Beaten and Broken

Beaten and Broken:

A Story of Survival

Rhonda Norbury

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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Beaten and Broken: A Story of Survival

Copyright © 2012 Rhonda Norbury

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 978-1-742842-99-8 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

Novel

Non-Fiction

Rhonda Norbury

96 Marti Street

Bayview Heights

CAIRNS QLD 4870

AUSTRALIA

Phone 0419 719 031

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Beaten and Broken:

A Story of Survival

By

Rhonda Norbury

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To my remarkable children,

Jarl John Norbury and Cleis Barrett Norbury,

Thank you for choosing me as your mother.

Just like Cat Steven’s song, Cats in the Cradle,

As I penned this story it occurred to me,

My children were just like me,

They’d grown up just like me.

As I reflected on this incredible journey,

Oh ... what a phenomenal ride!

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Keep on smiling and enjoying life.

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Contents

Foreword by Patricia (Trish) Schneider

Prologue by Rhonda Norbury

Introduction

Chapter One: Life-Changing Events

Chapter Two: Townsville General Hospital

Chapter Three: Media Frenzy

Chapter Four: Head Injury Rehabilitation Unit

Chapter Five: Brave Cleis Back in Cairns

Chapter Six: Finally Going Home

Chapter Seven: House Extensions

Chapter Eight: Introducing Moira

Chapter Nine: Post-Traumatic Depression

Chapter Ten: Welcome, Bridget Smith

Chapter Eleven: Greetings, Soheyla

Chapter Twelve: Hello, Rebecca Lane

Chapter Thirteen: Two Years On

Chapter Fourteen: Life without Carers

Chapter Fifteen: A New Millennium

Chapter Sixteen: Five Years On

Chapter Seventeen: Ten Years On

Chapter Eighteen: Fifteen Years On

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

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BEATEN AND BROKEN: A STORY OF SURVIVAL

FOREWORD

By Trish Schneider

When my dear friend, Rhonda Norbury, asked me to write the foreword for her novel, I was both humbled and thrilled. It is my pleasure to be a part of this important project and to support Rhonda’s quest to tell her amazing true story.

I first met Rhonda in 1990, when a career move took me to work at Cairns Base Hospital in tropical Far North Queensland, as the Co-ordinator of Midwifery Education. Rhonda was also employed as a midwife at the hospital. The hospital grapevine quickly alerted her to the fact that I had an academic background, and she sought me out to ask for support and direction about tertiary study for herself.

This is the way nursing is going, I remember her telling me, ...and I do not want to be left behind!

I quickly got the impression that Rhonda would never be left behind! She was bright, enthusiastic and determined. I was more than happy to devote the extra time it would take to support her.

Over time, we became firm friends and I met her lovely children, Jarl and Cleis. I came to know her as a strong, intelligent and resourceful woman, who was passionate about her children and her chosen career...midwifery. She worked hard to singularly support her family, and as we grew closer, I came to realise that this was a woman capable of great love—a woman who was a survivor, a woman who had the capacity to achieve whatever she set her mind to.

Rhonda had been beaten and broken many times before I met her, but had always picked herself up and moved on. She had been tested, and passed, sometimes by the skin of her teeth, but always with enthusiasm and great pride. Rhonda’s special friends are God’s army of angels, to which she is deeply devoted. Her angels pepper the story with unconditional love and support—and just sometimes a touch of humour.

Rhonda’s book is the true story of her family’s survival when confronted with incredible trauma. October 1996 saw Rhonda tested in a way she never imagined. Her beautiful 18-year-old daughter, Cleis, was brutally bashed and left bleeding to death in a city alleyway, after becoming separated from her brother, Jarl, and his friends during a night out in Cairns. It was the night the beautiful tropical tourist town lost its innocence. Such a senseless and shameful crime stunned the community and shocked the seasoned police officers who attended the scene of the assault.

I was with Rhonda when she received the call from Jarl about the unidentified woman who was now the victim of a brutal assault. He had good reason to believe that the woman might be Cleis. I listened carefully as she talked to the emergency department doctor at the hospital and described the unicorn tattoo Cleis had on her right shoulder. I drove Rhonda to the Cairns police station, and stood tearfully by as she identified Cleis’ bloody clothing and jewellery. I held her hand as she calmly answered the many questions levelled at her by the detectives and hugged her as she digested the dreadful news that Cleis would probably die.

I then accompanied her home to pack for the trip to Townsville. Cleis, as is the case with all head injury patients, had been flown to the regional centre for specialist treatment. Beautiful Cleis had been pummelled to the brink of death by an unknown assailant. She hovered between life and death and eventually lapsed into a coma, from which she would not awaken for many months. Cleis had the very best of medical and nursing care, but it was the unwavering devotion of her loving mother that bought her back to life to face a lengthy period of rehabilitation as she strode headlong towards independent living.

Beaten and Broken is the remarkable story of survival of both Rhonda and Cleis. Rhonda diligently documented the journey they took together in her voluminous journals and has drawn on these to write a novel packed with detail, hope, and sometimes, despair. Her attention to detail is remarkable and gives the book a sense of authenticity and pathos. But shining through the pages of this work is the special relationship between mother and daughter and is living proof that love can and does triumph in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

The reader is gently, but sometimes brutally, guided through Cleis’s progress from a fun-loving teenager to a serious assault victim, to her confrontation with death, her awakening, rehabilitation and eventual happy, fulfilled life, in spite of an acquired brain injury. And by her side throughout is Rhonda...the devoted mother who always believed that her daughter would recover and reach her full potential as a woman, complete in every way.

But her mother’s love was not the only gift Rhonda’s angels gave Cleis as she travelled the hard road. With characteristic humility, Rhonda describes and acknowledges the support the family received from the Cairns Community, the police, their friends and extended family and her professional colleagues. There is a very old saying: It takes a whole village to raise a child –and in many respects, the beaten and broken Cleis needed that village in order to be raised from death to life and happiness.

Beaten and Broken: A Story of Survival is the remarkable story of the courage of two women as they embark upon an amazing journey. It will amaze and challenge readers to explore their own twists and turns of life and will undoubtedly for many raise the question How would I cope if this happened to my daughter?

It is the challenge faced by all parents, but doubly so by single parents like Rhonda. How do we keep our children safe, ensure their happiness, support them to reach their full potential and live productive fulfilling lives? We all want these seemingly simple goals for our children, and Rhonda Norbury is no different.

The story of how she makes this happen for her daughter in the face of seemingly impossible odds makes for compelling reading.

Cleis Barrett Norbury’s assailant remains at large, in spite of intensive publicity and police investigations. Perhaps this heartfelt account of the struggle the Norburys faced and conquered will rekindle a memory that just might lead to an arrest, and restore the innocence the beautiful city of Cairns had before Cleis was so brutally beaten and broken.

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Prologue

October 1996. After a tumultuous number of years consisting of the breakdown of her parents’ marriage, the tragic death of a much-loved boyfriend, high school trials and tribulations, and the ubiquitous search for gainful employment, life is set fair for 18-year-old Cleis Norbury. She has a steady job which she loves, fun-loving circle of friends and the unconditional love and support of her devoted mother, Rhonda, and big brother, Jarl. She has recently purchased her own car—her pride and joy—a purple Suzuki Swift, and no-one else is permitted to drive Cleis’s car.

Cleis is an attractive, sensitive, loving and loved young woman, who has already survived her family’s beatings and breakages. She and her family are survivors. After years of turmoil following matrimonial breakdown, financial uncertainty and emotional upheaval, Rhonda has a secure job as a midwife at Cairns Base Hospital and is happily treading softly around the excitement of a new relationship with Steve, her new partner. Jarl has graduated from university (in spite of his teachers’ predictions that he wouldn’t amount to much) and is working three jobs to support his quest to own his own home and raise a family. Cleis also dreams of falling in love again and having babies.

She knows her mother, as a skilled midwife, has all the skills to support her to do this.

But that is all in the future, and this future looks bright and full of promise. But the Norburys is no ordinary family. They have learned the hard way and often via bitter disappointment, that life is a precious gift and that this precious gift needs to be nurtured lovingly, like a delicate orchid struggling to burst into flower in the tropical heat.

They have suffered at the hands of an abusive father, moved, moved and moved again and finally settled peacefully in the house that Rhonda purchased at 96 Marti Street, Bayview Heights, Cairns, in Far North Queensland. Home. Safety. Happiness.

It is a busy household. Everyone rises early to go to work and the weekends are spent pulling together to do the household chores. But Rhonda and Steve are acutely aware of the socialising needs of young people and actively encourage their children and their friends to hit the town and have fun. There are plenty of opportunities to do this. Cairns is a tourist town and the night life is abundant. Jarl and Cleis know all the popular night spots. Rhonda, the vigilant, caring, mother, always offers to drive her children to town and collect them after their night out but Jarl, the responsible older brother, always lets her off the hook. He assures her that they have a non-drinking driver who holds all the car keys and spare cash.

They are mature, responsible young people and they just want to enjoy some of the fabulous night spots the city has to offer. It is, in terms of young adulthood, a responsible, fool-proof plan.

The best laid plans often lead to tragedy, tears and turmoil. This happened to the Norbury family on 6th October 1996. After leaving the city nightclub, beautiful Cleis was callously bashed by an unknown assailant and left for dead in a city alleyway. Her injuries were life-threatening and her family were tactfully prepared for her death. It seemed inevitable.

But Rhonda, her devoted mother, who had been so beaten and broken herself over the years, never wavered in her devotion to her lovely, beaten and broken daughter. She willed Cleis to recover. This book is litany of that will.

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Introduction

Beaten and Broken: A Story of Survival is a true narrative about Cleis Norbury, who, at eighteen years of age, was brutally beaten to a pulp by a merciless attacker and left to die face down in her own pool of blood. October 5th 1996 took the innocence out of Cairns, Queensland, Australia, leaving shock waves of fear and hysteria running through the veins of the city dwellers.

Security cameras identified that Cleis left a city nightclub alone at 2am. She was found by a passer-by in an alleyway a few kilometres from the city around 3am. What happened to Cleis remains a mystery. She sustained severe head injuries and permanent brain damage as a result of intense blows to the head. Cairns police detectives described it as a violent and brutal attack and equated the injuries inflicted in the incident to the worst car accident they had ever seen.

The Cairns police detectives thought that intense newspaper, radio and TV coverage, including Australia’s Most Wanted, Today Tonight and A Current Affair would provide them with appropriate information that would lead to an arrest. However, this was not to be, and so initially a $50,000 and now a $250,000 reward is offered.

Two new Cairns detectives have recently been assigned to solve the cold case.

A terrified young woman had no knowledge of the ordeal she had endured. The media went into a frenzy while Cleis slept, clinging to life and oblivious to the fact that a pitiless mongrel had all intentions of taking her beautiful, innocent soul.

The popular tourist haven of Cairns was outraged that such an incident happened at a time when Qantas was bringing more direct overseas flights into Cairns, and while preparing for the arrival of USA President Clinton, Cairns seemed to be in the grip of a new crime spree. Thugs, perverts rule city of fear splashed across newspapers, TV and radio.

This story also encompasses how Cleis’s single mother, Rhonda, and only sibling, Jarl, survive the consequential, life-changing chaos that transpires as a result of a senseless crime.

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CHAPTER ONE

Life-Changing Events

Most young girls would dare to dream the dream about their hopes and aspirations for their future. Most would have fantasised and perhaps acted out in child play, dressed in their mother’s high-heeled stiletto shoes and full circular skirts. Just whom will they marry? Will they choose the Crown Prince of Jordan or will it be the King of Spain? How many children will they have and what will be their names? Therefore, it is logical that some young women have a strong connection to their child long before pregnancy.