Who Killed Scott Guy?

by Mike White

  After Scott’s death, the family had tried to get together every two weeks, ‘but we couldn’t recreate what we had. We found that with one person missing it just wasn’t the same,’ Bryan said. ‘Now we’ve got to start making new memories and new traditions for the family.’

  The family had appointed a new farm manager, who had shifted into Anna and Ewen’s old house at 147 Aorangi Road. At some stage, Byreburn would probably be sold because neither Callum nor Nikki was interested in taking over, but a decision on that wasn’t likely for a while, Bryan said.

  It had been an incredibly tough two years for the Guys. Not only had Scott been murdered and their ordeal become a public spectacle, but Bryan’s father, Grahame, had died three months later. While Grahame hadn’t been well for a while, Bryan said Scott’s murder undoubtedly hastened his death.

  Then, in May 2011, Scott’s cousin—the son of Jo’s sister—was killed after being pushed out of a second-floor window at a Perth pub. Andy Marshall had grown up with the Guy family and worked on the farm at one stage. In a cruel coincidence, the trial for Marshall’s killer, Stefan Schmidt, was held at the same time as Macdonald’s. Schmidt was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

  Bryan Guy never commented publicly on whether he believed Macdonald was guilty. Like many, he probably remains conflicted, but for him there is added difficulty when considering if his son-in-law killed his son. Because if the police version of events is correct, Bryan would forever have to live with the thought that if the shotgun used to kill Scott had been locked away as it should have been, then maybe, just maybe, his son wouldn’t have died.

  The kind of tragedy and turmoil the Guys had suffered would be licence for most people to become bitter and despise life’s cruelty. When Macdonald was arrested for murder and his other crimes became apparent, Bryan Guy described it as a tsunami washing over him. But consciously, day by day, they fought against getting dragged down into a gyre of rancour and resentment.

  During an interview with TV current affairs journalist John Campbell, Bryan Guy used an American Indian tale to illustrate their philosophy. ‘The grandfather’s telling the kids there’s two wolves fighting inside him. One’s full of hate and bitterness and sorrow and sadness and the other one’s got kindness and love and hope and faith and goodness. And the grandfather said, “There’s each of those two wolves in all of us.” And the kids say, “Well, which one wins?” And he says, “It’s the one I feed.”

  ‘And so, if we feed that one of bitterness and revenge and hate that’s what’s going to come out—so we don’t feed that wolf.’

  For Anna Macdonald the upheaval and loss was perhaps even greater. As well as Scott’s death, she had to cope with her husband being accused of his murder—and then the acknowledgement that he had carried out a series of hateful crimes, some directed at Scott.

  She said many times in the aftermath that she had to wonder if she really knew the man she’d been with for more than 15 years, the person she’d relied on for all that time in so many ways, the person who’d shared her life and secrets. It was impossible to reconcile that person with the one who’d committed the hideous crimes and harboured a world of his own secrets. Suddenly, the life she’d had with Ewen seemed a falsehood.

  When Macdonald was arrested, their normal life of the farm and the kids was immediately broken. The only certain thing was that regardless of what happened at his murder trial, he would be gone for a long time. Nobody commits a trail of crimes as serious as those of Macdonald and Boe and expects sympathy or lenience.

  So it was perhaps inevitable that others provided the support and solace she needed. Her initial relationship, which started about six months after Macdonald’s arrest, ended after four months, the man returning to his wife to try to resurrect his marriage. There was another brief relationship with a man from Wellington and then another that saw her shift to Auckland in January 2013 to be with her new partner Brent Jameson.

  The shift was also part of a new start for Anna. Few could have failed to be impressed by how she coped in court, her natural brightness evident alongside equally natural grief. The public was captivated by her in many ways—her blonde bob, blue eyes and designer wardrobe—and, as sometimes happens in such cases, she became something of a celebrity. In September 2012 she appeared on New Zealand’s 60 Minutes and in an eight-page Woman’s Day spread, telling her story and outlining her hopes for the future.

  Her taste of the media world over the past two years had also presented new ideas and opportunities, and she began pursuing a career in broadcasting. In November 2012 she spent a week working as an intern at Manawatu’s More FM breakfast show, reading the weather and entertainment news and getting a feel for life on air. She appeared in another Woman’s Day story in March 2013, presented a story about herself on TV3’s current affairs programme, 3rd Degree, and began writing a blog on her life as a mother for major new website Stuff.

  A natural performer, something clear from her many appearances in shows before she had children, Anna said she was determined not to let her life become defined by what had happened and being the wife of Ewen Macdonald. Indeed, immediately after the trial she changed her name back to Anna Guy and had already shifted from their home to a new house in Feilding. In one interview she said she essentially had to choose between Macdonald and her family, which was incredibly important to her.

  While she still had a reasonable relationship with Macdonald, largely for the sake of their four children, at 31 she felt she now had an opportunity to move on. The shift to Auckland and the break from the farm she’d lived on most of her life were all part of that. But while she and anyone with an ounce of empathy will hope the future is happy and fulfilling, it’s impossible to forget the past. And perhaps Anna, of all those swept up in the tragedy of Scott Guy’s murder, has the hardest task in trying to rationalise what’s happened.

  Kylee and so many others, while distraught and dissatisfied, at least have the security of certainty—the fervent belief that Macdonald was the killer. But for Anna there remains confusion and uncomfortable uncertainty. Publicly, she has evaded definitive answers on whether she believes her former husband is guilty of Scott’s murder—part of her still questioning him, part of her adamant she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t have been that extreme.

  And there is an added burden. To publicly pronounce Ewen as guilty of murder would be to damn him forever in her children’s eyes, while to say he was innocent would risk alienating her from those in her family who are adamant he killed Scott.

  Whatever she truly thinks, it would take a remarkable person to completely move on without in some way, at some time, being dogged by doubt.

  As for Anna, for Kylee Guy her children became her focus, her family her immediate support. Kylee had quickly left the house she and Scott shared, moving back to Hawke’s Bay where both her parents lived, too traumatised to return to 293 Aorangi Road. The house was eventually sold in June 2011 for $520,000.

  At Kylee’s request, Bryan and Jo Guy bought out her 10 per cent share in Byreburn. A trust was set up for Hunter and Drover.

  Following the trial she largely kept her silence apart from her exhortations to MPs that Macdonald should receive a long prison term. Immediately after his sentencing, though, she opened up in an eight-page Woman’s Day New Zealand interview, complete with many photos of her, Hunter and Drover. One of the ground rules for the interview, insisted on by Kylee, was that the writer should not mention Macdonald’s name at any time. Publishing industry sources suggested her story could be worth as much as $60,000 for an exclusive interview.

  She wears Scott’s wedding band, which she grabbed from the house the morning he was murdered, on a chain around her neck.

  Scott Guy is buried in a cemetery near Feilding, a rural setting surrounded by cabbage trees and calm. On his headstone it reads:

  Scott Grahame Guy

  21.12.78—8.7.2010

  Adored husband and best friend of


  Kylee

  Devoted and loving father to

  Hunter and Drover

  You will always be my beautiful husband

  and the love of my life

  You will always be our hero and the best

  Daddy in the world

  We love you so much

  In the top left corner of the polished black stone is a photo of Scott with his cowboy hat, taken on his wedding day. Underneath the headstone in large gold letters is the simple inscription ‘Our Cowboy’. There are plants and poems and paintings from the children around his grave, along with a small toy tractor.

  Unpredictably and still inexplicably, Scott Guy became known to all New Zealanders. His face, often staring out from beneath the white cowboy hat, had become familiar, flashing up endlessly on our TV screens, his name writ large across newspaper pages. Sometimes, though, the media clamour that followed the case risked drowning out the human cost of his death—the years of enjoyment he and his family were robbed of, his contribution to society that could never be realised.

  And the effect of his death and the loss suffered by so many naturally extended far beyond Kylee and the kids, and the Guy family. He had countless strong and staunch friends from Feilding, from his time at Taratahi college, from Queensland’s outback and Hawke’s Bay. Farm workers like Matthew Ireland who thought the world of Scott and ‘just wanted to be exactly like him’.

  And then you take a step further and consider Ewen Macdonald. While few would have any understanding for him and what he did to so many others, you must have sympathy for his victims. There were huge financial losses to many, such as Brittons House Movers in Bulls, who had to suffer a shortfall of $190,000 after their insurers only paid part of the cost of their trailers destroyed in the arson and thus weren’t able to replace their equipment.

  The effects weren’t just monetary, either. Craig Hocken still feels extraordinary discomfort that someone could have come onto his property at night and shot two deer just beside his house. The Sextons had more than a century of history and family memories bound up in their duck-shooting whare, which was a gently smoking ruin by the time they discovered it. Kylee Guy will never feel completely safe, the shiver of vulnerability never far away.

  And consider the conflicting emotions of so many whose trust in Macdonald was destroyed when his crimes became apparent—from the Guys, who’d taken Macdonald so deeply into their family, to farmhands BJ Worthington, who said he looked up to Macdonald as a father figure, and Jackson Gilbert, who described him as the best boss he’d ever had.

  And it’s this enormously varied and widely spread loss that is the ultimate legacy of this story. While some have learnt much about themselves and perhaps become wiser, nobody has emerged with a life that’s better, fuller or happier, and most would be much more cynical.

  Though many wouldn’t care, it must be remembered that among those who’ve lost most is Ewen Macdonald himself. He is due for his next parole hearing at the end of 2013. Whether he is released and, if so, under what restrictions, remains to be seen. It’s unlikely he will be allowed to return to Manawatu, but whatever happens, his life will never be private and possibly never peaceful. No matter that the jury acquitted him of Scott Guy’s murder, his punishment for the crimes he did commit will continue well after his release, his life forever framed by the accusation he was a murderer.

  Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel any animosity towards the police who pursued him and caricatured him as a killer. ‘No, because if I hadn’t done all that other stupid stuff then it wouldn’t have pointed the finger at me. That’s why I denied it at the start, because I knew it would point the finger at me. If the verdict had gone the other way, I probably would be upset, but I’m just grateful we were able to prove my innocence.’

  At his sentencing and his first parole hearing, Macdonald’s remorse was called into question. And some of this perception may have arisen because of his insistence on looking ahead rather than dwelling on the past. ‘I know I’ve done wrong and been sentenced, and I’m paying that debt back and looking to the future. That’s just how we are, the Macdonalds. And it was a huge milestone to get over, going through a murder trial.’

  For getting through that, Macdonald is forever grateful to his legal team, led by Greg King. During the trial, when his head and spirits were down, King would shadowbox around Macdonald in the court cells until he grinned and perked up. ‘He was always just so positive. He never once thought it was going to go bad. Throughout the trial and leading up to it he was like a rock, solid as.’

  It’s undeniable that with a lesser lawyer, a vainglorious peacock in robes who didn’t do the hard work, didn’t share the load with able colleagues and didn’t see past the prejudice that bore down on Macdonald, the jury may have reached a different decision. Macdonald knows that, knows he owes his future freedom to King, knows what King gave him was priceless. ‘He believed in me and fought for me and gave me another opportunity at life. He had the passion.’

  One day he’d like to heal the wounds with the Guy family, perhaps make his peace with Bryan, who was a mentor to him for so long. ‘I’d hope that we could talk and shake hands and they might have forgiven me. I hope that it can be civilised and work out.’

  Macdonald says he’d also be prepared to meet Kylee. ‘But I can’t see that ever happening—I’d be the last person she’d probably want to see. But I guess time can heal. And ultimately they need to find the person or persons responsible—that would flip things.

  ‘I still feel guilty for everything, betraying people’s trust, for the kids not having a father, for what it’s cost my parents—the whole thing. I feel guilty about that and if I could turn back the clocks I would but I can’t do anything about it. It’s done. And it’s not healthy for me to dwell on that. So that’s why I just look to the future and on to the new chapter now.’

  What that new chapter is, remains uncertain. He can see himself perhaps returning to farming one day because he loves the outdoors, but not the intensive work he did on Byreburn. He’d love to think he could re-establish his relationship with his children and they’d come and stay with him, despite them now living in Auckland. Deep down he’d love things to work out with Anna but is realistic enough to know that’s not likely, divorce proceedings having been started. He doesn’t imagine he’ll make a home in Manawatu: ‘I need to go off and start a new life.’

  The whole experience has taught him not to be judgemental, reminded him who his real friends are, and made him realise material things don’t matter much. ‘I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. There’s a lot more to life than worrying about little things. You’ve got to be grateful for what you’ve got.’

  He’s adamant he will never reoffend, lessons having been learnt and all that. And he knows that every move he makes and step he takes will be watched by the authorities and the public. He’d love to fit back into society and be unknown to most, but it would be naive to imagine that will happen.

  ‘I can’t see into the future. You just cross that bridge when you come to it.’

  That stigma that will dog Macdonald when he leaves prison will equally extend to his parents, Kerry and Marlene. For more than two years their lives have been focused on their son’s plight, all plans put aside. They have had great support from many around them—including strangers who wrote or sent cards telling them things would get better, eventually.

  ‘I want to believe that,’ says Marlene, ‘but I don’t think it will ever go away. And I think that Kerry and I will always be judged for what Ewen did and people will always talk behind our backs. But I can’t be bitter and twisted about that. What he’s done he’s done. He’s paying his time and he can’t change what he’s done. And nor can Kerry and I. And we’ve got to get on with our lives, because if you live in the past you’re going to make yourself sick. So you’ve got to move forward—and we’re rebuilding our lives.’

  That said, occasionally she looks at photos of Ewen before his arrest and can’t
help but remember the good times. ‘And I just want to cry because I look at the life he had and what he’s thrown away. Because he just loved it.’ The whole process has made her less trusting of police and the authorities and, emotionally, it’s made her tougher. ‘I’ve forgotten how to cry. It just doesn’t happen anymore.’

  The Macdonalds realise there will be many people, probably the majority of New Zealanders, who will always think their son was guilty. People seek certainty and finality. And if they can’t achieve that through conviction of the guilty party, they naturally grasp at any theory they feel comfortable with, that they can live with, that satisfies their intuition or suspicion. More often than not, because of what else he did, and because people choose not to examine the evidence, Ewen Macdonald becomes the most likely culprit in their minds. Thankfully, though, the New Zealand justice system isn’t based on convicting those the public consider ‘most likely’.

  Kerry Macdonald says there will no doubt be some anger in the community when Ewen eventually returns, and people will choose whether to interact with him or not. ‘I would happily walk down the main street of Feilding with Ewen tomorrow, knowing that if I saw 100 people, 90 of them would be supportive of me. I really don’t know what their reaction to Ewen will be but I think that most of them would say, “Gidday and good luck for the future.” But I might be totally wrong.’

  He hopes people would gradually get used to seeing Ewen around, forget the past and see the person in front of them participating in and contributing to the community. ‘What sort of role he could have in the future is what he makes.’

  ‘I’m like Kerry,’ adds Marlene. ‘I’d be happy to walk down the main street with my son. And I would hope that people would be a bit compassionate. If the shoe was on the other foot and this was another mother in my situation, I’d hope I’d be forgiving towards their son or daughter. Who am I to judge?