister, Chanelle, who her mother described as spiritual, had a ‘flash’. She saw a blue-and-white sedan and someone she described as ‘white trash’ with a mullet, and Scott leaning over the car calling out to Chanelle. She provided police with the car’s number plate but it came to nothing.
Rewards for information had been contemplated, and members of the public had offered to fund this. Kylee, who had given birth to their second son, Drover, two months after Scott’s death, had pleaded with police to make an offer. But police chose not to, concerned that it might elicit a flood of speculative money-hunters whose claims would divert police from the investigation’s focus.
Kylee, as well as Scott’s parents, had made tearful public appeals for those with information to come forward, and there had been several TV programmes devoted to the case. But as the Guy family marked its first Christmas without Scott, to many there was a sense that police had run out of ideas and the investigation had stalled.
All that was to change in the New Year, though, when police finally decided to release a vital piece of information to the public.
CHAPTER 4
A suspect emerges
At the beginning of 2011, Sue Schwalger’s investigation team sat down and reassessed where the inquiry was at. New information from the public had almost totally dried up and existing leads had been exhausted. In December the full-time investigation team of 40 had been reduced to 24. By January this was cut to 14 and the General and Suspects squads of the investigation were combined. Schwalger had to admit to media they still didn’t know why Scott had been killed, let alone who had killed him.
As police reconsidered the investigation’s direction, they decided to concentrate on what they called the ‘previous incidents’ phase and people who had issues with Scott Guy. They also formed a strong view that the arson and vandalism against Scott and Kylee’s property were connected to the murder, something many people had always believed. Ironically, even Ewen Macdonald’s father, Kerry, had told police two weeks after the murder, ‘My thoughts and gut feeling is that there’s some connection with the arson at Scott’s house and then the vandalism and now the murder.’
So from January, the investigation team’s focus fell on Ewen Macdonald, primarily due to the fact that several people had pointed to friction between Macdonald and Scott and tension over the farm’s future ownership. While many had mentioned this, few really considered Macdonald could be the murderer, his links to Scott being too close, and their differences being typical of families in business together.
Police had drip-fed information to the public throughout the investigation but remained silent about much of what they had discovered, not wanting to give the culprit any warning or advantage. But in early February 2011, in an attempt to spark a response from the public, they released details of the vandalism to Scott and Kylee’s house, including photos of the graffiti painted on the walls. Though the spelling was erratic, some of the lettering was distinctive and they thought somebody might recognise the style. Better still, they hoped someone would know about the attack and come forward.
They got what they wanted.
When the photos of the graffiti were published in the paper, the boss of Manawatu building company Turbine Residential, Ricky Crutchley, thought he recognised the handwriting of a former employee, Callum Boe. As he told the police, ‘My wife was at work and I was at home at the time we saw the newspaper with the graffiti. We both had the same thought when we saw it—that it was Callum’s writing. I reached straight for his timesheets to look at those, thinking, “I bet that’s how Callum writes.” I certainly think there are some similarities in the writing.’
Boe’s parents had both died when he was young. After that he’d been raised by his grandparents, Dave and Rema Casey, at Colyton, not far from Byreburn, while his older brother, Reon, went to live with their other set of grandparents. The Guys wanted to help him so they gave him weekend and holiday work, and when Callum left school he went to work on the farm full-time, assisting Ewen Macdonald with the dairying operation. He formed a good friendship with Macdonald, even though he was quite a bit younger, and the pair used to go hunting often. At work they’d joke around in what some described as a slightly silly, childish way.
Boe had left the farm in 2007 to take up a building apprenticeship with C
rutchley, but he and Macdonald remained in touch and continued hunting. They also worked at a tourist attraction, a maze near Marton, where they were employed to scare visitors. In March 2010 Boe shifted to Queenstown to be closer to his brother, Reon, and take up a building job.
Armed with Crutchley’s information, police began investigating Boe’s movements around the time of the arson and vandalism, and especially how they fitted in with those of Macdonald. While both Macdonald and Boe had admitted poaching deer on a farm near Himatangi owned by Graham Sexton and on one occasion near Taihape, they denied having anything to do with the crimes against Scott and Kylee—and their alibi for the time of the vandalism seemed particularly convincing: they were driving up the North Island to deliver a load of furniture for a former farm worker.
But when police went back and checked Macdonald’s and Boe’s bank and phone records, it raised doubts about their story. At the time they claimed to have been heading to Ruakaka in Northland, EFTPOS transactions actually showed they were still in Feilding—around the time the vandalism was believed to have occurred. Moreover, phone records showed a call between the two just before the arson of the old house was noticed—a time when Macdonald had insisted he was at home in bed.
But even if suspicion fell on the two for the arson and vandalism, it provided police with no clear connection to Scott’s death. Being firebugs and hooligans didn’t mean they were murderers. The fact that Boe was in Queenstown at the time of Scott’s death ruled out his involvement and just left them with 30-year-old Macdonald. But why would Macdonald—who’d flatted with Scott, chosen him to be his best man and managed the farm with him—have murdered him?
On the surface it seemed unlikely, but as things clearly began to point in this direction, police delved back into Macdonald’s past, into the pair’s relationship, and began discovering disturbing undercurrents at the farm.
Born on 5 June 1980, Macdonald was a typical Manawatu kid, loving the country and all the activities that took place there. ‘Looking back on my life now,’ Macdonald wrote later, ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better upbringing from my parents. Mum and Dad both worked and worked hard. I’d say that’s where my work ethics have come from.’
Macdonald said the outdoors was in his blood because his father had such a passion for it. ‘As a child I don’t remember watching a lot of TV. I would rather be outside helping Dad. I think I would have been his shadow. We would dig the vege garden together or I would do the edges while he mowed the lawns. In the weekends we would often be found chasing pheasants around the countryside, walking up and down rivers or across farmland. Wherever Dad thought they might be hiding we were there to check it out. “Secret spot X” was the reply when Mum would ask where we were heading.’
Due to his father’s patient teaching, Macdonald also learnt how to turn his hands to most jobs that needed to be done, in the way that seems to come naturally to rural guys. He got used to working from an early age, with jobs in a supermarket butchery and as a milk boy.
Despite having asthma and suffering several broken bones along the way, Macdonald was good at sport—running, learning karate and making Feilding rugby teams through the age groups as a tough number 8. Later, a dislocated shoulder and other injuries would force him to give up the game, but he coached his children’s team.
His parents were always strong sideline supporters and did anything to help their kids’ activities. ‘I recall being at high school and the running team was fundraising to head down south,’ Macdonald wrote. ‘We decided we would make pizzas and sell them. At the time, Dad was working at the local freezing works, so off he went with my pizza order form and after a week, I think he had sold 103 of the damn things. Then came the evening to make them all . . .’
Macdonald started going out with Anna at the end of the fifth form, when he was 16. He passed four subjects in School Certificate—English, maths, science and woodwork—but by this stage he wasn’t terribly motivated, being more practical than academic. ‘I was only there to spend time with Anna and eat my lunch,’ he recalled.
In 1996 he decided to go back to school for sixth form because the first XV rugby team was going to Argentina, but within a fortnight he came home and told his parents school sucked and he wanted to quit. His father told him he could leave if he found a job.
Before he met Anna, Macdonald had a girlfriend who also lived on a dairy farm, and he had enjoyed lending a hand. And when he started spending time with Anna, he’d often pester Bryan Guy to see if he could help out. ‘Much to Anna’s disgust, we would find ourselves following cows to the shed or locking other herds away. Not really what she had in mind for a date with her new boyfriend, but I was having a blast.’
So when school paled and Anna mentioned that one of their farm workers was leaving, Macdonald went home and told his parents he’d found a job. He quickly took to his new position, his meagre $17,000 salary no doubt augmented by the attraction of being around Anna. Bryan Guy described him as keen, diligent and observant, good with stock and farm management. ‘He became part of the family and we got on very well.’ Macdonald worked hard and spent much of his money on a series of increasingly flash utes, virtually obligatory toys for country boys.
Apart from a brief stint driving tractors on another farm in 1999, it was the only full-time job Macdonald had ever had. Very early he had seen that other workers were there just to pick up their pay cheque, and he realised that if he put his head down and learnt from Bryan, there was a future on Byreburn for him. ‘Honestly, I could see myself staying there for the rest of my life. I just loved it,’ he wrote.
Kerry Macdonald described his son as ‘a natural-born farmer. Very, very good with animals—he found his niche and excelled at it.’
For his part, Ewen Macdonald loved being part of the Guys’ big family, with lots of cousins and grandparents and family gettogethers. ‘It was very infectious and they welcomed me with open arms, which I really enjoyed, plus I was dating the most beautiful girl in the world.’
By 2000 he’d progressed from ‘shit-kicker’ to second-in-charge at Byreburn and was living on the farm in a cottage at 213 Aorangi Road with Scott, who had been two years ahead of him at high school. The pair played rugby together for Feilding Yellow’s under-21 team, would go spotlighting for possums and rabbits and often go to Himatangi Beach, where Scott would surf and Macdonald bodyboard. When Ewen was contemplating asking Anna to marry him, he talked to Scott, who encouraged him, saying he’d been hanging around long enough and the couple were made for each other.
In February 2001, Macdonald took Anna to Nero Restaurant in Palmerston North and got staff to play her favourite song, the Dirty Dancing theme song ‘(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life’. He then stooped to one knee to ask her to be his wife. They were married in November that year when Macdonald was 21 and Anna 20. Scott was Macdonald’s best man and organised the stag party. Macdonald got so drunk, he swore he would never drink alcohol again—a promise he always kept.
As well as Scott, Macdonald had his brother, Blair, as his groomsman. Anna’s friend Fiona Hill and her sister Nikki were bridesmaids. There was a huge marquee beautifully decorated with flowers; Macdonald’s mother, Marlene, made the wedding cake; and an ice sculpture of a cow sat centre stage.
Many considered Anna and Ewen very different. Anna was sparkling company, extroverted, the star of school and repertory shows. Ewen was quiet, bottling up his emotions in the fashion of the stereotypical Kiwi male, not one to express his feelings or burden others with them. As his father, Kerry, described it to police, ‘Ewen is not the type to be effusive about frivolous chitchat, meaning that he didn’t just talk for the sake of it. None of my family are like that.’
Even with his father, there were limits on how much they showed and shared, as is typical with rural men, for whom communication is often prosaic. ‘He was there when you needed him,’ said Kerry Macdonald. ‘We don’t have a modern movie-style relationship where he tells me his goals or anything. We wou
ld just get on and do it. He doesn’t ask me how many guns I’ve sold at the shop and I don’t ask him about how the farm went. You would ask about how the chooks were laying.’
Ewen and Anna settled down on the farm in the cottage he’d shared with Scott and started to have a family. Their first child, Finn, was born in 2003, followed by Jack in 2005, Lucy in 2006 and Wade in 2008. Their names were gradually tattooed on Macdonald’s back in Celtic script, along with Anna’s, each using a letter of his surname, which ran down his spine. Macdonald called this his ‘backbone’, beneath which was the family’s crest with the Macdonald clan’s motto, ‘Per mare, per terras’—by sea, by land.
In the meantime, Scott had gone overseas to work in the Queensland outback and then to Hawke’s Bay. By the time he returned in late 2003, Macdonald was pretty much managing the farm’s daily operations as Bryan Guy became more involved in dairying politics, and naturally felt he had a strong stake in the farm. Scott’s role on arriving back was to take care of the crops the farm grew as supplementary feed for its 730 cows, and rearing their calves for the two years before they joined the milking herd.
Anna Macdonald admitted she was nervous about going into business with her brother, alongside her father and husband. ‘Because I don’t think three’s a great number,’ she later said. ‘Two’s company and three’s a crowd.’ She felt Scott had ‘sifted’ in and out of the farm as it suited him and questioned whether he was truly committed to it. ‘I thought it was quite convenient for him in between things he was doing . . . but, you know, the farm paid well and I think probably that might have been a pull, rather than him loving and being passionate about the job.’