Rekiah's Law

Rekiah's Law

Table of contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Foreword by Leigh Hay

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1: 11th October 2013

CHAPTER 2: The Good Life

CHAPTER 3: A Mother’s Despair

CHAPTER 4: Divorce

CHAPTER 5: A New Life

CHAPTER 6: Rekiah and Nelson

CHAPTER 7: Life after India

CHAPTER 8: The Lead up to October 11th

CHAPTER 9: The Funeral

CHAPTER 10: Time to Contemplate

CHAPTER 11: Journey of Grief

CHAPTER 12: The Committal Hearings

CHAPTER 13: Milestones 2014

CHAPTER 14: Pre-Trial Journaling

CHAPTER 15: The Trial

CHAPTER 16: Thoughts about the Trial

CHAPTER 17: Rekiah’s Law

CHAPTER 18: Forgiveness

CHAPTER 19: The Sentencing

CHAPTER 20: The Media

CHAPTER 21: Domestic Violence

CHAPTER 22: Reminders

CHAPTER 23: Reflections and Lessons

CHAPTER 24: The Future

Kerryn’s Eulogy

Stacey’s Tribute to Rekiah

Bethany’s Tribute to Rekiah

Kerryn’s Victim Impact Statement

Posts from Rekiah’s Facebook Page

Kiah’s Rose

Resources

About the Author

Photo Section

Cover

Title Page

REKIAH’S LAW

A MOTHER’S STORY OF FORGIVENESS AND

HOPE AFTER HER DAUGHTER’S MURDER

KERRYN ROBERTSON

Copyright Page

Ark House Press

PO Box 1722, Port Orchard, WA 98366 USA

PO Box 1321, Mona Vale NSW 1660 Australia

PO Box 318 334, West Harbour, Auckland 0661 New Zealand

arkhousepress.com

© 2017 Kerryn Robertson

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.

Cataloguing in Publication Data:

Title: Rekiah’s Law

ISBN: 978-0-6481734-1-0 (pbk.)

Subjects: Biography; Domestic Violence;

Other Authors/Contributors: Robertson, Kerryn

Cover illustration: Stacey Wilson

Design by initiateagency.com

Contents

CONTENTS

Foreword by Leigh Hay

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1:   11th October 2013

CHAPTER 2:   The Good Life

CHAPTER 3:   A Mother’s Despair

CHAPTER 4:   Divorce

CHAPTER 5:   A New Life

CHAPTER 6:   Rekiah and Nelson

CHAPTER 7:   Life after India

CHAPTER 8:   The Lead up to October 11th

CHAPTER 9:   The Funeral

CHAPTER 10:   Time to Contemplate

CHAPTER 11:   Journey of Grief

CHAPTER 12:   The Committal Hearings

CHAPTER 13:   Milestones 2014

CHAPTER 14:   Pre-Trial Journaling

CHAPTER 15:   The Trial

CHAPTER 16:   Thoughts about the Trial

CHAPTER 17:   Rekiah’s Law

CHAPTER 18:   Forgiveness

CHAPTER 19:   The Sentencing

CHAPTER 20:   The Media

CHAPTER 21:   Domestic Violence

CHAPTER 22:   Reminders

CHAPTER 23:   Reflections and Lessons

CHAPTER 24:   The Future

Kerryn’s Eulogy

Stacey’s Tribute to Rekiah

Bethany’s Tribute to Rekiah

Kerryn’s Victim Impact Statement

Posts from Rekiah’s Facebook Page

Kiah’s Rose

Resources

About the Author

Foreword by Leigh Hay

Foreword by Leigh Hay

On 11th October, 2013, Rekiah Lee O’Donnell lost her life. She was 22 years of age. The jury believed the man responsible for Rekiah’s death guilty of manslaughter. Rekiah’s family believed him guilty of murder. And so at the end of an eighteen month wait for the case to go to court, and subsequent four week trial, a young woman was dead, a man sentenced and a family shattered.

The story could have ended there. It could have been filed away in the transcripts of a judicial trial and the memories of a grieving family. But the mother of Rekiah O’Donnell wasn’t prepared to let the death of her daughter fade from public consciousness. Not because she wanted to harbour understandable resentment and fuel justifiable rage, but because she wanted to forgive and move on, and through the writing of Rekiah’s Law and her family’s positive action, to eventually come to terms with the loss of a much loved daughter, step-daughter, sister and granddaughter.

Rekiah O’Donnell was a victim of domestic violence. Kerryn Robertson was determined that the story of her daughter’s short life would be shared to give hope to other victims and families caught up in the cycle of violence.

Kerryn tells Rekiah’s story simply and truthfully. Kerryn is not a woman prone to flowery language or dramatic effect. Her words are at times both poignant and hard hitting and this book is not always comfortable reading. But domestic violence is never comfortable. It’s brutal, manipulative, obsessive and controlling. It’s insidious and intrusive, stripping victims of independence and crushing their individuality.

But in death there is hope. There is reasoned belief in a bigger picture. A beautiful, bubbly, intelligent young woman will live on through the creation of ‘Rekiah’s Law’. This factual book of the same name will forever tell the story of a caring girl’s belief in her fellow human beings and a loyal family’s story of unconditional love.

Rekiah O’Donnell’s life was tragically cut short. But what has come from her death is the determination to raise society awareness – to speak out against domestic violence, to empower victims to have the courage to seek support, and to lobby the government for laws that will make our community safer.

Rekiah’s Law is not just a powerful read. It’s a life-affirming message, told by a mother who speaks from the heart.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the many wonderful people who have supported me over the last four years. The journey of grief would have been so much harder without you all in my life.

There are too many individual people to name, but you will know who you are. To the friends who arrived on our doorstep the day Rekiah died to show their love and support, to everyone who came to the funeral and to our church families who organised everything for the day, I thank you. I would also like to thank Bethel Funerals for ensuring that making arrangements for the funeral were as stress free as possible, and for looking after things on the day.

To the members of our church home group, thank you for being there for us from day one, for your support and for making sure we had enough food to last for months. To everyone who supported us through the court case, I say a really big thank you, particularly to those who were called to be witnesses, and those who travelled in to the court. To my friends who listened to me, cried with me and prayed with me, the time you spent with me was invaluable. And to my wider circle of Facebook friends, the support I had from hundreds of people, both new friends and old, was amazing, and really helped me get through each day. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the police investigators, prosecution team, and court staff throughout the court process.

To Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre and the various media outlets mentioned in this book, thank you for the opportunities you have given our family to have a voice. Also to Compassionate Friends and 89.9 Light FM radio station, thank you for the amazing work you do to benefit the community, and also for your support through the difficult times.

To all of Rekiah’s friends, thank you for being such loyal friends, and for helping keep Rekiah’s memory alive. She would be so proud of you all. Thank you particularly to Stacey and Bethany for your heartfelt contributions to this book.

Thank you to my extended family for all that you have done for us. To my children, Jesse and Indiana, I love you so much and am so grateful that you have come through such a dark time and can still look forward to your future. I am looking forward to the wonderful times we will have together. To my husband Struan, I could not have got through it without you. You are my rock. You loved me, held me, and helped me see light through the darkness.

Lastly, to Leigh Hay, who graciously gave her time to edit this book. Thanks Leigh, from the bottom of my heart. You not only edited the book, but gave me the encouragement and momentum to get it finished, and instilled the confidence in me that what I was writing would touch people’s lives.

CHAPTER 1: 11th October 2013

CHAPTER 1

11th October 2013

It started out just like every other Friday.

My favourite work day was Friday, because part of my schedule was to drive to a place called Strathewen to see two clients. My job as a Home Support Worker takes me to different places within the Nillumbik Shire in Melbourne, and my job involves cleaning houses and shopping for people who are elderly or disabled. Strathewen is a small town on the outskirts of Nillumbik, and one of the towns ravaged by the Black Saturday Bushfires in 2009, with many lives lost.

I drove ten minutes down the road to Plenty for my first job and all went as per normal. Because I then go back past my house on the way out to Strathewen, I called in to grab a coffee and pack some lunch. As I headed off again, I admired the beautiful countryside, as I always did when I drove this way. When I was about half way between Arthur’s Creek and Strathewen, I flicked the radio on to hear the midday news. A reporter’s voice stated, A young woman has been found shot dead in a house in Meadowbank Drive Sunshine. The street my daughter Rekiah’s ex-partner Nelson lived in! I immediately stopped the car and tried to ring Rekiah. No answer...it went straight to her message bank. I tried several times and then left a message pleading with her to ring me straight away. I consoled myself thinking that at least Meadowbank Drive was a long street, and being in Sunshine where there was a high crime rate, it could have been anyone.

I continued on to Strathewen, and after a bit of a chat with my client, went to begin my work cleaning the house. Before I started, I rang my husband Struan and told him what I had heard on the news. He said he would ring Crime Stoppers and try to find out some information. I continued on with my work until Struan rang back. He said Crime Stoppers were not able to give him any information yet, but he left his name and number with them. He then looked up the news report on the internet. Struan told me that he had found the report and a picture, but the picture taken of the police car outside the property where it happened did not look like Nelson’s place.

We left it at that, and I continued working again, but feeling sick to the stomach with worry. About half an hour later Struan rang back again, and that is when my life changed forever. He said he had looked at another video on the internet and there was a picture of the back of Nelson’s house that he recognised because it was where we had been on a previous occasion. My throat immediately went dry. I asked Struan to ring my supervisor at work and tell her I couldn’t do the next job and asked him to meet me back at home.

I don’t know how I managed, but I kept working for the next half an hour or so, going until I finished the job I was doing. My client didn’t even realise anything was wrong. I think I was still trying to convince myself that maybe the woman found was not Rekiah. As far as we knew she hadn’t been seeing Nelson for a while after his repeated abuse. I thought perhaps he had found someone else after Rekiah.

The half hour drive home from Strathewen that day was the longest I have ever known. My throat was so dry and I must have been running on auto pilot. As I was driving however, I turned my music from radio mode to CD, and the CD playing was one that I was listening to for the first time that had been sent to me on consignment, called Your Grace Finds Me, by Matt Redman. The words in the song Your Grace Finds Me, say that God is with us in times of sorrow, and when weeping by the graveside. This song played through, and then a song called I Need You Now came on, in which the chorus ends with If I ever needed you, I need you now. I just turned up the volume full bore and cried this out to God as I drove.

I know that this was the first sign that even through such a terrible tragedy, God would be with me. He put those words on the CD there for me to hear right at that time, because I needed to cry out to Him and feel His comfort, and I needed to be prepared for what was to come.

I arrived home just before Struan, and sat on a chair in the front room. I was in shock. Struan came home and sat opposite. We spoke a little and waited mostly in silence until the call came to Struan from a policeman. They were coming over to see us. It was at that point we knew for certain that Rekiah was gone, that Nelson had finally carried out his violence on Rekiah to the point of killing her. Then began the process of moving from denial into the journey that grief would take.

As we waited for the police to arrive, we went into organisational mode......how were we going to let everyone know? My son Jesse was over the other side of the city at his school teaching placement, and my youngest daughter Indiana was at school. I didn’t want to let any of the family know over the phone, however distance wise it was going to be impossible to physically drive to see everyone, nor did I have the emotional energy to do so.

We decided to wait until Indiana came home from school to tell her, although even this proved difficult, as she had planned to catch the bus straight to her boyfriend Drake’s house, so I had to send her a message telling her to come straight home, which she argued about. I then tried to ring Jesse to get him to drive over to our house, however when I rang his phone, another male voice answered, who said he was Jesse’s neighbour and that Jesse was too distressed to come to the phone. I told him it was Jesse’s mother and realised then, that he already knew. I didn’t count on the fact that the police had already contacted his biological father Craig, who had already rung poor Jesse while he was in the middle of helping run a class! Jesse got on the phone, and was so upset I could hardly understand him, but said he would come over as soon as he could.

We decided that the best way to tell my parents was to ring my brother Matthew and get him to tell them. My Dad was at work with Matthew, so I told him to drive Dad home so they could tell Mum together. We then tried to think of everyone else who should know. The message was passed around to people at our current and previous churches, and to all the family and friends we could think of.

And then Indiana came home. And that was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. How do you tell your 15yo daughter that her sister has just been murdered? It breaks my heart when I think back to her reaction..........one of complete shock, despair and loud sobbing. We just hugged each other for a long time.

Two policemen came, and wanted to verbally identify Rekiah, which they did by describing her looks and her tattoos. Again, this was another stage of knocking back that nagging denial that was still there. Nobody else